§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. O'Malley.]
§ 1.55 a.m.
§ Sir Arthur Vere Harvey (Macclesfield)I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for keeping you out of your bed at this late hour and to the hon. Lady the Minister of State to the Home Office, who probably has a very busy day tomorrow. I remember that, a year ago, during an Adjournment debate on this subject, she was very helpful, and I hope that she will be on this occasion.
The subject which I want to raise is the proposed penal settlement at Nether Alderley in my constituency. The first I heard of this was on 12th August this year, I wrote to the hon. Lady when I got back from my holiday at the end of August and asked why we were not told about it before the House broke up at the end of July. It is obvious, from what has happened since, that negotiations must have taken place with the War Office: there must have been discussions about the use of this land. But we were told at the beginning of August, the week after the Parliamentary Recess began.
This is an old tactic of Governments: my party has been guilty of it. They send hon. Members off for three months, hoping that they will be "over the hump" before they come back and the decisions will have been forgotten. So I excuse the hon. Lady in this matter. She said in her letter that they were in the process of consulting the Cheshire County Council and the Macclesfield Rural District Council about building this penal establishment, which would provide secure accommodation for 300 inmates and open accommodation for 400. I am told that the staff—with their families—required to take care of that number of prisoners totals about 1,200 to 1,500.
This site was formerly a War Department site which was used during the requisition in 1940 to store ammunition and raw materials like copper. Nobody wants a prison anywhere in the country, but such prisons are established. On the west coast, they are sited on islands and——
§ Sir A. V. HarveyThe hon. Lady says, "Hear, hear." I recognise and admit that there are many reasons why prisoners have to be suitably sited—if the staff are to be attracted to work there, there must be amenities, and relatives have to be able to visit the prisoners. All these factors have to be taken into account, but why take 217 acres of the best dairy agricultural land in Cheshire? I blame the hon. Lady's predecessors, the Conservative Ministers, who, to quote the popular phrase, "in 13 years" did not return this land to agricultural use. They should have done, and I regret all the more the fact that it is not being done now.
The plan to turn this immense site into a penal settlement does not fit in with the National Plan for more food production. Farmers are being pressed to increase their production by 1970, but this proposal has not been considered in that light. Three farmers work this site, with one farm of 100 acres and two of 30 acres. Mr. Beeby of Corbishley Farm tried to purchase the land in 1962, but was unsuccessful. I am informed that, in 1941, when the land was taken over—the previous owners had disappeared or died—an assurance was given that, when the site was given up, it would be offered back to the farmers or to their legal heirs and successors in title. When Purchase Tax was introduced I remember Mr. Attlee, as he then was, making a speech during the war, in which he said that this was only a temporary tax and would be taken off later—but it is still with us.
Mr. Beeby, who previously farmed at Marple—a small farmer and a hardworking chap with two sons growing up to help him—is to have his land taken over by compulsory purchase order in order that a new school should be built. He is having a pretty rough time. He has 10 or 15 acres outside the perimeter of the city. He will be ruined and the two other farmers will also be in great difficulty. What do the Ministers concerned with agriculture say? They have been remarkably coy about it in all the copies of correspondence I have seen.
There is a secondary site of 30 acres of lovely woodland, which I imagine would have to be cut down for security 1850 reasons. I put a Question to the hon. Lady on 4th November referring to this land as being in the green belt area. She was quite correct in saying that it is not really in the green belt area in the eyes of the Ministry, but it is as far as the county council is concerned. That is not the fault of the local authority, because in 1961 a plan was submitted to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government by the Cheshire County Council and a public inquiry was arranged for October, 1962, but shortly before the date on which the local inquiry was due to be held the then Minister—one of my colleagues—stated that he had ordered a survey to be made of land needs and land availability in the area of the Manchester conurbation and proposed to defer consideration of green belt proposals until the survey had been completed.
