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Prisons (Carter Review)

I try to be ecumenical, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman was Home Secretary during a period when police cells were used very extensively, and more extensively than today. He was also Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I know for certain that when the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) came to ask for more money for the police, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) did not say, ““Oh yes. Would you like to write out the cheque?”” One of the consequences of his penury was that police numbers were going down at the end of that period, not up. However, let me reassure the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He asks whether this is a done deal or whether a working party will further examine the matter. I think that the idea is a good one, on the basis of what I have read, but it is not a done deal. There is a working party, which will be chaired by a senior member of the judiciary, to examine it properly. The right hon. and learned Gentleman takes a serious interest in these matters, and I hope that when he has looked at what Lord Carter says—and also, I may say, a passage in the speech made by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs on 26 November that came to similar conclusions—he will support what is proposed.