ROYAL NAVAL MINE DEPOT, WARBNESS (USE) (Hansard, 27 January 1969)

§ Mr. Julian Ridsdale (Harwich)
My purpose in raising this question of the Royal Naval Mine Depot at Wrabness is to challenge the decision of the Government to turn the depot into a Category C prison. In the national interest I am certain that this depot should, in the first place, have been offered for sale by public auction with an industrial development certificate so that it could be used for industry. Surely, industry and exports must have priority over other uses. Only if no other industrial use can be found for it should it be used as a Category C prison.
The depot has extensive buildings covering over 250,000 sq. ft. It is seven 1070 and a half miles west of Harwich, bounded on the north by the River Stour and on the south by the British Railways main line from London to Harwich. It is approximately 70 acres in size and has a 1,000 ft. frontage to the River Stour.
The principal buildings have good road and rail access. It has a railway marshalling yard composed of three parallel lines 500 ft. long immediately inside the depot. There are 12 semidetached houses, each with two reception rooms and three bedrooms, with two semi-detailed bungalows containing similar accommodation.
Further building land could be made available if an industry coming to this site required to build more houses. It is the ideal site for an industrial concern that has a primary interest in exports and the export trade. It appears almost to be ready-made for taking over by an industrial company. 1071 This was, indeed, realised by the Conservative Government in 1964 when, on 17th August, the Senior Surveyor of Lands of the Rural Land Office told the local council that it would be advertised next year and the Navy Department would like to be able to say that planning permission for any industrial purpose would be granted. I ask the Government whether the site was ever advertised.
As far as I know, the depot has never been advertised for industrial use. The buildings have been empty ever since waiting for the Government to make up their mind about what they should do. This is why I charge the Government with lethargy and lack of foresight. They have clung, for over four years, to a valuable industrial site which surely, in the national interest, should have been offered for sale by public auction with the Board of Trade saying that an i.d.c. would be available. As an industrial site it would have a unique advantage in helping with the export trade.
Have the Government no conception at all of the economic progress and development in Harwich and the Stour Estuary? The port of Parkeston and Harwich Navy Yard are taking an evergrowing amount of traffic and industry is expanding and exports for the area are increasing at a very fast rate. Some industries are short of land for expansion. As barriers with the Continent are lowered this industrial development in the Stour Estuary is bound to grow still more. There is only one barrier, and that is the Government's refusal to grant i.d.c.s more readily. Their fixation with development areas is leading them to neglect areas with natural industrial growth, and as a consequence decisions are being made, as a result of which a valuable industrial site is proposed to be turned into a Category C prison.
Surely, realising how the area is developing in the export trade and industrially, if it is to be used by a Government Department a new Customs clearance depot would be far more appropriate. Have the Government studied how countries like Japan have benefited by allowing industrial development near their ports? Considerable savings are made both in time and transport costs. I am certain that when such buildings as this become available from a Govern- 1072 ment Department they should be used by other Government Departments only if, in this critical time for our economy, they have no industrial use or requirement—especially no requirement for the export trade.
In this case I claim that these buildings not only have an industrial use but a big potential for helping our export trade. I therefore ask the Government, before pressing ahead with this scheme, to reconsider their decision and put the buildings up for sale by public auction with the promise that an industrial certificate will be made available. I am sure that there would be a considerable saving to the taxpayer. Surely a cheaper site than this can be found in some other part of the country, rather than using a valuable industrial site for the proposal that we have before us
This is a waste of a valuable site and of taxpayers' money. It is going against local advice. It is piecemeal planning at its very worst, and for the sake of good planning and common sense I sincerely ask the Government to change their mind and to allow this site to go for public auction, with an i.d.c., so that it can be used for our export trade and as an industrial site.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan)
The speech of the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) serves to underline once again the difficulties by which we at the Home Office are beset in our efforts to build new prisons. I am sure that there is no dispute between the hon. Member and myself about the need for measures to relieve the gross overcrowding that exists in so many of the older Victorian prisons and to provide modern methods of penal treatment. Indeed, the Estimates Committee referred to the problems in its 11th Report, and I cannot do better than quote the words it used. It said: Your Committee felt that the future development of the prison system, however long the term in which it is viewed, must include a full-scale and radical attack on conditions in these Victorian prisons in order to put an end to the existence of such conditions. The conditions to which the Committee referred can to some extent be ameliorated by improving and developing these older buildings. However, any 1073 programme of this kind must be accompanied by one to provide more new places quickly by new building if any significant progress is to be made. There are at present throughout our prisons nearly 7,000 prisoners sleeping two or three to a cell intended for only one prisoner. Many are in the Category C referred to by Lord Mountbatten in his Report on prison escapes and security as prisoners lacking the will and resources to make escape attempts, but at the same time lacking the stability to be kept in conditions presenting no barrier to their escape. Apart from being safeguarded, the accommodation now occupied by these men should be exclusively available for prisoners requiring a more restrictive régime, and it is wrong that Category C prisoners should be housed in this way. To make more suitable provision for them, we are about to embark on a programme to provide prisons specially designed for Category C prisoners.
This is justified not only because of the number of prisoners involved but also as an exercise in cost-effectiveness. It is, for example, much cheaper to build prisons for this type of inmate than for prisoners with a higher security classification. This is so not only because the buildings themselves cost less but because it is possible to house as many as 750 prisoners in such prisons without creating appreciable problems of security, control and management.
If we were able to build enough of these new prisons, it would be by far the quickest way of making a real impact on the present unsatisfactory conditions. Of the 7,000 or so prisoners sleeping in overcrowded conditions, about a third are in prisons in the South-East of England. The problem is particularly acute in London. To meet this situation and to provide in the region the range of prisons needed if prisoners are to be given the kind of treatment most appropriate to their needs, two new prisons, each for 750 Category C prisoners, are required.
It is proposed to put one of these at Wrabness. The site, although a little remote from London, is nevertheless suitable and at the moment in Government ownership. As the Estimates Committee said in its Report: The policy of building on land redundant to the needs of other Government departments has economic advantages and avoids 1074 the need to disturb existing land use or the exercise of compulsory acquisition powers. The site is also well situated from the point of view of the staff who would be required to run the prison; this, of course, is a highly important consideration.
The hon. Gentleman has, on the other hand, pleaded that the premises should be used for industrial development, and he has spoken about attracting industry to the site. It is perhaps significant that the depôt was declared redundant as long ago as the middle of 1964, and although the possibility of using the site for industrial purposes has been canvassed from time to time since then, there has not, so far as I know, been any firm proposal to that end.