That is all very well, but I have here details of about 20 applications for planning permission to build small houses for owner-occupation and for letting. In 1959 there was an application for 28 acres of land, and the reply from the Ministry said that:
The Minister's Inspector observed that the appeal sites were well within the Green Belt and he did not consider that the case presented any very special circumstances such as would justify permitting development in a Green Belt area.In 1963 there was an application in respect of 12 acres of land off Sand Lane, Nether Alderley, in which case:The inspector thought that the result of any development would be prejudicial to the concept of the Green Belt. The Minister agrees with his Inspector that no sufficient case has been established for the release of this land from Green Belt restrictions. Accordingly he hereby dismissed the appeal.Then there was an application in respect of 70 acres at Yew Tree Farm, in which case the relevant letter said:The Minister agrees with his Inspector's findings and recommendation that the proposal would substantially alter the character of Nether Alderley, seriously detract from the value of the proposed Green Belt and interfere with farming interests, for which there is no justification.Then there was one more, concerning about 9 acres of land off Sand Lane, in respect of which the letter from the Ministry says:The Minister accepts the local planning authority's contention that the proposal would upset the economy of the farm concerned and 1851 might also prejudice their proposals.So it goes on year after year. People badly wanting houses have been turned down because the Ministry contended that this was Green Belt area—and it is green belt area.The Government cannot have it both ways. I contend that this district—only 16 miles south of Manchester—is making a full contribution to welfare work. There is a boys' approved school at Mobberley, with 135 boys, a women's prison at Styal, with 220 inmates, an epileptic colony at Soss Moss, with 420 inmates, the Mary Denby Homes for mental defectives, which cater for 454 people and, a little further away in Macclesfield, the Park-side Mental Hospital, with over 1,000 patients. It is not a question of giving land to stockbrokers, as has been suggested. There are a few of these people living there, as there are in the suburbs of any great city, but usually they are hard-working tenant farmers.
I understand that the Cheshire County Council submitted to the Home Office proposals for two alternative sites. It is not a question of wanting to get this proposed building outside my own constituency; there are areas between Macclesfield and Stoke—near the railway and on very indifferent land—which could be looked at. I understand that the two sites which the hon. Lady has in mind are on the border of Cheshire and Lancashire. If either of the two other alternative sites were selected, the local planning committee would agree. There is also a strong rumour of the possibility of a closed prison only on this site, or even on one of the other sites. That would contain 300 prisoners and would require 35 acres.
I would point out that school accommodation in this area is particularly short —the schools are very overcrowded. There is also the question of amenity. It is highly probable that there would be claims for reductions in rateable value assessments from those living nearby. There is also considerable over-employment in Macclesfield. We have a very successful industrial estate, with I.C.I. and other firms on it. They want 900 workers, but the percentage of unemployment is only 0.75—frankly, the unemployed consist of just a few people who are incapable of getting a job. I very much hope that the over-employment 1852 situation will continue—but where are the Green Belt people to come from for this project?
There are 13 large storehouses on the site made of reinforced concrete and in very good condition. They could be used for the mass production of food in some form or another, and really contribute something worth while. With permission, I went round the site a week ago. I saw a rather "flash" car parked there, and I was told that it belonged to an Army officer. The Army still have the shooting rights of the site. Let me assure the hon. Lady that if she will turn this land back to agriculture, the three tenants will willingly continue the shooting rights to the soldiers who are using the land for that purpose.
Mine is a good average constituency. It has two boroughs in it, and a lot of small farmers—hill farmers and those on the plain. There is nothing very fancy about it. The people are good, honest, hard-working people, but I have never seen such indignation among them in 20 years as there is over this issue, because they feel that it is ill-considered and wrong.
Has the hon. Lady visited the site? If not, she should do so. It is not a question of a little bit of land with planning permission for a Government store, but an area of 217 acres. In years to come, with Manchester spreading southwards, we shall want park land, land for playing-fields, and so on, and we ought not to build on that site now. There is plenty of scrubland adjacent to Manchester where buildings can go up—but there should not be any building on this green belt. One gentleman wrote to the Daily Telegraph:
Can you imagine a penal settlement being built on Box Hill, Surrey? Well, it is about the same as building on the green belt in Cheshire, and I feel just as strongly about it.If in the weeks and months ahead the Minister of State is in doubt, will she publish something on the lines of a White Paper, setting out all the details of this site and the other sites? A considerable sum has been raised by small donations at Nether Alderley to be used at a public inquiry, and I would ask the hon. Lady to give me a definite assurance that if there is any indication of going ahead with this project a public inquiry will be held, because this is a vital matter.1853 Most of the people involved are working-class people who pay their rates and taxes and have a right to know the facts. I hope that the Minister of State wi11, with her Department, think again about this, because I am quite certain that there are other sites that could be used for what she has in mind rather than using these 217 acres in the green belt area.
