§ Mr. Cohenasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the current level of educational lessons held at Holloway prison since the beginning of the current year; what is the number of such lessons cancelled because of staffing difficulties; how these figures compare with the two previous years; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MellorIn the two months since the start of this academic year, 183 classes took place out of a planned total of 810. Prison officers, among other duties, escort prisoners to and from classes and supervise them. Cancellations of classes were due to the shortage of prison officers for such work. The comparable figures for September and October 1985 were 220 classes out of 927 and for the same period in 1984, out of approximately 800 proposed classes, none took place.
As part of a review of the deployment of staff with a view to providing as positive a regime as possible at Holloway, new arrangements, taking advantage of the accommodation offered in the new education centre, are being implemented to allow greater flexibility in the deployment of prison officers supervising education activities. These arrangements are expected to reduce the number of occasions when all classes have to be cancelled and to increase the opportunities for prisoners to take part in education. In addition, vigorous action is in hand to deal with the basic problem of the shortage of prison officers at Holloway including an intensive recruitment campaign in the London area.