Manyani Detention Camp

HC Deb 31 May 1960 vol 624 cc1165-6

28. Mr. Stonehouse

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what scale of diets is allowed at the Manyani Special Detention Camp; and whether detainees can apply for transfer to another scale.

Mr. Iain Macleod

The new diet scales for detainees which were introduced on 19th January are set out in the Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 5 of 1960, copies of which are in the Library of the House. The diets are based on maize meal but detainees may apply for issues of rice, wheat and millet flour instead. Detainees are assigned to diet scales according to whether they are doing heavy work, ordinary work or no work at all.

Mr. Stonehouse

Would the Colonial Secretary not agree that, in view of the fact that most of these detainees have been imprisoned without trial for six or seven years, that they are kept in prison although the state of emergency has been brought to an end, and that they are not allowed to initiate appeals for their release, it is a matter of great importance that they should be subject to good treatment? Has he assured himself that that is the case and that, on the question of diets, the applications for transfer to the higher scales have been genuinely considered?

Mr. Macleod

Detainees are much better off and on higher scales than the prisoners. A memo was sent to me on 11th January from people in this camp and the scales were raised to these new scales on 19th January. On the question of transfer, I am informed that, although it is possible to transfer, in fact few applications have been made to do so.

Mr. S. Silverman

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House of any precedents, at any time in the whole history of the British Commonwealth of Nations or any part of it, where any Government of any party in the British Commonwealth of Nations have claimed and exercised the right to keep in prison for years people against whom no charge has been made, who have never been tried and who have never been convicted at a time when there is no state of emergency in the territory?

Mr. Macleod

There has never been anything comparable to the evil of Mau Mau.