House of Commons Hansard Debates for 28 Jan 1992

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recently kept mini-pigs in solitary confinement for 14 months while it exposed them three times a week to ultra -violet light to test for sun damage to the skin. What price now that golden suntan? In 1990, in Britain alone, more than 4,000 procedures for testing cosmetics and toiletries were carried out using live animals-- mainly guinea pigs and rabbits--to say nothing of the huge numbers carried out by parent companies abroad.

What sort of tests are we talking about? One of the most inhumane must surely be the Draize eye test conducted on rabbits, which are pinned down to have substances dropped regularly into their eyes to see if they blister or bleed. Rabbits are chosen, of course, because they have very poor tear ducts and cannot wash away the substances easily. In 1990, 300 such tests were carried out.

Another common test for skin irritancy is where a rabbit or guinea pig has its back shaved and a substance rubbed in it and it is held in place for weeks on end. Sometimes the rabbit's back is roughened up with hypodermic needles or sandpaper. Often, the results are cracked skin, blistering and bleeding.

Do we really need to use animals at all to test cosmetics and their ingredients. The answer is no. There are plenty of alternative and more reliable methods. Computer models, chemical models, reconstructed skin tests, the use of isolated skin tissues and human volunteers can all be used to test for irritancy, allergy, cancer risk and exposure to light.

Add to that the fact that animal tests are unreliable, and the justification for using them vanishes. Comparative tests carried out at the Huntingdon research centre using mice, guinea pigs, mini-pigs, piglets, rabbits, dogs and baboons showed that the tests produced different results on different animals. So how can they be expected to produce reliable results for human use? As Professor Salzbury, researching for Pfizer, said when asked to comment on the reliability of animal testing :

"We would be better off tossing a coin".

At least there would be a 50 : 50 chance of being right. There could perhaps be occasions when animal testing for medical reasons might be justified, so clearly a line must be drawn between products that are genuinely

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medical and those that claim to be medical-- just because an ad man sells them that way. I am thinking of all the claims made for the various toothpastes, for example. In the same way, the British consumer is all too often conned because there is no legal definition of the term "cruelty-free" and no dictionary of acceptable ingredients such as the one that operates in the United States. As more than 8,000 ingredients have already been established as safe to use, I suggest that the only excuse companies have to use animal tests to extend that list is profit. I contend that the need to protect innocent animals from the clutches of such international profiteers is paramount.

The current European campaign seeks to ban any cosmetic product or ingredient that has been tested on animals, and Britain can give a clear lead here. Under the terms of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, all procedures must be covered by a project licence. Section 5(4) of the Act allows the Home Secretary discretionary powers to refuse to grant a licence where he feels the adverse effect on the animals outweighs any benefits that are likely to accrue.

I therefore ask the Home Secretary to refuse to grant new licences for animal testing for cosmetic purposes, as there are already plenty of ingredients available for new products and plenty of equally--if not more-- reliable methods for cosmetic testing. At the same time, I ask the Government to give a legal definition to toiletries and cosmetics so that they may not be confused with medical products. I also ask that a dictionary of acceptable ingredients be compiled so that the British consumer is protected against false claims when buying cosmetics.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie, Mr. Don Dixon, Sir Teddy Taylor, Mr. Alan Meale, Mr. Phillip Oppenheim, Mr. Jimmy Wray, Mr. Gordon McMaster, Mr. Frank Haynes, Mr. James Pawsey, Mr. Archy Kirkwood and Mr. Norman Hogg.

Animal Experimentation (Cosmetics)

Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie accordingly presented a Bill to prohibit the use of animals in the development and testing of cosmetics : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 14 February and to be printed. [Bill 59.]

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Orders of the Day

Prison Security Bill

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Clause 1

Offence of prison mutiny

4.45 pm

Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) : I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 1, line 8, leave out two' and insert six'.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : With this, it will be convenient to take the following : amendment No. 5, in page 1, line 9, leave out from prison' to end of line 14 and insert together use or threaten violence for the common purpose of overthrowing lawful authority in that prison.'.

Government amendment No. 7.

Amendment No. 8, in page 1, line 15, leave out subsection (3). Government amendment No. 9.

Mr. Sheerman : It is with some pleasure that I rise to speak to the amendment, partly because the present Bill differs in important respect from that which entered the Standing Committee. Since the Bill came out of Committee, the Government have undergone something of a conversion to the views expressed by the Opposition in Committee and have conceded one of our main objections to the Bill on Second Reading.

