CLOSING OF PRISONS (Hansard, 9 March 1971)

§ Mr. Edward Lyons (Bradford, East)

I beg to move That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to the closing of prisons by repealing section 38 of the Prison Act 1952. When most of our prisons come to be sold, the House may be surprised to learn that all the State will get for them will be £120 for every prisoner who was in prison in 1877. All the rest of the sale price will go to the local authority within whose boundary the prison is situated.

Most of our prisons are more than 100 years old, and even in 1877 there were prisons like Pentonville and Parkhurst which were State orisons for convicts. Most of our great prisons, such as Wandsworth, Holloway, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, Stafford, Winchester, Hull and many others were owned by local authorities, which managed them very cheaply on the rates. For example, in Lancashire it cost £15 a year to maintain a prisoner, in Leeds £19 a year, with a national average of £23 per year per prisoner. The trouble with this system was that one authority treated a prisoner as if he were sub-human whereas yet another authority treated a prisoner as if he were not human at all.

The ratepayers wanted to get rid of the burden and the Government wanted to introduce a system of prison administration. Therefore the Conservative Government of 1877 nationalised the prisons, with no talk of compensation. They said, "We will take over the prisons, but when we come to close them in years to come we will give you the sale price, provided that you will give us £120 for every prisoner for whom separate cell accommodation was provided on 12th July, 1877".

That provision in the Bill of 1877 was re-enacted in the consolidating Statute, namely the Prison Act 1952, so it is still the law of the country. Unfortunately, the Government of the day did not foresee that land values would rise steeply in the ensuing century whereas the value of money would continue to deteriorate. The Treasury informed me in a Written Answer in February that 3s. in 1877 255 bought the same as a £ would buy today, so in 94 years there has been an 85 per cent. fall in the value of the £.

What is the effect of this situation? In 1877 Holloway, at £120 per head per prisoner, would on its closure have brought the Government some £40,000 from the local authority, but the land value of Holloway in those days was less. The idea was that the State would make a profit on the closure of a prison because it was helping the local authority by taking over the prison and maintaining it at the taxpayers' rather than at the ratepayers' expense.

Unfortunately, this situation has now all changed. Let us take for example Oxford Prison, which will be the first to be closed. At £125 a prisoner that would bring the Government on closure some £9,000 from about 75 cells in 1877, but Oxford Prison today is worth getting on for £500,000. Therefore, instead of the Government getting that money, Oxford, which has not paid a penny for Oxford Prison since 1877, will have nearly £500,000, and will pay the Government £9,000, which will be a windfall to the Oxford ratepayers. In return the ratepayers will have an eyesore removed from the town. This will happen throughout England and Wales.

The matter does not stop there. Most of these prisons will be retained into the 21st century. In the end, when our great prisons close, with the constant diminution in the value of money and the constant increase in land values the local authorities will get all the money and the State will get peanuts.

256 The fact is that the present building programme is woefully inadequate. The number of applicants to fill the prisons continually increases. We are desperately in need of a fillip to the present building programe. I suggest that my Bill, by deleting Section 38 of the 1952 Act, will enable local authorities to get compensation in regard to the sale price of old prisons which will have the effect of providing a tremendous help to the present building programme. The Treasury will know that when it closes an old prison it will receive £500,000 as a subsidy towards the new prison. The sooner that happens the better cities like Leeds, Birmingham and London, which have old prisons in their midst, will be pleased. They will be able to use the sites for housing, which is a desperate need, for new shopping centres, new industry and so on. For these reasons, I ask the House to approve the Bill this afternoon, since this proposed legislation will perform a most useful function.