(1)Where a prison existing before the first day of April, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight is closed, the Secretary of State shall serve notice on the appropriate authority that he will, if the authority so requests within such period, not being less than six months, from the service of the notice as may be stated in the notice, cause the prison to be conveyed to the authority on payment by them into the Exchequer of an amount calculated in accordance with subsections (4) and (5) of this section together with an amount equal to the compensation, if any, which the authority to which the prison belonged immediately before the commencement of the Prison Act, 1877, may have received, out of moneys provided by Parliament in respect of their having provided a prison more than adequate for the accommodation of the prisoners belonging to them.
(2)Where the appropriate authority does not request as aforesaid or fails to pay or to secure to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State the payment of the amounts mentioned in the preceding subsection, the Secretary of State shall cause the prison to be sold and shall apply the proceeds, after deducting the expenses of the sale, by paying into the Exchequer the amounts mentioned in the preceding subsection and by paying the balance, if any, to the appropriate authority.
(3)For the purposes of this section the appropriate authority may borrow, and the Public Works Loan Commissioners may lend to the authority, at such rate of interest as the Treasury may determine to be sufficient to prevent any loss to the Exchequer, such sum as may be required, subject to the condition that the whole amount so borrowed shall be discharged within a period not exceeding thirty-five years.
(4)Subject to the next following subsection, the first amount mentioned in subsection (1) of this section shall be equal to one hundred and twenty pounds multiplied by the number of prisoners belonging to the prison authority mentioned in that subsection for whom separate cell accommodation was provided in the prison on the twelfth day of July, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven.
(5)Where the prison was not the only prison belonging on the said day to the said prison authority and separate cell accommodation could have been provided on that day in any other such prison for prisoners of that authority, then, if the number of prisoners for whom cell accommodation could then have been so provided is equal to or exceeds the average daily number of prisoners maintained at the expense of the authority (whether in their own or any other prisons) during the five years immediately preceding the first day of January, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, no sum shall be payable by the authority in respect of the first amount mentioned in subsection (1) of this section, and if the first-mentioned number is less than the said average number, the amount specified in subsection (4) of this section shall be reduced proportionately.
(6)Any sum payable by an appropriate authority in pursuance of this section shall be a debt due to the Crown.
(7)In this section the expression " the appropriate authority " means, in relation to any prison which immediately before the commencement of the Prison Act, 1877, belonged to the City of London or a municipal borough, the common council of the City of London or the council of that borough respectively, and in relation to any prison which then belonged to any other authority, the council of the county to which the property of that authority was transferred by the Local Government Act, 1888.
