§ Mr. ShersbyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the present arrangements for supervising persistent offenders remanded to bail hostels; when the last inspection of such hostels took place on a nationwide scale; what plans he has for improving supervision; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. John PattenAll persons remanded to a bail hostel are subject to supervision by the staff, who maintain 24-hour coverage at the hostel. Hostel rules set out what conduct is acceptable at the hostel and include a night-time curfew. The residents are required to comply with their bail conditions and with the rules of the hostel. Residents who fail to comply are liable to be brought back to the courts to determine their disposal.
Current plans include the introduction of national standards for bail hostels now in preparation and due to come into force in October 1992. These will ensure that 31W good practice in supervising residents is applied in every bail hostel. In particular, they will set out clear procedures to be followed if it appears that a resident has broken the conditions of his bail.
Responsibility for the inspection of bail and other approved hostels lies with Her Majesty's inspectorate of probation. Whilst they have inspected individual hostels as part of ordinary probation area inspection programmes, there has been no national inspection as such. The issue of the new national standards will, of course, now require the inspectorate to develop a suitable follow-up programme as well as requiring probation areas to undertake regular monitoring as part of their established local arrangements.
§ Mr. ShersbyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish in tabular form details of the number of bail hostels in England and Wales,
Bail hostels in England and Wales in October 1991 Probation Area Hostel Location Beds Cleveland South Bank Middlesbrough 20 Devon Dudley Centre Newton Abbott 20 Dorset Bournemouth Bournemouth 20 East Sussex Brighton Brighton 15 Essex Basildon Basildon 21 Greater Manchester Chorlton Hostel Manchester 27 Greater Manchester Wilton Place Manchester 22 Greater Manchester Withington Road Manchester 32 Gloucestershire Ryecroft Gloucester 16 Hampshire Dickson House Fareham 28 Inner London Kelley House London 28 Inner London Tulse Hill London 27 Kent Dover Bail Dover 18 Lancashire Blackburn Blackburn 18 Leicestershire Howard House Leicester 20 Merseyside Curtis House Liverpool 15 Middlesex Corfton Road London 20 North Wales Ty Newydd Bangor 12 Northumbria Cuthbert House Gateshead 16 Northumbria Pennywell Sunderland 22 Oxfordshire Clarks House Oxford 26 South West London Kew London 14 South Yorkshire Town Moor Doncaster 22 Staffordshire Lichfield House Stafford 12 West Glamorgan Emroch House Port Talbot 12 West Midlands Stonnall Road Aldridge 12 West Midlands Sycamore Lodge Oldbury 32 West Yorkshire Howden House Leeds 27 West Yorkshire Walmer Villas Bradford 18 Total 602