32. Mr. Creech Jonesasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the great hardship suffered by North Country convicts and their relatives by reason of the fact that all the convict prisons are in the South of England and that the cost of visiting is therefore prohibitive to the majority, he will consider the possibility of making official provision for the payment of travelling expenses to enable the relatives of convicts to pay a yearly visit to their relatives in prison; and will he, in planning future development of prison camps and colonies, bear in mind the desirability of providing a centre for convicts in the North of England?
§ Sir S. HoareThe policy as regards prisoners serving long sentences is to use different establishments for different types of prisoners instead of placing in the same establishment habitual offenders and men who have not criminal records. In pursuance of this policy some convicts serve their sentences at Wakefield Prison; but this policy of classification necessarily involves detaining certain prisoners in establishments at a long distance from their homes, and I recognise that hardship sometimes results in the matter of visits. As a result of a gift from a private source, 3290 a limited fund is available to assist relatives to visit men who are serving life sentences in Maidstone Prison, but there is no fund available for other cases. Whether it would be right to make some provision from public funds to assist relatives to visit in special cases is a difficult question to which I propose to give consideration.
§ Mr. GallacherWill not the Minister consider using this limited fund so that the well-behaved prisoners can visit their relatives instead of their relatives visiting them?