§ Mr. Cashasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the report of the advisory committee on the therapeutic regime at Grendon prison; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. BrittanThe committee's first report is published today and I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Library of the House. I welcome the report and accept the broad thrust of its proposals, in particular the central recommendation that Grendon should continue to concentrate in the main on group therapy, with the therapeutic community constituting the predominant form of therapy. The committee has also recommended that the arrangements for referral and induction of inmate patients should be improved, that the prison hospital should be reorganised and one floor converted to use as a small unit for the temporary care of inmates who suffer acute psychiatric breakdown elsewhere in the prison system; and that a research strategy and programme should be established with links with external academic departments. I have asked the Prison Department to consider how, and at what speed, the objectives of the committee can be met having regard in particular to their resouce implications.