HC Deb 20 January 1972 vol 829 cc813-24

10.27 p.m.

Mrs. Jill Knight (Birmingham, Edgbaston)

This is the third time that I have raised on the Adjournment the subject of women on remand in the Midlands. However, this is not so much a repeat performance as another instalment of a serial which casts a good deal of discredit on the last Labour Government and in particular on the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) who, as Home Secretary, was responsible for following an utterly disastrous policy in regard to women remanded from our Midland courts.

Briefly, the background is this. In the 1950s quite a lot of work was done on behalf of women who were remanded in custody from our Midland courts. It was proved beyond doubt that there was urgent need for a remand centre to which women could be taken.

In 1961 Mr. R. A. Butler, as he then was, the then Home Secretary, talked of the urgent need for such accommodation in the Midlands. It having been proved that such a centre should be built, he announced that one would be built forthwith. With considerable speed and at great cost, it was built, and in 1965 the Brockhill Remand Centre for Women was opened.

I am told that the cost of building this centre was £102,000, but it quickly justified this expenditure and its existence and everyone who had anything to do with the Midland courts was highly satisfied with Brockhill. However, only three years later, in 1968, like a bolt from the blue, came news from the Home Office that this centre was to be closed. All those concerned with Brockhill were up in arms—probation officers, the city council, Birmingham Law Society and a host of others, all of whom I have listed in previous Adjournment debates.

When I first raised this subject on the Adjournment I tried to bring to the notice of the then Home Secretary the disastrous nature of the decision he had taken. I went to the Home Office and explained to the Minister what it would mean to women in the Midlands, to our courts, and to everyone connected with them, if this centre were to close. In an Adjournment debate I was told that the reason why Brockhill had to be closed—the Minister stressed his concern and said how sorry he was—was that it had not been possible to get nurses to live in at the remand centre because it was a little distant from a town.

I gathered that there was some strict statutory rule that remand centres had to have trained nurses in constant attendance. One knows that the law is an ass, and I accepted that that was the law and I was stuck with it. But it subsequently turned out that there was no such statutory reason for closing Brockhill, and that the House had been misled on this matter.

Ever since then any woman remanded at Midland courts had had to travel up and down from Holloway, which has meant travelling up and down the M1. This has meant an incredible waste of time, and each journey costs £17—that was the information given to one questioner who asked what the cost was—because escorting officers have to do the journey, too. But I am concerned, not so much with the cost as with the strain on women who have been remanded. They are, at the time, in an emotional and upset state, and to be taken such a long way away from their husbands and children only adds to their worries. As women who are on remand usually have to be in court by 10 o'clock, they have to leave Holloway very early indeed.

I raised the matter for the second time on the Adjournment, and on that occasion the Minister agreed that there was a necessity for a remand centre—so we had got somewhere—and she agreed that perhaps the best thing to do was to take over an old house and convert it for use as a remand centre for women. That was fine.

There then followed a series of parliamentary Questions, and I emphasise that the Questions came from bath sides of the House, not just from these benches. All Members from the Midlands who knew of this problem questioned the Minister about it.

That is where the matter stood until last August, when I received a latter from my right hon. Friend with the news that the Home Office had decided to build a now women's remand centre in the Midlands. The Home Office, moving with the lightning speed of a tortoise in reverse, was back to where it was in 1961—it was saying that a new remand centre was to be built—but with this difference, that the large amount of money spent on building the previous centre had been wasted, as were enormous sums spent on taking women up and down from the courts.

Now we come to the crux of the problem, and that is selecting a site. I understand that two sites are under active consideration. The first is at Abbeyfields, Studley, in Warwickshire, but I understand the Home Office feels that it ought not, after Brockhill, to have a remand centre at some distance from a town, and that that site is not, therefore, looked upon with great favour.

The second site—and some may regard this as retribution for the trouble that I have made for the House about this—is in my constituency, at Lords-wood Road, Harborne. I should like to explain briefly that Harborne is a very particular and special part of the City of Birmingham, and that somehow over the years it has managed to preserve the character of a village surrounded by the city.

Mr. J. R. Kinsey (Birmingham, Perry Barr)

indicated assent.

