§ Mr. Liddallasked the Home Secretary whether he has considered representations to establish another Departmental committee to consider matters relating to our prison system; and whether, bearing in mind the fact that the whole field of penal reform was so recently covered by the Criminal Justice Bill, he will refuse to embark on unnecessary public expense in this matter until after the war?
§ Mr. H. MorrisonI could not accept my hon. Friend's suggestion that because a number of questions connected with the treatment of offenders were discussed in the Debates on the Criminal Justice Bill there is no need or no room for any further inquiry as to the possibility of improving our prison system; nor could I give the undertaking he seeks in the last part of the Question that no consideration will be given to the matter before the end of the war. It is, I think, one of the matters which in any case will have to be dealt with in the period of postwar reconstruction, but I am not in a position to make any statement on the subject at the present time.