The purpose of amendment No. 4 is simple. Under the Bill as drafted, the offence of prison mutiny can be committed by just two people. As I speak to the amendments, to which I shall refer by number, I shall be explaining that the Government have made an important concession. We do not underrate that concession but we remain unhappy with one or two aspects of the Bill and we hope to secure more changes in it before it completes its passage through Parliament. This is not the time to gloat but, being a politician, I feel that I must say that we told the Government that the Bill was imperfect and required important modifications. Our arguments were so persuasive that we attracted some allies from the Conservative Benches.

Mr. David Ashby (Leicestershire, North-West) : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that not only Opposition Members were responsible for persuading the Government, and that I may have played my part in the changes? I have some cause to gloat.

Mr. Sheerman : I take that point. The hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) and I will both have a little gloat and then get on with discussing amendment No. 4, the purpose of which is to improve the Bill still further.

We left the Standing Committee thinking that, if the Government made a concession, the first concession that they were likely to make would be that embodied in amendment No. 4. In Committee, the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West argued persuasively that the number of people whose involvement constituted a prison

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disturbance or mutiny should be more than two. The Minister of State promised to think seriously about that. As the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West pointed out perceptively, if the figure is set at two, what two or three prisoners get up to in a cell could be construed as a riot under the Bill, and the 10-year penalty could be incurred. We were therefore somewhat surprised that the Government had not moved on the numbers question.

Today, we offer the Government an honest compromise of not 12 prisoners but six. It would be a very positive step if we could agree on six, which is a more sensible number than two. We argued in Committee that the number was too low and suggested that 12 would bring it into line with the offence of riot in the Public Order Act 1986, which also carries a 10-year prison sentence. The Minister was unable to accept that suggestion, but said that there had been forceful argument in favour of a lower number and that she would reconsider the matter. We have not heard the result of that reconsideration. Perhaps when the right hon. Lady gets to her feet she will give us some more positive news. Six seems to us to be the number that reasonable people trying to improve the Bill and to reach an accommodation could accept.

The reason behind the precise wording of the amendment is twofold. First, the notion that two people could commit such an offence in a prison seems far-fetched in the extreme. We have to pinch ourselves sometimes to remind ourselves that this Bill was considered necessary as a result of the Strangeways riot. The Government, again, got their response out of proportion to what had occurred. This was a crisis ; a ghastly wave of prison riots and disturbances and the Government had every right to be concerned and to do something about it. But to do something about it in this particular way seems to us to resemble the personal imprint which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State seems to have imposed on the Home Department.

We have a domestic crisis--it may be dogs one day, a prison riot on another, political refugees on another, the number of offences of taking and driving away cars on another--and the Home Secretary thinks up yet another piece of instant legislation that he can whip through the House of Commons, because we do not seem to have much of a legislative jam at the moment. We have a small, speedy piece of legislation to react to every ill.

Mr. William Cash (Stafford) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Sheerman : I will just finish my point ; then I will give way. A Bill comes to the House, goes to Committee, we get to Report, and in some cases deal with Lords amendments, and then the whole thrust of the legislation is changed. We saw it on the question of political refugees, with three major amendments, last week ; we saw it in terms of the dog legislation ; and we shall see it, I predict, in terms of the Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Bill We have seen it now, with a glitzy piece of legislation to get the press headlines. When the Bill gets serious scrutiny here, it is shown to be what it is--a fancy, rather than a serious, piece of legislation.

Mr. Cash : I served on the Committee with the hon. Gentleman and, before he got to the Floor of the House where a bit more attention might be paid to what he was saying, he made a number of rather reasonable and constructive attempts to improve the Bill in his own way.

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Now, however, he is just trying to make cheap political points. He is implying that there is no real need for these proposals. He acknowledged in Committee, by the way in which he approached the proceedings then, that the Bill was necessary. It really is not good enough for him to try to make cheap political points. There is no substance whatever in the line that he is taking.

Mr. Sheerman : You are long enough in the tooth in this place, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I am, to know that a cheap political point on one side is seen as a valuable political contribution on the other.

