House of Commons Hansard Debates for 6 Jul 1992

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Prisons

10.14 pm

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd) : I beg to move,

That the draft Criminal Justice Act 1991 (Contracted Out Prisons) Order 1992, which was laid before this House on 21st February, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

This short but rather technical order is simple in its purpose. It extends the power in the Criminal Justice Act 1991 to contract out the management of a prison to new prisons holding sentenced prisoners. At present the Act is confined to new prisons holding an unsentenced population.

The greater flexibility to contract out provided by this order was the result of a Back-Bench amendment to the then Bill which the Government were persuaded to accept. I am delighted to see that its original sponsor, my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), is in his place tonight. The occasion to exercise that greater flexibility has now arisen.

On 5 December 1991 the Government announced that competitive tenders would be sought from the private sector for the management of Blakenhurst prison, currently under construction near Redditch, subject to the approval of Parliament and the receipt of satisfactory tenders.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary announced on 15 June 1992 that work on the operational specification for Blakenhurst had been completed and that it had been issued to potential contractors. Copies of the operational and training specifications were placed in the Library of the House. These, I am sure, will have helped to inform this evening's debate, giving, as they do, a clear indication of the standards and safeguards the Government are looking to achieve and which they confidently expect will be capable of delivery by the private sector.

The decision to invite tenders for Blakenhurst followed the successful tendering exercise at Wolds. When Wolds opened in April, it became the first privately operated prison in the country. The exercise showed that the private sector had much to offer. Many of the proposals put forward then demonstrated imagination and insight into the complex issues involved.

Prisoners at Wolds are able to spend 15 hours a day out of their cells within the secure confines of the prison and with the opportunity to participate in a programme consistent with the needs of a remand population. They have full access to legal assistance and generous opportunities for visits, telephone calls and letters. The Government believe that the benefits accruing to the remand population at Wolds should be more widely available to other sections of the prison population-- notably sentenced prisoners.

Mr. John Battle (Leeds, West) : As the Minister knows. I represent a Leeds constituency. Armley prison is situated in Leeds. So that we can have a comparison of the weekly subsidy from the Government, can the Minister tell me how much it costs a week, at current rates, to keep a prisoner at Wolds compared with how much it costs a week to keep a prisoner in Armley prison?

Mr. Lloyd : I cannot compare the cost of Wolds with the prison mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. As he knows,

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different prisons have different regimes and buildings of different sizes. Therefore, the costs are different. However, the tender for Wolds was no higher than the prison service estimated that it would be if it were to provide the manning for that prison. As the hon. Gentleman is so interested in comparisons, he may be interested in what I shall say later. Therefore, I hope that he will continue to pay attention to my remarks, as he has done so far.

To deliver benefits more widely in the prison service we have invited tenders for Blakenhurst, which will be a local prison with a capacity of 649 prisoners. It will hold remand, convicted and sentenced adult men. It will thus deepen and extend prison service experience of private management. The Blakenhurst specification extends to convicted and sentenced prisoners many of the regime improvements that the Wolds prison has brought to its remand population.

Contractors are invited to structure regimes on the premise that prisoners will be out of their cells from first unlock in the morning to final lock- up at night. An absolute minimum cell-free period of 12 hours a day must be achieved. All prisoners will be offered an initial education assessment and thereafter be entitled to a minimum of six hours education a week. Similar provision will be made for physical education, and great care has been taken to ensure that high standards are achieved in providing medical and suicide screening, including the involvement of such voluntary agencies as the Samaritans.

In addition, the sentenced prisoner's time in prison will be structured by a compact agreement. This will set out an understanding between the prisoner and the establishment on the likely profile of activities and goals and the level and timing of commitment that both parties have agreed to make the prison sentence positive and constructive.

Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West) : We all welcome what the Minister said about introducing the Samaritans into prisons, but is he aware that valuable research was undertaken in an American prison 10 years ago that involved inmates in reducing suicide among prisoners? Sadly, although I brought that information to the attention of one of his colleagues, it was not available in this country because the prison had been privatised and the information was copyright. Is not that the unacceptable face of privatised prisons that we shall have here as well?

Mr. Lloyd : If the information was copyright, those who hold the copyright have the power to release it. That has nothing to do with private prisons. I am puzzled by the hon. Gentleman's intervention. I think that he is confused, but if he will write to me I shall reply to him more thoughtfully.

