HC Deb 21 April 1988 vol 131 c519W
32. Mr. Butler

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent consideration he has given to employing the private sector to relieve overcrowding in the remand sector.

Mr. Douglas Hogg

I refer my hon. Friend to the statement on prisons which my right hon. Friend made to the House on 30 March at columns 1083–85. He announced then our intentions, as part of the measures we are taking to deal with the current and projected growth in the population, to invite the private sector to make proposals for the faster provision of urban remand facilities and open prisons, to publish a Green Paper and set up a consultancy on the scope for involving the private sector in all aspects of the remand system, and to examine the possibility of the private sector providing and managing secure bail hostels.