§ LORD MANCROFTasked Her Majestys' Government:
Whether they are yet ready to announce their decision about the future of Dartmoor Prison.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORYes. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has 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, 1249WA wider considerations of policy which could be no more than touched upon at the inquiry, and my right honourable friend has 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 penal treatment, must be the decisive factors. He has therefore decided that a new prison should not be built at Princetown, and that the existing prison 1250WA 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 right honourable friend's decision is being sent to the interested bodies represented at the inquiry.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes past six o' clock.