§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is now able to state, in accordance with his policy of reducing the prison population, the numbers of the 5,000 persons in prison who have not been found guilty of any crime and are awaiting trial who have been released from prison during the past three months.
§ Mr. MayhewThe information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The only information readily available on the disposal of untried118W prisoners is that published annually in "Prison statistics, England and Wales"—table 2.1 of the issue for 1980, Cmnd. 8372.
§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate the savings which would result from the introduction of a system whereby any person who has been arrested and taken into custody to await trial was automatically released on bail if his trial had not commented within four weeks of arrest and the consequent reduction in the prison population if this were to be applied now to the more than 5,000 persons in prison awaiting trial.
§ Mr. MayhewAbout 3,000 of the untried prisoners in prison department establishments were first remanded in custody one month or more ago. On this basis, it is estimated that the system proposed might reduce the untried prison population by some 3,000, but it is estimated that over half of this saving would be offset by the longer time served in custody after sentence by those given a custodial disposal.
As local prison and remand centres are overcrowded by some 5,000 inmates a reduction of this order would produce only marginal savings, which cannot be quantified.