Mr. Michael Stern (Bristol, North-West) : Does my hon. Friend agree that his description of the regime for a local prison will be the envy of many other local prisons such as Horfield, which is on the edge of my constituency? When will the tendering process that he has described for Blakenhurst be extended to other prisons?

Mr. Lloyd : Contractors will make bids and we shall see whether they can supply the regimes that we are seeking. Such a regime will not be widely available in the prison service, although many of its characteristics have been developed in various prison service prisons. The order will not extend tendering to prisons already operating in the

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prison service ; it deals specifically with brand new prisons. We are merely extending tendering from remand prisons to those that take sentenced prisoners.

The opportunity for prisoners to engage in productive activity for at least seven hours a day is an important feature of the specification. Contractors are invited to consider the extent to which local, commercial and industrial interests might become involved in order that prisoners can be paid the going rate for the job and from which deductions might be made to offset the cost of board and lodgings, family support and victims' reparation. The impact of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, in terms of preparing prisoners for release and the development of open reporting, will also be fully integrated into the regime. Most importantly, provision will also be made for the management of special category prisoners, including the treatment of sex offenders.

As at Wolds, prisoners at Blakenhurst will have the option of wearing their own clothing or, if their own clothes are unsuitable, of more frequent changes of prison clothing than is at present achievable in the public sector. They will be free to send as many letters as they wish, limited only by their own decision as to how much of their prison earnings they choose to spend on postage. Letters will be checked to prevent any illicit enclosure but will not otherwise be examined or read, except when there is reason to believe that it is necessary.

Visiting entitlement for convicted and sentenced prisoners will be set at a minimum of one visit a week of one hour's duration, twice the current statutory entitlement. Contractors will be invited to improve on that where possible. Facilities for evening visits from legal representatives and other professionals will also be made. The Government recognise that the prison service currently does a very difficult job, often in unpleasant environments. Following the report by Lord Justice Woolf, the prison service has made strenuous efforts to set new standards for itself and is making great progress towards implementing them. However, the Government believe that the element of competition provided by the private sector in bringing new ideas and, more importantly, new managerial methods to the running of prisons can provide additional benefits to the prison service and the prisoners.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : This is the first time in the 30 years that I have been a Member of the House that I have asked a question about prisons, partly for personal reasons. However, having listened to "The World at One", and having read about the issue, I have become more and more uncomfortable. The Minister talks about competition, but we are dealing with people whose freedoms have been taken away. I should like an answer to a simple question : is it proper for anyone other than the state to deal with people whose freedoms have been removed by the state? Is it proper to talk about competition in that context?

Mr. Lloyd : What is not proper is to stand in the way of the introduction of more positive, demanding and humane regimes such as that at the Wolds and that which is intended at Blakenhurst because of some prejudice--ideological or otherwise--to the private sector being part of it. Of course, the prisons will still be part of the prison service, as is the Wolds. They will take prisoners sentenced by the courts. The Home Office controller will be on duty.

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He is responsible for investigating any complaints that the prisoners might have and for ensuring that the prison is run according to the contract and in the manner that the Home Secretary and the House expect. It is merely prejudice to deny opportunities to prisoners such as those at the Wolds by saying that the private sector cannot properly be involved. If the private sector can produce superior regimes, it is improper that it should not be involved.

Mr. Derek Enright (Hemsworth) : Will the Minister allow the same sums of money to Armley, for example, as are to be allowed to the Wolds?

Mr. Lloyd : Yes. The whole point is that where there is no in-house competition the tendering process will not be met unless the tenders at least make a better offer than the usual prison service estimate of the costs of opening the prison. Of course, the prison service must make an estimate of what the opening of a prison will cost. It must decide on normal manning levels, according to the usual processes. We do not necessarily expect to save money with private management, but we expect to get very much better value for the money that is spent.

As I said, the order empowers the Government to contract out the management of new prisons. Naturally, the occasion is Blakenhurst and I have concentrated on our plans for that establishment. However, I want to make it clear that we expect to invite private sector tenders for each new prison that opens after Blakenhurst.

We also want to see the prison service in due course mount in-house bids for new prisons in competition with the private sector. There is at all levels in the prison service a huge reservoir of dedication, experience and managerial skills, which need to be brought together effectively.

