WORMWOOD SCRUBS (BOYS' WING)

HC Deb 15 July 1968 vol 768 cc1034-40

Mr. Hogg

(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement about conditions in the boys' wing at Wormwood Scrubs.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan)

The borstal allocation wing at Wormwood Scrubs has given concern for some time, for, like too many other parts of the penal system, it is overcrowded. Short-term improvements to the conditions are in hand, but no satisfactory long-term solution is possible other than by new building.

As to the specific complaints, it is not true that boys are continuously kept locked in their cells, unless they are undergoing punishment. There were 490 boys in the wing on Friday. There are four workshops and 227 boys were working in them. One hundred were undergoing allocation procedures, and a further 30 were engaged on cleaning parties. Three hundred and eighty have a cell to themselves.

The buildings are over 100 years old and obsolete. Although systematic re-decoration is a continuous process, it cannot overcome the basic defects.

I am examining the prospects of speeding up the transfer of boys to training borstals, although the House will recognise that this may cause a measure of overcrowding in these establishments. Reducing the population of the wing would also reduce the strain on the sewerage system. I am accelerating the programme for replacing beds and mattresses and for further redecorations.

Mr. Hogg

While we all recognise the difficulties about spending Government money in the present economic situation, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that this is a very disquieting report which he has given to the House? He can count on a great deal of support from all quarters, because we cannot allow our children, even when they are in need of discipline, to be subjected to degrading and insanitary conditions.

Mr. Callaghan

I think that the magistrates were fulfilling a public service in drawing attention to this, because public opinion is very fickle on these matters. I have no doubt that the whole of our prison system, which is obsolete and antiquated, needs a high system of priority. There is, I am glad to say, the largest programme of prison rebuilding going on now than at any time during the last century, but it is quite clear that we cannot overcome all the deficiencies in an obsolete system within a relatively short time.

This is a very discouraging state of affairs for those who are working in these buildings. This is a transit camp and those who have continually to work there are up against great difficulties. Nevertheless, they have reduced the population of this borstal from 700 in March, 1966, to 600 last July and 500 today. The staff has increased by 27 in that period from 145 to 172, but there is no solution to this problem short of rebuilding most of the prisons.

Mr. Shinwell

Can my right hon. Friend disclose to the House how long these facts have been known to him and his several predecessors over a period of years in order to avoid any misunderstanding or the making of political capital out of the problem? Is it not remarkable that publicity was not given to this deplorable affair until a body of visiting magistrates went to the prison?

Mr. Callaghan

I am constantly endeavouring to give publicity to this state of affairs. I have today invited a Press photographer and a reporter to go to Wormwood Scrubs to see the conditions for themselves, for I see no reason why any of these conditions should be hidden from the public. This has been a situation which has persisted over generations. Only within the last six or seven years has any attempt been made to overcome the deficiencies which exist.

Perhaps I may say that a new borstal will be opened at Olney this year. Complete rebuilding is going on at Portland Borstal and Dover Borstal and substantial extensions to Hollesley Bay Colony next year. There are further plans in hand, but they cannot begin to overcome the deficiencies which have mounted over several decades.

Mr. Deedes

Further to the questions and answers which have taken place, is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the Select Committee investigated very fully the whole of this disquieting state of affairs and reported on it in full detail to the House a year ago, and that that Report was ignored? Will he give his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House a nudge and remind him that sometimes it is a good thing for the House to take note of what Select Committees tell the House?

Mr. Callaghan

It is quite untrue that the Report was ignored. The Government have been battling against constant pressure from the Opposition to reduce public expenditure within the allocation of resources. I ask hon. Members to think what would take priority between a new school and a new borstal. When it is a question of priority the House must accept responsibility for this situation. We only wake up—although some of us tried to get continuous publicity for it—when a newspaper and visiting magistrates suddenly say that here is a situation which has become intolerable. I want to do my best to bring everybody's attention to bear on these conditions.

Mr. Grimond

Is it necessary to have an institution of this sort more or less in the middle of London? If this is an urgent matter, could a temporary solution not be found by asking the Royal Engineers to adapt buildings outside London, or by using temporary camps for these boys?

Mr. Callaghan

The staff at the Home Office have considered these various alternatives over a period, but a lot of these boys need special treatment and special care. It is not easy to build camps. I have considered whether they could go into open camps and that kind of thing. We are getting some help by permitting a greater degree of overcrowding—I say this candidly to the House—in some of the other borstals.

Those of us who went through transit camps in the last war know the filthy places they are and in some respects Wormwood Scrubs is a transit camp. We have to speed the through-put of boys in this institution, but that is not just as easy as putting them into camps, because a lot of them need very special care and attention and discipline.

Mr. Oakes

Has my right hon. Friend looked at the other allocation centre at Strangeways, Manchester, to see whether the conditions there are as bad? Would he agree that it is wrong for anyone sent for borstal training to set foot in a prison, because that innoculates him against prison life?

Mr. Callaghan

Yes. I can assure the House—although I do not think that hon. Members need this assurance—that we do not have to wait for Private Notice Questions for these matters to be brought constantly under review. The allocation centre at Manchester accommodates rather fewer than 300. If I had to make a judgment between that and the Scrubs, I think that I would say that it is rather better than the Scrubs. That is not to say that it is perfect by any means.