Mrs. Knight

I am glad that my hon. Friend, who until recently was an alderman representing another part of the city, agrees with me. Harborne is a charming part of Birmingham. It is almost a rural area.

When the suggestion was first mooted that the remand centre should be at Harborne, it was suggested that the intention of the Home Office was not to build a quiet little remand centre on a rural site —oh dear, no—but to build a huge block to house between 50 and 60 women, and surround it by a 17 ft. fence with barbed wire on top. One of my constituents who has seen a picture of a similar remand centre built elsewhere was appalled. He said that he thought that the place looked like a concentration camp. It is all right from the inside; but it looks pretty grim from the outside.

All the trees on this beautiful site would have to go. There can be no trees overhanging the 17 ft. fence. The trees are very old and many are the subject of preservation orders. It would be a great tragedy if they were cut down and the place was turned into what would be virtually a sort of concentration camp area.

In any case, there is not enough space for what the Home Office has in mind. It is a 3½ acre site, but the Home Office has asked for further land for staff homes "within running distance." That terms conjures up a rather delightful thought. However, it is clear that if this remand centre is built there it will completely ruin the character of the area. I would not want it to be thought that I am objecting simply because it is mooted for my constituency. I could take my hon. and learned Friend to parts of my constituency, where I would not mind in the least if the centre was built, and neither would anyone else. So it is not because it happens to be in my constituency.

This particular part of my city has a special aura that it would be a great pity to change, especially when we are all rightly becoming concerned about preservation, conservation and the environment. The remand home as proposed would certainly utterly ruin the village of Harborne. Furthermore, that site has been earmarked for two purposes; for building more homes, but leaving the trees there, and, even more important, building a medical centre. Many elderly people live in this part of Birmingham and it has long been understood that we badly needed a medical centre in this area for these people. This was mooted about two years ago, long before the site was cleared of everything but the trees. A medical centre would be an excellent thing to have there.

In an Adjournment debate one must take great care to be brief. I could raise many other points, but I wish to keep within the confines of courtesy and not to overstep the mark with regard to time. I beg my hon. and learned Friend to accept what I am saying about the impracticality of this particular site. I suggest that his officials may well look elsewhere in Birmingham. There is a great deal of clearance near the Winson Green prison. Large tracts of land have been completely cleared. It is planned that others will be cleared. That would be a far more suitable place.

The land in Harborne about which we are speaking is Crown land. Therefore, although the planning committee and the city council have not given planning permission for this, my hon. and learned Friend has the right to override them. I am pleading with him, however, on the basis of the points I have raised. This remand centre would spoil a very attractive part of Birmingham. None of the blame for this fiasco rests on the shoulders of my hon. and learned Friend. I beg him now to redeem the Home Office and take the right decision as to where the much needed remand centre for women in the Midlands shall go.

10.39 p.m.

Mr. Fergus Montgomery (Brierley Hill)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) for allowing me time to intervene briefly. She put the case most eloquently and deserves plaudits for her persistence in repeatedly raising the subject of the need for a remand home for women in the Midlands area. On 13th May, 1970, this matter was ventilated in an Adjournment debate initiated by my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams), then the Home Office Minister responsible, promised that a suitable property in Birmingham or the West Midlands conurbation would be looked for. Almost two years later we are no further forward.

I want to stress to my hon. and learned Friend the concern that has been felt in the Midlands area over the lack of remand accommodation for women. The call for such accommodation is supported by the police, the Probation Service and the Magistrates' Association amongst others. Women on remand in the Midlands have to be transported either to Risley, near Manchester, or to Holloway, a round trip of 200 miles. My hon. Friend was right to emphasise that the concern is not just about the expense involved but about the strain for the women, many of whom are in great emotional distress. I know of a woman charged with murdering her child. She was obviously in a great emotional state. Because there was no remand accommodation for women in the Midlands, this poor woman was taken to Risley and had to be brought back whenever she had to make a court appearance.

There is also the question of the public expense of transporting the women, together with the cost of the police and prison officers involved. We all realise that the decision to close the women's wing at the Brockhill Remand Centre in 1968 was a tremendous mistake. The closure had all the hallmarks of Socialist bungle synonymous with the late, unlamented Labour Government. No good reason was ever given for the closure. Like my hon. Friend, I think that the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who was Home Secretary then, is guilty of a gross waste of public money.

