§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his inquiry into the circumstances leading up to the shooting of a prisoner being transferred from Leicester gaol will include an investigation into the reasons why a man with a record of violence and instability was classified as a Category B prisoner, and also a reappraisal of the economies imposed on the police and prison service and how these may have affected the handling and searching of this prisoner.
§ Mr. Merlyn ReesThe inquiry by the Chief Inspector of the Prison Service into the security arrangements at Leicester Prison, and for the escort of prisoners to court at that establishment, will take all the relevant circumstances into account.
The Chief Constable of Derbyshire has assured me that restrictions of expenditure did not affect the police operations in response to the escape of Hughes, and I do not believe that they would affect the capacity of other police forces to deal with incidents of this kind