§ 6. Mr. AingerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to provide accommodation within Wales for the 800 Welsh prisoners who are currently in prisons outside Wales.
§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd)Plans for expenditure on new prison building in the next financial year and beyond are still under consideration, but I hope that we shall be able to increase the number of prison places in Wales.
§ Mr. AingerIs the Minister aware that the probation service, in particular, recognises that family links are an important part of rehabilitating prisoners and that his lack of commitment to a regional prison serving south and mid-Wales is not acceptable either to those families who currently have to travel great distances to visit prisoners or to the local probation service?
§ Mr. LloydI agree with the hon. Gentleman's sentiment that prisoners should be housed as near as possible to their home areas so that family links can be maintained. That is important and it is the objective of our policy. However, I completely disagree with him when he says that we are not committed to that, because we are, and the 21 new prisons in our prison programme are designed to make that possible. We still have more places to provide in Wales and, as I have already said, I hope that we shall be able to do so.
§ Ms. RuddockIs the Minister aware that the crisis in the prison service in Wales, as in England, will have been heightened this week by the Home Secretary's rejection of his chief inspector's report on prison overcrowding? Why are prison resources being directed at market testing for privatisation rather than at implementing the Woolf recommendations for providing real work and education aimed at prisoner rehabilitation?
§ Mr. LloydThe Home Secretary does not reject the report; he comments on it. The whole process of privatisation of the management of prisons—not the prisons themselves—is to obtain better standards in those prisons. I welcome the hon. Lady to her position. When she has held it a little longer and has read the tender 553 documents for the Wolds, which is in operation, for Blankenhurst, which has been issued, and for Manchester, which is to be issued shortly, she will see that at present that is the quickest way to obtain prisons with managements that will produce the Woolf standards.