In Committee, our job as Her Majesty's Opposition, very soon to become Her Majesty's Government, is to take these matters extremely seriously. We try to fulfil our role very seriously indeed, as we will when we are Her Majesty's Government. I would not be doing my job as Opposition spokesman on this issue if I did not give the general context of our resistance to, and our pledge not to go in for, short, sharp bits of legislation in every crisis. This Bill has to be seen in that context. Our job as the Opposition is to try to improve this legislation. The hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West knows that. That is what we tried to do in Committee and what we will continue to do today. We do the work of transforming a nutty, ill- considered piece of legislation into something that does not disgrace the country or the Government.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mrs. Angela Rumbold) : It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman persists in saying that this legislation has been brought forward rather quickly. I remind the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's predecessor proposed that there should be such legislation. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that this is not a reaction to a situation which has grown in a very short space of time. It is a well considered and, as I hope he will admit, necessary piece of legislation to deal with the situation within prisons. Without it, we shall not be able to achieve some of the other reforms that we want.

Mr. Sheerman : I do not agree with a word of that. The legislation is ill considered. It was seen to be necessary to do something in terms of Strangeways. The right hon. Lady knows the argument, but I will rehearse it for her very briefly.

An intelligent and serious response to the Woolf commission report would have been a thorough look at the way in which our penal system, under her Government, has fallen to pieces. Instead, we get a cheap-jack piece of legislation that deals not with the real problems but only with the superficial situation. The Opposition deplore that kind of legislative response.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Kenneth Baker) : The hon. Gentleman is digging himself into a very deep hole. I must assist him, because it is cruelty to animals, almost. He has said that the Government have reacted irresponsibly in all these measures. We shall take the opportunity to remind the country, when the election comes, that the Opposition have tried to water down and reduce the impact of all the recent measures that we have introduced. He mentioned the Asylum Bill. His party voted against that Bill last week.

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Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. We have had some pleasant exchanges in the run-up to this amendment. We must now get back to the amendment before us.

Mr. Baker : I will restrain myself from reminding the House about the Asylum Bill and about how the Opposition voted against the Aggravated Vehicle-Taking Bill, but I will remind the House that they have jibbed at the present Bill as well. They have always said that this measure is not necessary. I can assure the House that this measure is necessary to deal with unrest in our prisons, as my right hon. Friend will make clear in a few moments.

Mr. Sheerman : I have only one riposte, Madam Deputy Chairman--

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I have been very tolerant. We are dealing with amendments. The amendment stands in the hon. Gentleman's name and I hope that he will continue to debate it.

Mr. Sheerman : I will say only that the reason why we are critical of the Government is that they have failed, on the question of law and order, to bring law and order to this country. We want substantial legislation and substantial action, not these bits and pieces of legislation. Our people want to live in peace. The Government will not allow them to do so.

We are interested in the Government accepting amendment No. 4 to improve this legislation. It would change the numbers. We have rehearsed the arguments reasonably well and we have been joined by members of the Committee on both sides in asking the Government to consider this. It does seem to be an absurdity that only two people need to be involved for an incident to be deemed a riot, and we shall be pressing the amendment very strongly indeed.

Mr. Ashby : The hon. Gentleman knows that I argued for a larger number than two in Committee, but that was when there were subsections 2(a) and (b). Once (b) goes, we are left with this very strong offence indeed of overthrowing lawful authority. It is not just a minor matter ; it is a very big matter. It is not the sort of thing that would be the result of just sitting in a cell ; one does not conduct oneself in such a way as to overthrow lawful authority by just sitting in a cell. Prisoners would not just sit there saying, "Wouldn't we like to do this, wouldn't we like to do that?" What is required is unlawful conduct. In those circumstances, should not the number be as in the general law of conspiracy, where it is two or more for most offences? Because we have concentrated on a big offence, is it not time to drop the requirement for six, or four, or 12 and be content with two, given the enormous change of mind by the Government, which I gloat over because it was the result of my persuading?

5 pm

Mr. Sheerman : I thank the hon Gentleman for his intervention but cannot agree with him, because the small number is still a worrying aspect of the Bill. He put his finger on it extremely well in Committee, when he said that the Bill was a mish-mash. Sometimes one wonders about the Home Office. Obviously, the Home Secretary or Ministers asked for a Bill to serve a certain purpose. As we explored the Bill in classic fashion, what we found was a mish-mash between public order and the notion of riot.

