Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I certainly agree that that is a very serious problem, and we intend to address it. I had a meeting yesterday evening with the Prison Reform Trust, the Women’s Institute and my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary. Our two Departments, together with the Courts Service, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, hope to set up diversion route services for those who in fact require treatment for mental illness. Often, those people should be diverted out of the prison system and the criminal justice system altogether, both for their good and the good of society.

Prison is often not a suitable place in which to treat mental illness. I am told that no fewer than 3,000 prisoners appear to be in prison largely because that is the most convenient place to hold them while attempts are made to get them care and treatment for their condition.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

When the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth) and I were in Dartmoor prison together, we noticed that the second most popular prisoner workshop produced excellent plaster garden gnomes. In view of the great and burgeoning success of the film “Gnomeo and Juliet”, will the Minister have a word with the governor of Dartmoor to see what advantage can be taken of that serendipitous circumstance?

[Mr Blunt]

I am delighted to answer that question and to refer to my niece’s part in “Gnomeo and Juliet”. I was in Dartmoor last week. I did not see the garden gnome factory, but I did see the some of the gardens, which make up for an otherwise bleak place. Prison industries are a very important part of the future development of our prisons strategy to ensure that, in future, prisoners have wider employment and work than they have now.