HC Deb 15 November 1945 vol 415 cc2311-3
26. Mr. Lang

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what educational facilities are made available to Borstal boys recently transferred to Dart moor.

Mr. Ede

Arrangements have been made for 14 classes, covering a wide field, to be taken by members of the staff. The Educational Advisor to the prison has also been asked to help in arranging for the attendance of some professional teachers, and an approach has been made to the National Adult Schools Committee and the British Institute of Technology with a view to providing correspondence courses.

Mr. Lang

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the detestable environment in which these boys are now and give them additional facilities so that they may overcome the environment and, if possible, the stigma?

Mr. Ede

I do not accept any of the implications contained in the supplementary question.

Mr. Sidney Shephard

Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the suggestion that the name of the prison should be changed, in view of the fact that it is now to be a Borstal establishment?

Mr. Ede

I have considered that, and I am consulting the Prison Commissioners and others about it. I am not yet in a position to announce a decision.

Earl Winterton

Is the right hon. Gentleman now satisfied that the conditions in the educational sense are such that it is possible to obtain the extra staff required for this prison?

Mr. Ede

I am not quite sure what is meant by educational sense, but the announcement I have made this afternoon is one that will be carried out, and it is, I think, adequate to the present requirements of the institution.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many gentlemen engaged in education in that neighbourhood have for years gone to great trouble in helping in the education there, and deserve the thanks of the Home Office?

Mr. Ede

I am well aware of that, and I hope that now we are sending them a younger and possibly more impressionable type of person to teach, their efforts will be increased.

27. Mr. Lang

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many lads are now in prisons awaiting transfer to Borstal institutions, and the average time of such waiting.

Mr. Ede

On 12th November there were 540 youths in local prisons awaiting removal to the allocation centre at Wormwood Scrubs, where they are examined and allocated to the particular Borstal institution which seems most appropriate to the particular case, and 270 youths at the allocation centre. The average period for which youths have been detained in local prisons during recent months before allocation is 16 weeks, and they spend on an average about seven weeks in the allocation centre.

Mr. Lang

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is often an additional period in which these people are detained before trial and sentence, and will he consider whether some system of boarding out on farms, or something of that sort, could be carried out?

Mr. Ede

I am examining all possible means of reducing these periods.

Mr. Silverman

Can my right hon. Friend say whether there is really any good reason why, during these waiting periods, the boys should not be sent home?

Mr. Ede

Yes, Sir. In certain cases, I regret to say, the home has not been very helpful to the lad or he would not have been in the position in which he is. I desire to get the lads into the Borstal institution as quickly as I possibly can.

Major Bruce

Will my right hon. Friend consider releasing on licence some of those who are already in the institution and have shown themselves capable of living at home under supervision?

Mr. Ede

Any of these youths can qualify for such a remission by good conduct and response to the treatment of the institution, but in the early days of the war, when a number of these youths were released on licence earlier than in the judgment of the institution they would normally have been, the fact was severely commented upon by some of His Majesty's judges and chairmen of Quarter Sessions. Wherever a lad shows that he has reached a position in which he can return to the life of a normal citizen, opportunities of doing so are afforded him.

Sir Robert Young

Is the Minister aware that a lack of conveyances in rural areas may account for the number of lads being retained in prison instead of being transferred to Borstal institutions?

Mr. Ede

No, it is a far more serious question than one of a lack of conveyances.