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The Bill takes from other legislation the offence of mutiny in the armed services. Every time the right hon. Lady got into a discussion on it, it became clear that the drafters of the legislation had never made up their minds whether the Bill was about prison mutiny or prison riot. In Committee, we tried to make it clear that the two were not the same. It might be applicable to say that two people in the armed services refusing to fire on the enemy as the enemy advanced were committing mutiny, because only two could be detrimental to good order in a regiment in a battle situation. That is understandable.

Can one imagine two prisoners running amok in a prison and causing a riot, whether they run amok in their cells or outside? That is the point on which the Minister failed to convince us. I still believe that the Bill could be improved in that regard.

Mr. Nicholas Soames (Crawley) : The hon. Gentleman is making a fair argument, but surely two prisoners engaging in a disturbance could quickly become four prisoners, then six and then eight. As we saw in the riots in Strangeways, these incidents escalate very quickly. Surely two is a sensible number.

Mr. Sheerman : Knowing his record on the Government Benches, I thought that the hon. Gentleman was intervening on the basis of being an expert on mutiny. He makes a fair point that two soon becomes four and then six. We say that the trigger number is probably more sensible at six, which can be identified more realistically. We have had the concession from the Government in regard to two people doing something non-violent. On the other hand, two people acting even in an obstreperous way might fall under the legislation when their behaviour did not amount to riot, mayhem or disorder. We are trying to make a positive point.

The second reason for the amendment was given in Committee not just by the Opposition but by the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West. The number of people who can be guilty of mutiny must be higher than the number living in one cell. I hope that the right hon. Lady will come back on that. It would be wrong for behaviour in a cell to be caught by the legislation and to carry the maximum sentence of 10 years. Because of the cramped conditions in which three men may share a cell, difficulties can arise which should not fall foul of the legislation. We are offering a compromise in suggesting that the number be six. I hope that the Government will accept the amendment in the spirit that we are not tied to six, but think that two is too few.

Amendment No. 5 goes to the very heart of the difference between us on the Bill. We are trying to ensure that the offence of prison mutiny consists of actual violence or the threat of violence to overthrow lawful authority in a prison. It is a measure of the extent to which the Government have lost their way in the Bill that the Opposition should need to propose the amendment.

The Bill was conceived as a response to the appalling scenes which we witnessed at Strangeways and other prisons. No one denies that we should be protected from that mayhem and disorder and that public property should be protected from such damage. Those scenes were characterised by violent behaviour and enormous destruction. It is such incidents which we are all concerned to eradicate and which concern the public. The original

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intention of the legislation was to tackle just such incidents. However, that intention seems to have got lost in drafting. In Committee we were told repeatedly by the Minister of State that the Bill was dealing not with riot, which was what we were all concerned about, but with mutiny. I can refer the right hon. Lady to her words if she wishes.

In introducing the concept of mutiny from legislation dealing with the armed forces, the Government have changed the whole purpose of the Bill. As originally drafted, the Bill would have encompassed a wide range of non- violent protest, for which the draconian penalty of 10 years' imprisonment would have been inappropriate.

The Government's decision to accept in Committee the Opposition amendment to remove subsection 2(b) was an enormously important change and removed the part of the Bill which we found most objectionable. I do not have to repeat my welcome for that, but that welcome change did not go far enough.

The offence of prison mutiny can still be committed where no violence, or threatened violence, has taken place. When we discussed the matter in Committee, both my colleagues and the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North -West continually pressed the Minister to give an example of behaviour which would warrant an offence of mutiny in which no violence or threat of violence took place. The hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) may be interested to know that what we were trying to find was a non-violent offence that would fall into that category. I do not believe that anyone in Committee was convinced by the examples that the Minister gave.

The right hon. Lady found herself in enormous difficulty. We heard of improbable situations in which prisoners strolled into communications rooms and, completely peacefully, refused all attempts by prison staff to move them. We had examples of prisoners sitting down or not going back to their cells, or collectively sitting in a room because, according to the Minister, they were

"disgruntled, unhappy and wish not to undertake to obey the lawful order of the prison."--[ Official Report, Standing Committee D, 19 December 1991 ; c. 41.]

