HC Deb 04 May 1994 vol 242 cc515-6W
Mr. Burns

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home department (1) when work will be completed on sanitation at Chelmsford prison to enable slopping out to be ended; and if he will make a statement;

(2) what measures are being taken to reduce prisoner numbers at Chelmsford prison.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

Responsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from A. J. Butler to Mr. Simon Burns, dated 4 May 1994: The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Questions about Chelmsford prison. Integral sanitation has now been installed in most of the cells at Chelmsford. The work to complete the installation in the remaining 65 cells is scheduled to be completed in September this year. On 26 April there were 363 prisoners in Chelmsford prison. Although the prison's certified normal accommodation is 217, its operational capacity is 381. Chelmsford serves the courts in Essex and its prison population is determined by the numbers remanded or awaiting trial or sentence. Sentenced prisoners are quickly transferred to training prisons in the region, in order to reduce pressure on places in Chelmsford. As another measure to ease this pressure, the prison's Bail Information Unit interviews remand prisoners in order to alert the courts to cases suitable for conditional bail. Two new houseblocks are to be built and the first should be ready for occupation in 1996. These are intended to allow existing double cells to be converted for single use. The net effect of each block will be to provide 37 extra places.

Mr. Burns

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the average number of prisoners in Chelmsford prison in each of the last six months.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from A. J. Butler to Mr. Simon Burns, dated 4 May 1994: The Secretary of State has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question about the average number of prisoners in Chelmsford prison in each of the last six months. The available information for the historical prison population is for the last day of each month. It is given in the attached table for the period October 1993 to March 1994.

Prison population in Chelmsford: October 1993 to March 1994
End of month Population
1993
October 321
November 359
December 315
1994
January 321
February 349
March 364

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