§ 2.10 a.m.
§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Miss Alice Bacon)The speech of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey), to which we have just listened, illustrates the difficulties which we at the Home Office have in building any prisons at all. I hope there is no dispute between the two sides of the House about the urgent need for more new prisons and other penal establishments. We have the legacy of old Victorian buildings. Not only are they old, but they were built for a different age. Most of them were designed in the last century on the principle of solitary confinement.
We have come a long way since then in our ideas of how best to treat offenders for their own benefit and for the protection of society. We now need to provide for every prison workshops in which prisoners can be engaged on purposeful modern industrial work so as to fit them for employment on discharge. We need classrooms and other facilities for a wide-ranging programme of education. We need dining rooms, gymnasia and better sanitary facilities, and we need improved security to defeat the ingenuity and resources of the determined criminal.
Not only are most of our prisons old; not only are they unsuited to our purposes; many of them, and especially the closed local prisons, are seriously overcrowded owing to the post-war increase in crime. There are still about 5,000 prisoners sleeping two and sometimes three to a cell intended for one. We must build new prisons, and we need them urgently. Therefore, we have got to find sites for them. This island of ours is a tight little island, and so many of the Government's plans for providing better conditions of life for the under-privileged entail an ever-increasing pressure on the available land. It is sometimes said that we ought to build prisons on remote moors or islands. But let me say at once that this is quite out of the ques- 1854 tion. The sort of penal treatment in which we firmly believe needs resources from outside the prisons, as well as inside them.
Many prisoners need to be securely confined, but we do not believe in treating them as outcasts from society, allowed to have contact only with prison staff. We believe in the maintenance of family ties, the promotion of welfare facilities and the provision of services such as educational classes, which require teachers and others to come into prisons and help us and the prisoners.
We also have to think about security. A prison in a remote area would be unable to get assistance quickly from the police in case of need. But above all, we have also got to think of the prison officers and staff who are doing such an unenviable but magnificent job. We want the staff of prisons to he able to live normal lives and we cannot expect most of them to be willing to reside in small, remote communities of their own. Their wives and families need to be near schools and shops and social amenities.
Dartmoor prison has given us a great deal of experience of the difficulties of running a prison in a remote area. Dartmoor prison is to be closed because of its inaccessibility. Not only have I listened to the hon. Gentleman's speech tonight. I have also read all the newspaper reports of the protest meetings which have been held in the village of Nether Alderley. I have seen it stated that we ought to take our prisoners into very remote areas of the country, on moors and on islands. I am answering not only what the hon. Gentleman has said, but some of the criticism and talk—some of it rather wild talk—which has been indulged in in the newspaper reports which I have seen.
§ Sir A. V. HarveyWhen there is indignation there will always be a few people who get on the wrong track. I tried to cover every point in my speech, showing humanity and patience, and, I hope, some appreciation of the requirements which the hon. Lady has in mind.
§ Miss BaconWe should never be able to build prisons at all if we had to find sites to which no one objected. Although everybody likes schools and hospitals near to them, there are always objections to prisons, borstals and 1855 approved schools. We at the Home Office find it very difficult indeed to plan our prison programme, because of the objections we receive.
But we must have prisons and we have to plan the distribution of new prisons in the light of the needs of each part of the country. We badly need more accommodation in the North-West, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will realise. The site at Nether Alderley is well placed to meet these requirements. Morover, as the hon. Gentleman realises, it is already Crown property. For financial reasons, and in order to minimise the disturbance of existing land use, we make every effort to use sites which are no longer needed by other Government Departments, as it the case at Nether Alderley.
Having found this site and having found that it was well suited to our requirements, we followed the normal procedure of writing to the planning authority, which is the Cheshire County Council, and the Macclesfield Rural District Council in order to give them an opportunity of making known their views on our proposals. We have since heard from the Macclesfield Rural District Council, which has given us a reasoned statement of its opposition, and we have received a number of letters from local residents, also expressing opposition.