In the long term, resources must be made available. If people want public expenditure to be devoted to these buildings, there are plans for rebuilding both allocation centres, both the Scrubs and that at Manchester. But they must take their place against the background of a great many other objectives in the prison service as a whole which will have to be ranged in order of priority.

Mr. Hogg

Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that I did not ask this Private Notice Question to subject him to any form of pillory, but precisely because I realised that it is so difficult to get priority for prison building as it is for other things which we all want, such as schools and hospitals? Will he none the less accept from me that he will get support from this side of the House if he presses his colleagues in this matter?

Mr. Callaghan

I acknowledge the spirit in which the Question was asked, and I hope that I have not implied anything else, but I am bound to say that the House is always in favour of particular types of expenditure but never in favour of expenditure in general. The Cabinet has to discuss these matters as a whole. I am very glad indeed that the magistrates, the right hon. and learned Gentleman and public opinion are focusing upon these issues.

Mr. W. T. Williams

Bearing in mind the run-down in the defence commitments of the country, has my right hon. Friend considered the possibility of transferring some of these boys to what may become disused Service camps, as that might overcome some of the difficulty?

Mr. Callaghan

I fear that that would not be a satisfactory solution. There is no overcrowding in the normal borstals. It is a particular type of borstal for particular types of boys who need special care that is required here. That is the difficulty which is causing the overcrowding. But I certainly accept my hon. and learned Friend's suggestion. If there is any way in which it is possible to use any Service camps, perhaps for some of the boys who do not need special care and attention, I will gladly look at that possibility.

Mr. Sharples

Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether any boys sentenced to borstal training have undergone the whole of their sentence at Wormwood Scrubs? In view of the long-term prisoners there, does he feel that Wormwood Scrubs is a suitable place for these boys?

Mr. Callaghan

Without notice, I could not swear that no boy has ever completed his sentence there, but I think it an extremely unlikely occurrence. The average boy spends about three weeks to a month there, and boys are committed for minimum periods of six months. Some boys may spend a little longer there than others in rather difficult cases.

I do not think that Wormwood Scrubs is suitable as a prison for anybody. The boys' wing is entirely separated physically from the rest of the prison. Lord Ston-ham has been there this morning, and I have looked at it from time to time.

Mr. Woodburn

Would my right hon. Friend consider relieving the pressure on these places by trying to find out how many of the boys in borstal have reached a point at which they could be paroled, thus taking some of them out of borstal on parole and leaving room for some of the boys at the other end of their sentences?

Mr. Callaghan

I doubt whether there is much to be gained from that. Pressure is constantly on the governors of borstals to release boys to avoid such overcrowding as that at Wormwood Scrubs. Governors at borstals would probably protest that they are being pushed to release boys rather too quickly at the moment, when they would rather keep them in for a longer time—pushed, perhaps, because we are trying to keep down the population at Wormwood Scrubs.

Mr. Gresham Cooke

Would the right hon. Gentleman also look at the remand home at Ashford, because the Estimates Committee was worried about that? Boys are kept there under lock and key for some time. In any event, does he not agree that we should have a debate on prisons, borstals and remand homes in the near future?

Mr. Callaghan

The hon. Member well illustrates the point when he refers to Ashford. Wormwood Scrubs is, alas, not the only institution where there is overcrowding, or where the conditions are not satisfactory.

The hon. Member asks for a debate on this subject. I have very vivid recollections of the House refusing time for a debate which could have carried on from 7 p.m. I was sitting here waiting to put these problems before the House, but hon. Members declined to have the debate.

Mr. Pavitt

Would my right hon. Friend make every attempt, in his review, to take the borstal away from the precincts of the Scrubs? It causes a certain amount of distress among mothers in the area, for, when these boys are placed on remand in the Scrubs, to them the Scrubs has only one meaning—not a borstal, but a prison.

Mr. Callaghan

If that is the desire of some hon. Members, I will look at that proposition again, but the problem has been considered more than once to see whether we could get the boys out of Wormwood Scrubs. So far, I have not been able to find a satisfactory alternative. I will certainly continue to look.

Mr. Kenneth Baker

I believe that the Home Secretary is aware that most of the prison officers working in Wormwood Scrubs are my constituents. Does he not agree that they have complained about these conditions and that they find the conditions just as repugnant as do the offenders? In particular, does he not agree that the Scrubs is quite the wrong sort of prison for any young offenders, even for a week?

Mr. Callaghan

We can all go on complaining about these matters. Indeed, I think that I have covered both the points which the hon. Member made. The question is whether we shall find the resources in order to put them right. I have a record amount of expenditure allocated to me this year for these purposes, but I do not think that we can necessarily pick out the Scrubs in advance of other priorities. I do not think that the House can settle on one institution and say that that is the only one which needs attention. We ought to see all the institutions with which we are concerned and then we could make up our minds between priorities, as I have to do.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

As an old boy of Wormwood Scrubs 50 years ago, may I ask the Home Secretary whether he does not agree that the place has become more intolerable since then? Is he aware that we expect him to liquidate the place, and to hurry along with greater speed than that with which we are trying to dismantle Dartmoor?

Mr. Callaghan

If all the old lags turned out as well as my hon. Friend, there would be a case for continuing it. But my recollection does not go back to the time when he was there.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker

Order. Mr. Greenwood. Statement.