asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his estimate of the cost of providing support for visits to prisoners by their fiancées in line with that given to spouses.

As well as assisting spouses. the prison visiting scheme also enables payments to be made to common-law spouses where the couple had lived together as man and wife for a substantial period or where they have a child. As information about the relationship between prisoners and those wishing to visit them is not collected centrally, it is not possible to estimate the cost of extending this assistance to fiancées.