The matter is one of urgency, and I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will give us an assurance that the Government will give a definite promise to tackle the problem as expeditiously as possible.

10.42 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mark Carlisle)

The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) and the very fact of this debate are further reminders of the concern she and other hon. Members have shown for the situation for women and girls remanded in custody by the Midland courts. Since I have been in the Home Office I have been much concerned over the past 18 months to find the right solution to the problem.

There are at any one time less than 250 women and girls in custody awaiting trial or sentence. I am sure that it is common ground that a proportion—probably a high proportion—are disturbed and need conditions that can provide medical and psychiatric supervision and a high standard of care. But since a court has thought it not wise to allow them bail, it is also obviously necessary that the conditions in which they are kept should be secure.

I am sure that it is also accepted that the necessary specialist facilities cannot be provided everywhere in the country. We now have four remand centres to which women and girls are sent, most of them covering areas other than the Midlands. The question at issue is the possible provision of a fifth centre to replace that originally provided at Brock-hill, for the purpose of serving the courts in the area my hon. Friend mentioned.

The Government accept that there should be some accommodation for such women and girls in the Midlands. Although there is not an absolute shortage of places in the four existing remand centres—in considerable contrast to the overcrowding in the local prisons and remand centres for men—I accept that the present arrangements cause considerable inconvenience and probably hardship. They involve lengthy journeys for the women and undoubtedly cause strain for them at a difficult time. They also involve journeys for escorting staff, solicitors, probation officers and, not least, the relatives and friends of those remanded in custody, that are much longer and more difficult than any of us would wish.

The question is not, therefore, whether we should have some accommodation but whether and of what type it should be. It is these questions that we have been trying to solve. I accept at once, having listened to my hon. Friend and looked at the previous debates, that there clearly have been changes of mind in the Home Office on this issue. Whatever the cause of the changes may have been, I hope that it will not be thought that they were evidence of any indifference to the needs of the women and girls on remand in the Midlands, or of a lack of desire to find a solution.

Between 1965 and June, 1968, the women's wing of the Brockhill Remand Centre held women and girls on remand from the Midlands courts. The decision to close it was taken by the previous Administration, and I do not think it is right to comment on what may have caused them to make that decision. It is perhaps more helpful if I dwell on the future than the past.

I have two general comments. The first is that there is no question of the facilities at Brockhill not being fully used. It was a remand centre for both women and young men up to the age of 21. Even with the additional places that have become available in the male remand centre due to the closing of the women's wing, there is still on occasion a shortage of accommodation in Brockhill. Whereas the appropriate accommodation, without overcrowding, would be for 150 people, the population at Brockhill on some days last year approached 200. The facilities that were provided by the previous Conservative Government before 1964 for the opening of Brockhill are being used, even if not for the purposes then proposed.

Second, the reason that was always given for the closing of the women's wing at Brockhill was the difficulty of recruiting and retaining adequate nursing staff. I do not want to comment on that reason or on whether or not it was justified, but I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that there must be adequate nursing cover if we are to fulfil our responsibilities for the safe keeping of the women and other people on remand in our charge.

Mr. Merlyn Rees (Leeds, South)

The hon. Lady raised this question on a statutory basis. As I recall from my time at the Home Office, it is fair to say that the question of nursing facilities, statutory or otherwise, is a most important point which the Minister has corroborated.

Mr. Carlisle

The previous Government hoped that at least a partial solution could be found by the use of a secure hostel. An earlier Minister of State in the Home Office who dealt with the Prison Department, the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams), said so in replying to a similar debate in May, 1970. I am sorry to say that the present Government have found that this is not a practical possibility.

I assure the House and my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Montgomery) that there has been no lack of suggestions as to where such a hostel might be provided. We received a number of suggestions, including some from hon. Members. Fifteen properties were inspected, but the search proved unsuccessful. Our specifications were of necessity fairly exacting and were not the easiest to meet in existing buildings. We required adequate living and working conditions both for inmates and staff, where they could stay throughout the whole period of their remand, not just overnight, and of course we had to provide a degree of security. The Government have come to the conclusion that there really is no future in trying to find a hostel of this kind. Some of the buildings inspected were not in the right place to enable staff to be recruited, others were too derelict so that they could not have been adapted at a reasonable cost and we have been advised that it is much cheaper, as well as more satisfactory, to build a remand centre rather than adapt an existing building.

