§ 37. Mr. N. Pannellasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of the increase in the number of assaults on prison warders since 1957,he will reconsider his recent policy of disallowing the great majority of awards of corporal punishment for such offences.
§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler)I interpret the duty laid upon me according to my reply to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) on 10th December, 1959.
§ Mr. PannellWill my right hon. Friend take account of the fact that in 1958,during which all recommendations for corporal punishment were rejected by him, the total number of attacks on warders was 152 and that in the following year it rose to 213? Is not this a clear indication that corporal punishment is a deterrent in the case of such offences?
§ Mr. ButlerI think that in certain circumstances when there are attacks on warders corporal punishment is a deterrent. In other circumstances I do not think it is. In answer to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) —
§ Mr. Emrys HughesOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This matter does not belong to South Ayrshire. It belongs to Ayr.
§ Mr. SpeakerCorporal punishment appears to be the same in both places. Mr. Grey.
§ Later—
§ Mr. PannellOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was in the course of replying to my supplementary question to Question No. 37, when you called the following Question. Will you please give my right hon. Friend an opportunity to complete his answer to me?
§ Mr. SpeakerIf that be so, I beg the pardon of the hon. Member and that of the Home Secretary. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman had finished his answer. I am afraid that we must now go on.
§ Later—
§ Mr. SpeakerI hope that the House will allow me to behave irregularly in order to cure an injustice I unwittingly perpetrated. I wonder whether the Home Secretary would be good enough to assist me by answering the supplementary question of the hon. Member for Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell) on Question No. 37, which I frustrated when there was some competition between areas in Scotland.
§ Mr. ButlerI did answer the supplementary question, but in the range of supplementaries that might have followed there was a certain curtailment. I think that the difficulty arose because the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) did not fully realise that I was referring to an Answer I gave him on 10th December, 1959. It so happens that in one way or another Ayrshire always gets taken up on this question of corporal punishment. In that Answer I detailed the type of offences, prevailing conditions in the prisons and other considerations which led me to make up my mind. I say to my hon. Friend now, and I am glad to have the opportunity of saying it to him, that I will certainly consider all these cases on their merits, taking into account the four considerations in my Answer of 10th December.
§ Sir T. MooreAs my name has been dragged into this, Mr. Speaker—
§ Mr. SpeakerI did not hear the hon. Baronet's name being dragged in.