§ Mr. HoyleTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his future prison building plans.
§ Mr. Peter LloydResponsibility 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 Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 4 May 1994:
The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the new prison building programme.A further six new prisons are planned under the prison building programme. On 2 September 1993 the Home Secretary announced that the design, construction, management and potential financing of future new prisons would be contracted out to the private sector. It is intended that all six of the planned new prisons will be procured in this way.Sites at Fazakerley in Merseyside and at Bridgend in South Wales have been identified for the first two prisons. The proposals to build a prison on the Fazakerley site was the subject of a non-statutory public local inquiry held between 26 October and 10 November 1993 and we are awaiting the outcome. We have outline planning clearance to build a prison on the site at Bridgend. If we obtain planning clearance for a new prison on the Fazakerley site we expect construction work on the site and on the Bridgend site to begin in 1995–96 and the two prisons to open as early as possible in 1997–98.Work is currently in progress to identify suitable sites for the other four prisons and it is too early to indicate a timetable for their construction and opening.