HC Deb 21 January 1982 vol 16 cc403-4
9. Mr. Freud

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners are held in prisons in England and Wales for maintenance arrears.

Mr. Mayhew

On 30 November 1981, the latest date for which figures are available, about 180 persons were in prison department establishments in England and Wales following committal by magistrates' courts for non-payment of maintenance or affiliation orders.

Mr. Freud

Has the Minister looked with sufficient care at non-custodial alternatives to prison for maintenance defaulters, and has he considered ordering them to work in the privatised prison system?

Mr. Mayhew

Without prison as a last resort, many more wives and children simply will not get the money to which they are entitled unders orders that have been made. That was accepted by the Labour Government, and the present Government also believe that it is so. A very small proportion of those against whom enforcement proceedings are taken end up in prison. That is because prison represents a substantial compulsion in the end.

Mr Latham

Is my hon. and learned Friend satisfied with the general state of the law on maintenance? If not, does he have any alternative proposals to put before the House in the light of recent publications of the Law Commission?

Mr. Mayhew

Not this afternoon.

Dr. Summerskill

A custodial sentence for a maintenance defaulter may have been accepted by the Labour Government, but it is not accepted by the present Labour Opposition. Will the hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that we are progressing in our thinking in moving from custodial sentences to non-custodial sentences, and that we are not, like the present Government, living in the past? I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to reconsider his answer. It costs £7, 000 a year to keep somebody in prison. The prisons are vastly overcrowded, and it is time that maintenance defaulters were not kept in custody.

Mr. Mayhew

I guess that 25 million women in this country would be interested to know that the present Labour Opposition, as distinct from the Labour Government, do not think it right that there should be the final sanction of prison. Already the courts have to be satisfied that the default was due to wilful refusal or culpable neglect to pay. If the Labour Party is moving away from its previous position, that will be a matter of great interest and dismay to many women.