I am sure the stimulus that private management is now starting to bring to the prison system will help to achieve the Government's overriding objective : to bring improved regimes--positive and constructive regimes, which everyone wants to see, and which Lord Justice Woolf catalogued in his report ; regimes which are designed to address systematically the particular offending behaviour of each prisoner and which help to fit that prisoner, as far as practicable, to resume his place in society, with a better chance of leading a useful and law-abiding life, and to do so as cost-effectively as possible.

I commend the order to the House.

10.30 pm

Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) : It seems that the Minister and I have been locked in Front-Bench home affairs issues--one side or the other- -for quite a long time. I am sure that we have reached the stage of being regarded as trusties in respect of these matters. I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his brief in the Home Office. I believe that this is the first time we have met in these circumstances. The hon. Gentleman was not involved in the passage of the long Criminal Justice Act 1991. During the debates on that legislation we discussed these matters in some detail. The hon. Gentleman said that the Government had given in to pressure from their Back Benchers by expanding the scope of that Act to embrace the privatisation not only of the remand sector but of institutions for sentenced prisoners. At the Committee stage we fought that very strongly and

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bitterly, and we continue to do so because we believe that that direction is wrong--wrong in principle, and wrong in terms of practicalities.

I have referred to the Minister's long service in the Home Office team. I do not remember exactly when he came to office, but I know that he has covered the whole gamut of opinion on privatisation. The right hon. Gentleman who is now Foreign Secretary set his face absolutely against privatisation. In July 1987 he said that there was no case at all for privatisation of the prisons, that there was not case at all for handing the business of keeping prisoners safe to anyone other than Government servants. I believe that the Minister who introduced this order was a member of the team of that Home Secretary in those days. Since then he has been led by various valleys--Ribble Valley, Mole Valley--and we have seen the changes in that time. Conveniently the hon. Gentleman has changed his tune with the arrival of each new boss.

His current boss is not from a valley, but he wants to push this even further. This boss has brought some baggage with him. It is not ideological baggage ; it is a kind of trick that he sets down in each department. He says, "Here we have a very interesting trick. It is called opt out'. It does wonders for the health service and the education service." And now we are told that it will do wonders for the prison service. It is very interesting that before the chickens come home to roost in any of these Departments, off goes the right hon. and learned Gentleman for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) to new pastures. We have seen what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has wrought in other Departments, and we fear the worst for the prison service.

We have debated private prisons on several occasions. Each time the Opposition have made clear their profound concern about the whole notion of privatising penal establishments. Indeed, many Conservative Members have shared our concern. The two parties are not always wholly divided on this. I know that hon. Members on both sides have deep misgivings about the trend of Government actions in this area. The key arguments against privatisation are those that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) encapsulated so well : it is wrong that anyone but the state should deprive men or women of their liberty or be directly responsible for prisoners throughout their sentences. The deprivation of liberty is the worst punishment that can be imposed on a person in this country. Certainly, the judiciary metes out the sentence, but once the sentence is given more is involved than just locking up a prisoner and educating and exercising him-- although such activities should take place in a good prison. There is also the assessment of a prisoner's fitness to be released. That is done not by the judiciary but by the men and women who supervise prisoners.

We believe that decisions about the fitness of an individual to be released should be made by servants of the state.

Mr. Tim Devlin (Stockton, South) : In that case, I am surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman--he has held his responsibility for some time now-- saying that the state does not make such decisions. Such assessments are

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carried out first by the Parole Board and, secondly, on the advice of the probation service, both of which will remain in the state sector.

Mr. Sheerman : The hon. Gentleman must know that the officers who run our prisons carry out day-to-day assessments of how prisoners obey the rules and how they fit into prison life--all of which feeds into the information on which the probation service and the Parole Board make their decisions. The relationship is highly complex. Imprisonment is a sensitive and often dangerous task. Ministers have underestimated its dangers. At Strangeways the bravery and resolute behaviour and reactions of the prison officers and the governor came into play. As we shall argue this evening, special circumstances obtain in prisons--circumstances to be found nowhere else.

It is repugnant that private companies should make a profit out of those whom the state decides to imprison.

