§ 71. Sir Studholmeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is yet ready to announce his decision about the future of Dartmoor Prison.
§ Mr. R. A. ButlerYes. I have studied with great care the report of the local public inquiry, a copy of which I am arranging to have placed in the library. The barrister who held the inquiry considered that, so far as a decision turned upon what was said at the inquiry, the Prison Commissioners should be allowed to build a new prison at Princetown. There are, however, wider considerations of policy which could be no more than touched upon at the inquiry, and I have come to the conclusion that the inconvenience of the site for the staff and their families, and the limitations which its isolated position imposes on the development of constructive methods of penal90W treatment, must be the decisive factors. I have therefore decided that a new prison should not be built at Princetown, and that the existing prison should be progressively demolished when, with the implementation of the prison building programme, other accommodation becomes available. A copy of the report and the letter announcing my decision is being sent to the interested bodies represented at the inquiry.