To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what effect he estimates the abolition of slopping out will have on the programme for the abolition of overcrowding in prisons.
The majority of prisoners are already held in establishments which are not overcrowded. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced on 25 February, at column 660, that the programme to end slopping out would be accelerated and it was planned that by the end of 1994 all prisoners would have access to sanitation. The ending of this practice is a priority, even though the need to take accommodation out of use temporarily to enable sanitation systems to be installed will delay the ending of overcrowding in those establishments—principally local prisons—which are currently operating at levels of occupancy above certified normal accommodation. Under current projections, the average prison population and average available accommodation is expected to come into balance in 1995.