Mr. Battle : The parallel with opted-out hospitals looms large. Members of Parliament cannot interrogate Ministers about these budgets. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow was right : we will not be able to know by how much these prisons are being subsidised, or to compare their budgets with those of prisons in the public sector such as Armley. We will know neither the profits nor the subsidies of private prisons.

Mr. Sheerman : My hon. Friend is right. Conservative Members have yet to learn that after every other privatisation accountability has been diminished. Already we cannot find out what is going on in Wolds prison. We are told that these matters are the subject of commercial confidentiality. The Minister came out with some fine words, but he did not say how much subsidy that prison receives ; neither would he tell us the costs associated with taking remand prisoners in the public prisons sector--at Armley and other gaols. The Minister would not provide a figure and compare it with the figure for the Wolds. Whenever I have asked the Minister or his predecessor how much subsidy is available to the Wolds I have been told that we have no right to know and the Government would not give us any figures. The accountability of the House for the prison service has begun to slip away and it will continue to do that. That is a serious condemnation of the Government. However, at the end of the day, they do not care about democratic government or accountability. They do not care about that in Europe or in this House. The Government are so used to Executive power that they would love this place to disappear as an effective scrutinising and checking body.

Mr. Peter Lloyd : The hon. Gentleman really is mistaken. There is a contract with the Wolds which details the expected outputs from the prison. He knows more about what is required from that prison than about any other prison in the prison service. That is infinitely clearer.

With regard to the costs, it is impossible to say that there is no subsidy in respect of the Wolds. Every penny is a subsidy paid by the state to the organisation to manage the prison. The figure is no more than the prison service estimated that it would have to spend to run that prison. However, the regimes are more extensive and positive than the prison service believes that it could provide for that money.

Mr. Sheerman rose--

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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : Order. Before the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) continues, I remind the Minister that he, too, must observe the formula for an intervention, not a speech.

Mr. Sheerman : I am happy that the Minister made that point. He is avoiding explaining why there has been no real comparison. The comparison that he gave was simply an estimate made by the Home Office. The prison service was never able to make an internal bid. That would have been the crucial cost evaluation. If the prison service had been able to bid for the Wolds, we would have seen the kind of subsidy given to the private security industry and, in particular, to Group 4.

Mr. Peter Lloyd : I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with the process if in-house bids are invited for new prisons at the same time that tenders are invited from outside.

Mr. Sheerman : We would be more content in terms of accountability and evaluation. However, that does not overcome the fact that we object to the privatisation of prisons in principle.

Let us continue with the argument in terms of principle. We believe that it is highly dangerous to build up a penal industrial complex whose members have a vested interest in keeping the prison population high--

Mr. Michael Stephen (Shoreham) : A penal industrial complex?

Mr. Sheerman : The hon. Member may laugh. It is interesting to note that another comedian has joined the Conservative Benches. I had thought that there was an oversupply of that kind of talent on the Government Benches.

I was making the serious point that if we pursue the privatisation of prisons, a large industry will develop. Over the past two or three years many hon. Members have been lobbied by the private prison groups. They are already organised and are paying political consultants and lobbying companies. Some of them have paid Conservative Members--not Labour Members- -to lobby for private prisons.

The prison industrial complex already existed and Conservative Members were taking the King's shilling years ago in respect of that professional lobby. That lobby will not go away. It will continue in respect of keeping the number of prisoners at a level that will ensure profits for the private security companies.

Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid Kent) : The hon. Gentleman is making a case which depends entirely on the nature of the contract. If, in time, the nature of the contract were to be so arranged that companies were paid in terms of the success with which they released into the community prisoners who did not reoffend, that part of his argument would fall.

Mr. Sheerman : We object to the principle of the private security industry acting in that way.

Mr. Oliver Heald (Hertfordshire, North) : Why?

Mr. Sheerman : Let me develop the argument further. Conservative Members who ask why were not members of the Standing Committee which considered the Bill. Time and again, we came back to the heart of our reservations, and that is that the private security industry is unregulated.

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At present, it cannot be held to any account in a regulatory sense. That means that there are a host of private security companies, some of them made up of cowboy operators employing people with criminal records. Some of the management have criminal records. There is no control of the private security industry.

