HC Deb 21 October 1992 vol 212 cc298-9W
Ms. Quin

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress his Department has made in implementing the recommendations of the Woolf report on remand prisoners.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

Progress has been as follows:

  1. (a) The assisted prison visits scheme was extended from 1 April 1991 to apply to the families of unconvicted prisoners from the date of the prisoner's reception into custody.
  2. (b) Guidance on visits by relatives and friends of unconvicted prisoners on the lines recommended in the Woolf report was issued to governors in May 1991.
  3. (c) A statement of principle on unconvicted prisoners has been adopted, as announced on 15 July in the reply I gave to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) at column 783.
  4. (d) Bail information schemes are now in operation at 18 local prisons and remand centres and are under consideration at a similar number. The aim is to have schemes at all such establishments by 1995.
  5. (e) The particular needs of unconvicted prisoners are covered
    1. (i) in a model regime for local prisons and remand centres, which is about to be issued as a framework for planning enhanced regimes, and
    2. (ii) in guidance to be issued shortly on the management of reception and induction arrangements.

Action is in hand on other aspects of the Woolf report relating to unconvicted prisoners, as indicated in the White Paper "Custody, Care and Justice".

Ms. Quin

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information his Department holds about the number of remand prisoners in the United Kingdom currently being held in the same cells as convicted prisoners.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

Information on the number of remand prisoners sharing cells with convicted prisoners is not collected centrally. The prison service seeks to keep unconvicted and convicted prisoners separate but the two classes of prisoner are held in the same wings, and occasionally even share cells, where the alternative would be to increase the overcrowding of part of the prisons or lead to prisoners being held in police cells. In particular, prisoners being segregated for their own protection may be mixed in this way because of limited accommodation.