§ Mr. Ridsdale
Could the hon. Gentleman say whether it has ever been advertised with an industrial development certificate?

§ Mr. Morgan
I do not think that it could possibly be so, because that would happen only in the event of there being a specific proposal for a particular type of development. I am afraid that I cannot tell the hon. Member whether it has been advertised, but it is clearly a place which must, in local knowledge, be regarded as a site which would be right for development, all things being equal. If there were a voracity for development on the part of private industrial enterprise which included this mine depôt, we should have known something about it up to the present, but over four years nothing has happened. There is no evidence to show the acute demand which the hon. Gentleman has sought to pray in aid. We, too, are most concerned about the provision of suitable work for our prisoners. The hon. Member may, therefore, be assured that any new prisons of this kind envisaged will provide good industrial employment for the inmates. Industry of this kind makes a significant contribution to the economy.
Government Departments are obliged, under the procedure laid down for them by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, to consult local authorities about their proposed developments. Already informal discussions have been held between officials of the Home Office and the Essex County Council. These will be followed very 1075 shortly by a formal approach under the required procedure. It is not for me to speculate what the reactions of the local authorities might be, but should there be a request for a local public inquiry to be held into the proposal, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government would, I know, be prepared to consider such a request sympathetically.
I do not know whether there are any local fears in connection with the proposed change of use of this place and its development as a prison. That is not an entirely new phenomenon in connection with the building of prisons, but our experience over the years has shown that those fears are rarely justified, and they would not be justified in this case. Sometimes we are said to be threatening the amenities of the area, interfering with the use of land for agricultural purposes, offending against green belt considerations and defining the landscape with hideous buildings.
1076 I know that the hon. Member does not make that point, but in case there should be any such plea in this locality I stress that none of these considerations would apply at Wrabness. The prison will be of modern construction and to modern design, although use will be made of buildings which already exist where that can be done.
All of that is said, of course, in the supposition that in the event of an inquiry being held, the desire of the Home Office so to develop the site would be upheld We therefore propose to seek formally the views of the local authorities as early as possible. We shall give the fullest consideration to any observations which they may wish to make on our proposals, but I must give notice that the need for new prisons is so vital that we cannot lightly contemplate abandoning our proposals for developing this site in the way in which I have described.