We do not know what kind of private security company will bid. I am not talking only about blue chip companies being allowed to tender for the early two contracts. Later, as the lowest price becomes the objective of the Government, we shall see all kinds of middle, lower and smaller groups of companies bidding for the contracts when there is no regulation. The Minister will know that the Association of Chief Police Officers is desperately worried about the increase in cowboy private security operators, desperately worried that the Government will not introduce any regulation in the industry, and desperately worried that very sensitive matters of policing and prison administration will go to uncontrolled and uncheckable operators.

Dame Angela Rumbold (Mitcham and Morden) : I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that, when we considered the Criminal Justice Bill in Committee, we gave many undertakings that the people who were to be employed both in contracted-out prisons and, when it came to it, contracted -out services for transporting prisoners backwards and forwards, would be fully trained and fully answerable to the Home Office and the Home Secretary.

Mr. Sheerman : I shall refer to the right hon. Lady's performance and her words in Committee in a few moments. If she will hold her fire just for a moment, I shall remind her not only of her comments in Committee but of some others as well. We shall see whether she wants to intervene then.

We still believe that, despite criticisms by the Government, right hon. and hon. Members agreed on some objectives of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. The objectives were that we should try to keep in prison only people who should be in prison--that is, people who have committed such crimes that they have had to be locked up. In Committee, the right hon. Lady and I agreed on many objectives. We recognised the importance of ensuring that imprisonment is used only for those who have committed serious offences. What concerns us is that that attitude, which had all-party support and which moved in that fairly liberal direction, could be put into reverse by pressures, which the Government would underrate and ridicule, to increase the number of prisoners. One has only to look at the United States of America and Australia to see some of the problems that are emerging in the private sector.

Conservative Members do not believe that such lobbying does not take place or that the private security industry will lobby, not only for an increased share of the market but to make sure that the market exists. That will be an important part of its technique, and we are concerned that that might become dangerous.

Mr. Peter Butler (Milton Keynes, North-East) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Sheerman : Not for a moment.

We believe that the Government display a cavalier attitude to public safety by relying on the private security

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industry, with its appalling record. We are also gravely worried that control of security may be seriously compromised by the inexperienced employees of the private security industry. We already have reports of problems at Wolds prison. The Minister skated over them.

Mr. Stern : The hon. Gentleman enjoys every such incident.

Mr. Sheerman : The hon. Gentleman says that, but no Opposition Member wants problems in any part of our prison system. The last thing that we want is for people to be hurt or damage to be caused in any of our prison institutions.

When we hear that there have been problems at the Wolds, we are able to say to the Government, "We told you that the training and the staff that you employ are inadequate for the task." Indeed, as someone said in The Independent on the same day as the Home Secretary made his visionary call for expansion in the private sector, the prisoners in the Wolds have far more experience of a prison regime than anyone running the prison. That is the problem. When the two incidents occurred at the Wolds it was with deep regret that we reminded the Government that we had said that such problems would arise.

Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) : Has the hon. Gentleman managed to get out of the Government any more specific admission about what has happened at the Wolds than many of us seem to have obtained so far? Does he believe that the troubles extend to a high rate of staff turnover and the exclusion of legitimate press inquiries into what is happening?

Mr. Sheerman : The hon. Gentleman is right. I am not sure whether he was here when I referred to the mountain of security which was put round the Wolds prison when people sought to find out what was happening. It is a cause for anxiety that Members of Parliament cannot hold the Minister accountable for what happens at the Wolds. We get the brush off when we ask about its financing and its running. If there is a disturbance at the Wolds it seems that there is a cloak of secrecy. We hear that all the staff have been sworn to secrecy and that the governor is not allowed to make public comment. The lid is put on any publicity about what is happening in the Wolds.

Mr. Peter Lloyd : Quite the reverse. The director of the Wolds tells the press about problems that have occurred. He made a particular point of doing so, knowing the untrue rumours that had been put around.

There have been three substantial incidents at the Wolds. That is about average for most prisons. Prisons are places where problems arise. The interesting thing about the Wolds is that each of those difficulties was settled with great skill and competence. That has given extra confidence to the staff. It has given the Home Secretary extra confidence in them. None of the incidents involved any violence whatever.