Those are incidents which occur frequently in prisons and which officers are trained to handle. That is their expertise. Such incidents are dealt with currently under rule 47.19 of the prison rules, which makes it a disciplinary offence for a prisoner to disobey any lawful order. Such behaviour does not warrant a 10-year sentence, nor is it behaviour about which the public is concerned. As the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North -West said in Committee :

"We should not allow the sort of offences that are dealt with under rule 47.19 to be included here. We must be sure to draw a clear line between those two sorts of offences so that we can deal with serious cases such as those that we have seen in the past 12 months. I am not sure that the clause is very helpful. In every serious case that we consider there is violence or the threat of violence."--[ Official Report, Standing Committee D, 17 December 1991 ; c. 35-6.] It is absolutely necessary for the element of violence to be present.

It is the Opposition's view that legislation must be precisely phrased. Clause 1 is still open to abuse. It could be used for behaviour which is non-violent and simply does not warrant an offence carrying a 10-year maximum. Our amendment would ensure that the new offence was focused on the sort of behaviour about which we are all greatly concerned.

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Mr. Peter Archer (Warley, West) : Will my hon. Friend confirm that we are not concerned purely with the precision of the Bill? Lord Justice Woolf was concerned that the prison system should be part of the system of justice and that prisons must be seen to be run justly. Will my hon. Friend confirm that we are principally concerned that the Bill would mean that prisoners were treated unjustly?

Mr. Sheerman : I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for bringing me back to Lord Justice Woolf and the principles that underlie the arguments that we made in Committee. I was taking that for read and also saving it up for my Third Reading speech. However, I happily concede that point to my right hon. and learned Friend. I am delighted that the Government have decided to accept amendment No. 7, which we moved in Committee. At that time we received a frosty response to it. Clause 1(2)(b), which the amendment removes, was the most worrying aspect of this badly drafted Bill. The wording was vague and the type of behaviour that it encompassed was so wide that it could have covered an enormous range of non -violent protest and disobedience. To take the point that my right hon. and learned Friend has just made, it would have led to a feeling of injustice if it had been used for such offences. Tragically, it would have led to a reaction that could, ironically, have produced the very behaviour to which the Bill intends to put an end. Therefore, the words "collectively resist, impede or disobey any exercise of lawful authority in the prison in such circumstances as to make their conduct subversive of order in the prison."

required no intent to overthrow lawful authority and could have covered a handful of prisoners protesting about prison food, refusing to work, or being involved in a peaceful protest about their innocence. I shall not labour the point but simply welcome the Government to the world of common sense.

Amendment No. 8 seeks to remove clause 1(3), which provides that prisoners' intention and common purpose is to be inferred from their conduct. In other words, the mens rea or mental element of an offence does not have to be proved by the prosecution. I shall explain that provision under the watchful eye of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer). In English law, it is usual for the prosecution to have to prove not only that the conduct took place but that the defendant intended it to occur or was at least reckless of the consequences. Under the Bill, there is no need to prove that a prisoner intended to overthrow lawful authority in a prison. That would be less important if the offence were limited to violence or the threat of violence, but the clause is still unsatisfactorily vague. It can still cover non-violent protest and, in those cases, the prisoners' intentions will be very important. The amendments hang together, and their coherence is important. Our argument in Committee was a coherent response to the Bill. We said that, if that subsection remains in the Bill, other parts must be changed to compensate for the earlier mistake. By arguing that the non-violent aspect must be removed from the Bill, we argue that subsequent amendments must also be accepted. I hope that the Minister of State will see the clarity of purpose in our tabling of those amendments and wishing to hold them together.

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5.15 pm

Although the problem would be less important if the offence were limited to violence or the threat of violence, the clause can still cover non-violent cases, in which case the prisoners' intention is not only important but it is vital that it should be known. Prisoners may simply be involved in a protest about conditions or alleged miscarriages of justice and the prosecution should have to prove that they intended to overthrow authority in the prison. To leave their intention to be inferred from their conduct is a recipe for miscarriages of justice.

Those are the main amendments that we have tabled. We feel some satisfaction that the Government have given way on a fundamental part of the Bill to which we objected. That is a major victory for common sense. If the Government would now see that the three other amendments are consequential to that major concession, we shall improve the Bill, if not this afternoon, by the time it returns from another place.

Sir John Farr (Harborough) : I wish to do what little I can to help my right hon. Friend the Minister of State to get the Bill on to the statute book. I was interested in the points raised by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman). I am confident that the Bill is not just window dressing.

