§ PROVISION OF PREMISES FOR YOUNG OFFENDERS ETC.
§ Lords amendment: No. 13, in page 9, line 35, after "Sections" insert "5A,".
§ Mr. MayhewI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this we shall take Lords amendment No. 154.
§ Mr. MayhewAmendment No. 13 is purely a paving amendment for amendment No. 154 and simply makes provision in the few clause for the post of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales. As many hon. Members will recall, the committee of inquiry into the United Kingdom prison services, presided over by Lord Justice May, which reported in October 1979, recommended that there should be a system of inspection of the prison service distanced as far as may be practicable from the prison department. It recommended that there should be constituted within the Home Office an independent department called the prison inspectorate with a senior rank. When the post of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector was first created following this it was agreed that the appointment should be made by the Crown on the advice of the Home Secretary in order to emphasise its status and the holder's special relationship with the Home Secretary.
The appointments of the first Chief Inspector in England and the Chief Inspector of Prisons in Scotland were made in anticipation of legislation with the agreement of the Palace, the Civil Service Department, as it then was, and the Civil Service Commission, on the understanding that legislative cover would be sought at the next opportunity. This amendment is in fulfilment of that commitment. The amendment provides, separately for England and Wales and for Scotland, for a chief inspector to be appointed by Her Majesty. It sets out briefly the duties of the chief inspector and arranges that he should, as the May committee recommended, produce an annual report which the Secretary of State is to lay before Parliament.
Amendment No. 13 merely seeks to add reference to the new section inserted into the Prison Act 1952 by the new clause in the new section 43 for which clause 10 provides.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Lords amendment: No. 14, in page 10, line 4, after "to" insert "detention in".
§ Mr. MayhewI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
This is a purely drafting amendment.
§ Question put and agreed to.