PRISONERS

HC Deb 25 January 1951 vol 483 cc275-6

2. Mr. Dodds

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give an estimate of the cost of increasing the rate of remuneration for prisoners by an amount sufficient to enable them to maintain their contributions under the National Insurance Act.

Mr. Ede

The estimated cost of maintaining prisoners' contributions at rates appropriate to non-employed persons is approximately £210,000 a year. If the arrangements were extended to include inmates of Borstal institutions an additional £40,000 a year would be incurred.

Mr. Dodds

Does not my right hon. Friend think that there are some highly desirable reasons why this should be done? Is there any hope that it may?

Mr. Ede

This is really a matter for the Minister of National Insurance, and I think my hon. Friend should address to her questions on the point he has now raised.

8. Mr. Keeling

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has now made a decision on the question of allowing prisoners to remove their notebooks on release.

Mr. Ede

Yes, Sir. I have decided that prisoners may now, under certain conditions, take general notebooks out of prison on discharge.

Mr. Keeling

is the Secretary of State satisfied that if another "Pilgrim's Progress" is written in gaol it will not be destroyed?

Mr. Ede

I think it would have been rather a large notebook that would have contained "Pilgrim's Progress." I certainly hope that great works of literature which may be composed in prison will not be lost to mankind.

Mr. Nally

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that, not only "Pilgrim's Progress" was written in prison but the greater part of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was also written in prison?

Mr. Erroll

Will these notebooks be "vetted" by the prison staff before they are allowed out?

Mr. Ede

There are certain conditions attaching to this provision which, as they are quite short, I might perhaps circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following are the conditions:

The conditions subject to which a prisoner may take a general notebook out of prison are that he has written nothing in it about his own life, the lives of other prisoners or ex-prisoners, his own offences or sentences or those of other prisoners or ex-prisoners, prison conditions, or methods of committing crime.