Gartree prison is in my constituency and most of the prisoners there are lifers and even multiple-lifers. The Bill has limited relevance to such prisoners. Whether two or six prisoners are assembled, whether they

"use or threaten violence for the common purpose of overthrowing lawful authority in that prison".

or whether we accept amendment No. 7 has little relevance to life prisoners.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of State has always been frank about such matters and I hope that she will recognise that the Bill is tailor made to deal with specific problems. I do not see how life prisoners will be affected by any of the amendments. Will my right hon. Friend deal with that point? She may say that the Bill should not apply to prisons such as Gartree, in which case I recognise that there is a need elsewhere. It would have been improper for me to allow the amendments to go through without making that brief comment.

Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : The Government's concession in amendment No. 7 seems to call into question the need for the Bill. It changes the Bill fundamentally, and gave rise to considerable concern among prison governors about the damage that the Bill might inflict on prison discipline. To impose such draconian penalties on those who merely disobey or impede the exercise of lawful authority in the prison makes the Bill an obstacle rather than an assistance to good order.

As the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) said, the fact that the Government have withdrawn that offensive and dangerous subsection is a triumph for common sense, but that raises the question of what is left in the Bill. The Bill relates to circumstances that are adequately covered by the existing law on conspiracy. I am at a loss to understand why public order offences, coupled with the charge of conspiracy, are not considered by the Government to be perfectly adequate to deal with outbreaks of violence or the threat of violence, which leads to the breakdown of order of the kind that was manifest at Strangeways.

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I have been driven to the inevitable conclusion that, in introducing the Bill, the Government were seeking a cheap headline. That was their response to the disturbances at Brixton and Strangeways. The introduction of such little Bills is a form of boutique shopping.

Mrs. Rumbold Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House how many prisons that he has visited recently have just experienced disturbances?

Mr. Maclennan : I have not recently visited a prison that had experienced a disturbance. However, just as the Secretary of State for Education and Science did not think it necessary to visit a single primary school during the first six months he was in office to be able to pronounce on education, I did not consider it necessary to visit a prison, particularly as prison governors are perfectly capable of expressing their views. In any event, their views are much better informed than mine, which are formed on the basis of a casual, short visit to a prison where a disturbance has taken place. Perhaps, unlike the Minister, I listen to what the prison governors say. On Second Reading, I specifically asked what representations had been made by the prison governors, but the Minister patently avoided answering me. She must know that the Bill is extremely unwelcome to the prison governors because they see it for what it is--a cheap attempt to grab the headlines in the tabloid press to suggest that the Government are doing something about prison disturbances.

Mr. Soames : I must take exception to the hon. Gentleman's ludicrous line of argument. If he really believes in his case, he should make a much better fist of it. It is just possible that the prison governors, who are a very fine body of men, may be wrong. For many years, since the Prison Officers Association virtually took over the running of prisons, the prison governors have not been in a position to exert the authority that they should. For the hon. Gentleman to suggest that prison governors are not in favour of the Bill is plainly not true.

Mr. Maclennan : I took the trouble prior to Second Reading specifically to ask the Prison Governors Association whether it welcomed the Bill or had invited the Government to legislate. I was told that it neither welcomed the Bill nor had invited the Government to introduce it.

It is not a matter of asking me for my view. The Government have the results of the inquiry into prison disturbances under Lord Justice Woolf and we have also had the most authoritative prison survey in a decade from Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, Judge Tumim. Not one line of that extensive report suggested that draconian measures of the kind contained in the Bill were necessary. I do not expect Conservative Members to pay the slightest attention to what Opposition Members say, but I expect them to pay attention to what their own chief inspector of prisons and their own inquiry into prisons said. There is not a whisper of support for the Bill, which I would call friendless, from any quarter that is knowledgeable about prisons. That is scarcely surprising. The Government have introduced an amendment to remove the offensive part of the Bill dealing with a non- violent situation. It is clear that there is nothing left in

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the Bill that cannot adequately be dealt with by the present law on conspiracy or the public order legislation, which the Government recently went some way towards codifying.

The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Huddersfield refers to a pretty vacuous Bill, which is more print than substance. It is unlikely that the Bill will be used a great deal. One must accept that if troubles occur that lead to the possibility of lawful authority being overthrown, they might have come about as a result of the action of two prisoners, or of fewer than six. I cannot see the logic in the suggestion that six is the right number to include in the Bill. Whether a conspiracy, as I would call it, has the potential to overthrow lawful authority depends entirely on the resources that are available to the two people.

