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Prisons (Carter Review)

If you do not mind my saying so, Mr. Speaker, the hon. Gentleman could take some lessons from his Conservative neighbour in seriously representing his constituents. We all understand that there will be a period of uncertainty about the use of redundant military land. Indeed, that applies to all large areas of land that become available. Of course, if it is Government land, several possible uses will be considered. We can either conduct that consideration in secret—in my judgment, there is no case for doing so in areas such as the one that we are discussing—or as ideas come through, we can share them with the local community. If the hon. Gentleman objects to the latter, and believes that we should go back to the old days before the Freedom of Information Act 2000, let him put that on the record. Sometimes we say that we are considering an idea and we then take account of the local community's views and, as in the case of candidates for asylum and immigration centres, of whether the numbers are decreasing—and they have decreased dramatically. In our judgment, the proposal is a sensible use of the camp. We all understand that proposals for prisons cause some nervousness in the local community. However, all the evidence shows that there is no adverse effect on house prices—we have data to prove that. Once prisons are established, they prove popular with the local community, and it will be difficult to close those that become candidates for closure in future.