Mr. Sheerman : It is obvious that the Minister has better information than us. The point that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon- Tweed (Mr. Beith) and I make is that the House should have the information that the Minister

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has. We want to know what is going on in the Wolds. We want to know how things are going. We want to know whether the staff are coping in a prison which, I remind the Minister, has only a third of its complement of prisoners. Already there have been three incidents. I thought that there had been only two disturbances but he says that there have been three. That is three disturbances when only a third of the complement of prisoners are there.

Mr. Lloyd : I am sorry to keep interrupting the hon. Gentleman. He will know, because he has examined the prison service from the outside for several years, that one of the most vulnerable times for a prison is when it is building up its initial complement. The staff is new, the prisoners come in. They have not bedded down. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the experience in new prisons run by the prison service he will see that that is a particularly vulnerable time.

Mr. Sheerman : We want to know the turnover of staff and what are the problems. We want an analysis. If the Government can be judged by the arguments that they made in Committee, this was to be an experiment for learning about how the system works. It is an interesting experiment from which only the Government can learn because the public and public representatives are excluded from proper knowledge. [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. There are too many seated interventions, and not just from one side of the House.

Mr. Devlin : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Sheerman : Not now, but I will later.

Let us quickly look at the American experience. In Committee, we were often told that this was the model for privatisation. However, it has been a failure there. The US now imprisons 1 million people. Given that, it is hard to say why the Government feel that there is any merit in copying their ideas. Out of that huge population, only between 15,000 and 20,000 prisoners are in private prisons--15,000 according to the Department of Justice's "Private Corrections Adult Secure Facility Census of 1990". The experience in the US would appear to be going sour, according to the Washington Post , which said in November last year :

"Once hailed as a quick fix for the nation's overcrowded prisons privatisation is turning into a quicksand for the companies and the communities involved."

That is the experience of America, which the right hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold) mentioned so often in Committee.

There are other concerns about the Government's decision to extend privatisation from the remand facility at the Wolds to include sentenced prisoners at Blakenhurst. The arguments against such a move have been put extremely well, and I hope Conservative Members will listen to them. They include :

"Because of the different purpose of remand, as opposed to the sentence of imprisonment, and the character of the remand regime, the running of a remand centre by a private company would raise fewer difficult operational questions or issues of principle.

An important feature of the system for sentenced prisoners which does not apply to remand prisoners is that the length of time for which a sentenced prisoner occupies a place in the prison is, in the case of those eligible for parole, influenced by the reports and assessment of staff There is understandable unease that such decisions should be taken with the involvement of private contractors and their staff.

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Moreover, the regime for remand prisoners as unconvicted inmates is more amenable to the involvement of private contractors because of its different purpose and character."

That quote comes not from the present Home Secretary but from the Goverment's Green Paper of July 1988, entitled "Private Sector Involvement in the Remand System". If these arguments were valid then, what has happened to make the Goverment change their mind? Further, because the Government launched their proposals for privatisation solely--

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster) : The purpose of a Green Paper is to provide a basis for consultation. It is not to set something in concrete.

Mr. Sheerman : Let us go on from the Green Paper. The Government launched their proposals for privatisation solely in relation to the remand system. It is a serious criticism of the Government that there has been no proper consultation of this extension of privatisation to this sector of the prison population. No formal consultation has taken place on this major new direction of policy.

Moreover, the Government have misled the House on this issue. When we discussed amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill, now the 1991 Act, designed to extend the scope of privatisation, the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden, said :

"If, and only if, the contracted-out remand centre proves to be a success might we move towards privatisation of other parts of the prison service."- -[ Official Report, 25 February 1991 ; Vol. 186, c. 720.]

The clear implication of those remarks and others made by the right hon. Lady was that the Wolds was to be seen as an experiment. If successful, it would be extended to other parts of the prison service. Yet in December 1991, before the experiment had even begun, and the prison at the Wolds opened, we learnt that the Government were intending to extend privatisation to Blakenhurst, a prison that can also hold sentenced offenders.

The Wolds experiment must be the shortest on record--by my reckoning, minus four months. Even in terms of a degree of pragmatism, surely it would have been better for the Government to evaluate what was going on there, to take on board the concerns, to consult properly on the extension of privatisation while the experiment was monitored, and then to take decisions on the basis of that experience. In an interview in The Guardian last week the Home Secretary made it clear that he was considering privatising existing prisons, too. If dogma dictates, clearly experience is irrelevant.

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