PRISONERS ON REMAND

Early day motion 126, tabled 26 November 2003 by Paul Stinchcombe (Labour). Signed by 58 members.

That this House notes that more than 50,000 people, innocent until proven guilty, are imprisoned each year awaiting trial; notes that half of prisoners on remand do not subsequently receive a custodial sentence; further notes that one in five people remanded in custody are eventually acquitted or have the proceedings against them terminated early with little or no compensation; understands that for all of these reasons Lord Woolf called for remand prisoners to have a separate statement of purpose, separate conditions and a lower security categorisation than convicted prisoners in his report into the Strangeways riot; is alarmed that, 12 years on, remand prisoners continue to be accommodated in some of the worst conditions in overcrowded local jails, conditions which the former Director of the Prison Service has called primitive; further notes, in particular, that many remand prisoners are sharing cells designed for one with convicted prisoners, that they can be locked up for up to 22 hours a day, and that more than a third of prison suicides last year were committed by people awaiting trial; and therefore calls upon Her Majesty's Government to act urgently both to improve the conditions for people awaiting trial in prison and to reduce the needless use of custodial remand.

Signatures by party: Labour 37, Liberal Democrat 15, Conservative 3, Plaid Cymru 2, UUP 1.