Hansard

Holloway Prison

Volume 80: debated on Thursday 13 June 1985

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Mr. Pike

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has any long-term plans to provide a regional psychiatric facility for disturbed women prisoners at Holloway prison.

Mr. Soley

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans his Department has to improve care and treatment facilities for disturbed women at Holloway prison.

Mr. Mellor

My right hon. and learned Friend is awaiting the report of the project committee set up to advise on the organisation and future role of Holloway prison, including its psychiatric facilities. The project committee has been asked to report at the beginning of July and he will make a statement as soon as practicable thereafter.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the terms of reference of his Department's present inquiry into Holloway prison; and whether the inquiry will take oral evidence from employees, inmates and voluntary organisations concerned with prisoners' welfare.

Mr. Mellor

The terms of reference of the Holloway project committee are:To prepare a plan for the development of Holloway Prison as the main local prison for women in the south of England, within the framework of the statement of functions of Prison Department establishments recently approved by the Prisons Board and having regard to the staff and the resources likely to be available and their optimum deployment; and, in particular:

  • (i) to assess what population of prisoners, both in numbers and in composition, can most appropriately be held in Holloway prison;
  • (ii) to identify any specialist function currently performed at Holloway prison which could be better and more appropriately performed elsewhere within the women's prison system, having regard to Holloway's role as a local prison;
  • (iii) to consider the regimes that may best be operated in Holloway prison; with the aim of enabling the prisoners to spend the maximum time possible out of their cells and to have access to a variety of activities; and to report to the Director General of the Prison Service by 1 July 1985.
  • The committee has not invited oral submissions. It is open to anyone to send comments in writing.