We decided last year that provision should be made in the forward building programme for a new, purpose-built, remand centre. I accept that provision of such a centre will take time and we have therefore been concerned—and this deals with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill—to see what we can do in the intervening period. We have decided to improve and extend the accommodation available in Birmingham Prison so that the majority of women committed on remand by Birmingham courts will be able to stay overnight in Birmingham Prison during the course of the trial and then be sent back to Holloway the following day. They will also be brought from Holloway on the day before their appearance in court, which will prevent the early start from Holloway on the day of the court appearance of which people have complained and which my hon. Friend mentioned.

We hope that the necessary adaptation and building work can be completed by the end of this year so that there will be overnight accommodation in Birmingham Prison for un to 10 women. It is not intended to be a permanent solution. For the bulk of the remand period the women and girls concerned will still have to be at Holloway and Risley and visitors will still have to travel there. It has the advantage, however, that by bringing them to Birmingham the day before solicitors, relatives and friends will be able to visit the prisoners while they are in Birmingham.

In the last few minutes left to me I should like to say something about our proposals for the new centre. Having decided to include a new centre in the forward programme the procedure for the planning, design and building is basically the same as that for any other penal establishment. We wish to take account of local feeling and also the general planning considerations which are appropriate. We do not therefore make a formal application to a local authority for planning clearance until a considerable amount of preliminary work has been done. First, we make an informal approach to the local planning authority to seek its view and obtain the preliminary reactions of the local people. We need to satisfy ourselves by means of a feasibility study that any suggested site is one which we can use.

We look, first, obviously for land already in Government ownership but we never rule out suitable sites in private ownership and if necessary we would be prepared to contemplate a compulsory purchase. These inquiries and discussions take time, more time than we would wish. Last summer we told the local planning authorities of our potential interest in two sites, one in my hon. Friend's constituency at Lordswood Road and the other at Studley in Warwickshire. We have had informal discussions with the planning authorities but the Home Office has not yet received the feasibility studies and I cannot give the House any definite conclusion on the site for a purpose-built centre. I can assure my hon. Friend that we take fully into account all she has said about the suitability or otherwise of the Lordswood Road site.

It may be helpful if I make one or two general comments. It has been said —not by my hon. Friend but by others—that the Lordswood Road site is unsuitable merely because it is in a residential area. We appreciate that the claims of other people to this site must be balanced against ours, and in this instance Birmingham Corporation has told us that it thinks the site would be better used for housing. We will obviously take all this into account. In general there are advantages to any site in an urban area because we are hoping in the next few years to be able to make provision for out-patient facilities at remand centres so that the courts, instead of remanding a woman in custody, will be able to remand her on bail. If we are to have such a centre there is a great advantage in an urban area and we will willingly consider any other site which my hon. Friend or the local planning authority may care to suggest. We would naturally consider any site in the vicinity of Winson Green.

The site at Studley has one disadvantage, that it is in a rural area, but we are considering the use of this site. I should make it clear, however, since there has been some misunderstanding about this, that we doubt if it would be practicable to take over these buildings as they stand for a remand centre for women. They were designed for a quite different purpose and it follows that they are not adequately secure and do not provide the facilities we need.

We are considering whether we could use this site, using some buildings for administration and other purposes and part as an open prison for women, and provide a new building alongside as a remand centre, but we should prefer an urban site if we can find one. I am sorry that I cannot say where it would be.

We hope to receive the feasibility study within the next few weeks. If we think a new centre could be provided at Abbey-fields, or elsewhere, we would make a formal planning application and there would be the fullest opportunity for local people to express their views.

My hon. Friend has repeatedly pointed out that public opinion in the West Midlands has been rightly concerned, as has the House, about the situation following the closure of the women's wing at Brock-hill, so I hope that when we are in a position to come to a decision on whatever site we decide is most suitable, we may obtain public support for the proposals we eventually put forward and acceptance that we have done so after careful appraisal of all the points my hon. Friend and others have raised.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at tour minutes to Eleven o'clock.