Mr. Sheerman : The answer to the general principle of the amendment is the classic one that "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do". I chose the figure six as a negotiating ploy. My view on that number is not hard and fast, nor would I be bitterly ideological about it. I am entirely pragmatic. We chose the figure six--we could have chosen another. The hon. Gentleman was not fortunate enough to serve on the Committee, but we had a general discussion and we chose that figure so that the Minister could go away and chew on it.

Mr. Maclennan : I, too, have a pragmatic turn of mind. The hon. Gentleman may allow the point that two prisoners could theoretically overthrow lawful authority in a prison, if they are provided with sufficient means of force. Two prisoners overthrew lawful authority when they escaped from Brixton. I take it that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that it would not be proper to use the Bill in those circumstances. I do not think that it is necessary to use the Bill in those circumstances because there are common law and statutory law provisions which would allow those people to be prosecuted. If the Bill is to make any sense--it makes precious little--it does not make sense to pluck a number out of the air, be it six, four or eight prisoners. Two prisoners must be necessary to establish common purpose and a figure of two or more seems to be right.

I agree with amendment No. 8 and I hope that the Government will accept it, for the reasons that the hon. Member for Huddersfield gave. I need not amplify them.

Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale) : I spoke on Second Reading and I followed the progress of the Bill in Committee, even though I was not a member of it. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) said that "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do". I shall vote for the Bill on Third Reading and I will not require any help from the Whips to persuade me to do so. There is a valid argument in favour of the Bill.

I realise that on Second Reading much time was spent on the merits or otherwise of clause 1(2)(b). The Government are right to delete that paragraph because that makes the Government's intention much clearer. It was not the Government's intention to involve minor disturbances which perhaps would have been dealt with as disciplinary offences within the prison. We must recognise that some riots, such as that at Strangeways, were not spontaneous but the result of a detailed plan. Amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 8, tabled by the hon. Member for

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Huddersfield, would seriously undermine the Government's intentions as envisaged in the Bill. The real problem--

Mr. Sheerman rose --

Mr. Greenway : If the hon. Gentleman listens to my argument, he will begin to understand.

The point about the Bill is that it does not refer to riots or to violence. We should attempt to deal with the problem that, behind the scenes, as few as two prisoners with a great deal of influence on many other prisoners may conspire and incite others to commit an act of mutiny and riot, even though they themselves may not engage in violence or "use or threaten violence"-- the words that the Opposition amendment would introduce. Those words would be superfluous at best and at worst would undermine the purpose of tackling those who might incite a mutiny in a prison. We are interested in not only the violence, the destruction and the act of rioting but the initial conspiracy and incitement. I hope that my right hon. Friend will confirm that the Government intend to deal with those elements. Clause 1 leaves us with a serious offence--the "overthrowing" of lawful authority, which I read as meaning a breakdown of control by prison staff over part or all of a prison. That is what happened at Strangeways ; we have to tackle the planning of that sort of riot. That is why I believe that the Bill will strengthen the law on prison security. Opposition Members failed to point out the provisions of clause 2, which increase prison sentences for prison escapers as well.

5.30 pm

Mr. Robert Litherland (Manchester, Central) : In Committee and in this debate, hon. Members have expressed their anxiety about the lack of definitions and lack of clarification of detail in the Bill. In Committee for instance, we discovered that a prisoner found guilty of taking part in a mutiny could expect 10 years' imprisonment or could be fined, although the fine is not specified. Ten more years to a lifer or a fine for a prisoner with no income is fairly meaningless. The same vague definition is used to describe the number of persons constituting a mutiny--"two or more". The Bill does not explain how that figure was arrived at. Reference to "The Concise Oxford Dictionary" only enlightened me to the extent that the number of such persons must be plural. It refers to a body of people in revolt, and to soldiers and sailors, although not to other members of the armed forces. Regrettably, the dictionary, like the Bill, does not provide an adequate explanation, and I am left none the wiser. I am sure, however, that if approached the compliers of "The Concise Oxford Dictionary" would compromise on the numbers constituting a mutiny. If they would be so willing, why are not the Government? How can we possibly decide how many prisoners constitute a mutiny or a riot? Strangeways prison is in my constituency. As we all know, the biggest mutiny in British prison history took place there. The tabloid press informed us that more than 1,000 prisoners took part. Certainly, to judge by what I saw of its aftermath, two prisoners could not have done all that damage. How could we take all those prisoners to

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