Discussions have taken place between representatives of the county council and the Home Office, but the county council has not yet felt able to let us have its final views. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is well aware of the opposition that has so far been expressed. He will of course give the views of all concerned the most careful consideration. When he receives the county council's views, he will consider whether a public inquiry would be advisable.
I think that there may be some confusion about the possibility of a public inquiry into the Nether Alderley proposal and perhaps I can remove this by setting out the position. The Crown is not statutorily required to obtain planning consent to Government projects for development, but a general undertaking has been given that Departments will consult local planning authorities. A decision whether to proceed is taken in the 1856 light of views of the appropriate council —in this case, the Cheshire County Council—and in consultation with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. In difficult cases and where there is a strong weight of local objection it is customary to hold a public local inquiry so as to establish fully all the relevant factors and claims and to show that full and proper consideration has been given to them.
In a case such as this, it would certainly be in accordance with practice to hold an inquiry. The county council would welcome it and may not be prepared to agree to the proposal unless one is held. I cannot speak for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, but he may well take the same view.
The Macclesfield Rural District Council has already opposed the proposal and called for a public inquiry. If there is a public inquiry—as I have said, it is the practice to hold an inquiry in cases such as these—I think that the public local inquiry would be the proper place for exploring many of the points which the hon. Gentleman has raised tonight—for instance, the question of agricultural land. I will say here that we have consulted the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, but so far we have received no objections from the Ministry about this. But this is something which a public inquiry will go into. As the hon. Gentleman realises, this is not a properly designated green belt area. Again, this is something which will be gone into.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the woodland having to come down. I remind him that the Prison Department has been responsible for planting many trees in various parts of the country.
The county council has suggested other sites for our consideration. We will certainly look at these, as we are doing, and at any others which have recently come to our notice, but I cannot say at present what the outcome will be. I must point out, however, that we cannot proceed from one proposal to another and then to another, and so on, only to find that the local interests in every case are strongly opposed to the building of a prison in their district. This would delay the project indefinitely and, as I have shown, the need is great and urgent.
1857 My right hon. and learned Friend and I fully appreciate that few people would welcome a prison near their homes, but the fact remains that it must be built somewhere, and not in a too remote part of the country. There are no ideal sites with which everyone is content. It is fair to say, however, and this is what we have found over the years, that local opinion often—in fact almost invariably —changes once a prison has been built. The fears are found to be largely without foundation. The appearance of a prison of modern design is seen to be very different from that of our old prisons and far from a forbidding eyesore.
There are some fears lest an open prison should be built, but again experience has shown that there is far less fear of escapes from open prisons, having regard to the type of inmate we have in them, than there is of escapes from closed prisons. It is our experience that people who objected strongly to the building of a prison have come to take a great interest n it. The hon. Member said that a fighting fund had been raised in the village of Nether Alderley. I have seen reports in the newspapers that the people of Nether Alderley are trying to raise a fighting fund of £1,500. I hope that when the prison comes to be built near them they will raise another fund in future to help past inmates of prisons to get on their feet in such a way that they will not get back to prison again.
§ 2.23 a.m.
§ Mr. Mark Carlisle (Runcorn)I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept from me, in my capacity as a resident living in reasonable neighbourhood of this proposed prison, that I accept every word that she says about the need of a prison and of the type required. But the hon. 1858 Lady will appreciate that there are tremendous and genuinely felt planning objections to this proposal. She referred to the fact that the green belt in Cheshire was only proposed, but this applies to the whole of the county. I have appeared at inquiries relating to this land and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) said, there is no doubt that planning permissions have been refused in the past on the basis that it is in the proposed green belt and only not in a full green belt because the county plan has not yet been confirmed.
Whatever the hon. Lady may see in the newspaper, I stress that there are genuine planning objections to building this prison in the middle of the green belt. I agree about open prisons. There is one in my constituency, which is thoroughly accepted and is an excellent institution. My hon. Friend spoke about the number of institutions in this area. I agree that we must have prisons reasonably near the centres of population, but there are other centres within reasonable distance of Manchester which would avoid the planning difficulties that this site raises. There are no schools in the area, and I understand that there are difficulties about sewerage and water. I beg the hon. Lady to look at other sites before taking this site. I remind her finally that the opposition in the area is very genuine and deep-felt, and I was glad to hear her assurance that a public inquiry will be held before a decision is made.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Two o'clock.