Miss LEEasked the Home Secretary if he will appoint women to serve on all boards of visitors of convict prisons and Borstal institutions and on advisory committees in connection with preventive detention prisons?
§ Mr. CLYNESThere are women on the board of visitors and advisory committee for the women's convict and preventive detention prison at Liverpool, and all the members of the board of visitors at the Aylesbury Borstal Institution for girls are women. As regards the convict prisons for men and Borstal institutions for boys, I am afraid I cannot give any undertaking. I must be free, when vacancies arise, to appoint the most suitable person available, but I should, of course, regard a woman as eligible, and I think women might be specially useful at the boys' Borstal institutions.
Miss LEEasked the Home Secretary if he will consider the early appointment of a woman commissioner of prisons with authority to visit all convict and local prisons, all Borstal institutions, and to serve on all boards for the appointment of prison officers?
§ Mr. CLYNESI recognise that the question of associating a woman with the headquarters staff of the Prison Department ought to be considered if opportunity arises, but there would be financial objection to creating an additional post for this purpose, when the total prison population is declining and the women prisoners form only 7 per cent. of the total. It is usual to have a woman on the selection committees for the posts of governors or housemasters.