§ Mr. George HowarthTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will list the circumstances under which payments, other than the usual monthly contractual payments, are made to privately operated prisons; [18716]
(2) If he will list the payments which the Prison Service (a) has made and (b) plans to make to each privately operated prisons, other than the usual monthly contractual payments and the reasons for these payments. [18717]
§ Miss WiddecombeResponsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. George Howarth, dated 20 March 1997:
The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about extra-contractual payments to the operators of privately managed prisons.Excluding the regular monthly payments required by contract (which vary from prison to prison), additional sums paid in the last year have included:
- discharge grants
- some probation costs
- improvements to remedy latent defects in the fabric of the prisons (where prison buildings were provided by the Prison Service)
- capital costs introduced throughout the Prison Service (such as electrical work in cells and to accommodate overcrowding)
- changes in the service requirements, such as extra court escort commitments
- additional operational requirements, such as mutual aid between prisons
These payments are negotiated on a commercial-in-confidence basis.These costs, where relevant, have been taken fully into account in the two studies comparing the costs of contracted out prisons with directly managed prisons (by Coopers and Lybrand for 1994–95 and the Home Office Economic Unit for 1995–96). It is not possible to predict when such payments may be necessary in future.