Kemi Badenoch has announced plans for Britain’s largest prison-construction drive since the Victorian period.
The Conservative leader has approved proposals to create 50,000 additional prison places, expanding the current estate by more than half as she promises to challenge what she calls Labour’s soft approach to justice.
Much of the programme would be paid for by reducing the foreign aid budget to £1billion a year.
Mrs Badenoch said the expansion would give a future Conservative government the capacity to end Labour’s early-release programme and remove the effective block on short custodial sentences for crimes including shoplifting and knife possession.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy argued that the criminal justice system had shown offenders too much “understanding” and delivered too little punishment in recent years.
“I think we’ve done enough understanding,” he said. “We need to bring consequences back into the criminal justice system.”
The Conservatives have unveiled plans for 50,000 additional prison places, one day after Labour’s latest early-release scheme saw hundreds of offenders leave jails across the country
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said a major prison-building drive was the only way to bring Labour’s “reckless” early-release policy to an end
The announcement follows Labour’s latest early-release operation, which saw hundreds of prisoners released from jails nationwide. The scenes, in which offenders appeared to celebrate their freedom, were described as “disgusting” by Mr Timothy.
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The proposed prison expansion is intended to revive the Conservatives’ long-standing law-and-order credentials and rebuild confidence in an overstretched criminal justice system.
Mr Timothy told the Mail that he continued to support the principle that “Prison Works”, the slogan made famous by former Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard during the 1990s.
The £2billion-a-year construction programme would be financed through major reductions in foreign aid and cuts to Whitehall’s government communications operation.
Mr Timothy said Labour’s approach was weakening public trust by creating the impression that offenders were not being held properly accountable.
“People expect crime to be punished,” he said. “And when criminals are sent to prison, they expect them to complete their sentence.”
The major policy announcement comes just before the Conservative Party conference, where Mrs Badenoch is expected to tell activists to prepare for the possibility of a snap general election within months.
On Friday, she said constructing substantially more prison capacity was the only way to stop Labour’s “reckless” early-release policy.
“A violent criminal does not become any less dangerous simply because the Government has run out of prison cells,” she said.
“Labour cancelled our plans to rent prison space overseas and has now left itself trapped. Its response is to release dangerous offenders even earlier rather than build the capacity the country needs.
“The government’s first responsibility is protecting law-abiding people. A full prison estate should be a reason to create more places, not to put more criminals back on the streets.”
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Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy said Labour’s soft approach was undermining public confidence in the criminal justice system
The Tory prisons programme will be funded mainly by cuts to foreign aid. The Conservatives had already pledged to slash international development from 0.44 per cent of GDP to 0.1 per cent.
Under the party’s new plan it will be cut to just £1billion a year, saving a further £2.5billion. Last year, Britain spent £13.1billion on overseas aid.
Another £1billion will be cut from the budget of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, partly by reversing £700million in planned increases under Labour.
A further £500million will be trimmed from the Cabinet Office’s spendings on communications consultants, which Tory sources said included ‘highly questionable spending on social media influencers’ to promote Labour initiatives.
In total, the cuts are designed to generate £4.2billion a year in savings. Half of this will be used to pay down the deficit under the Tories’ ‘golden rule’ on fiscal sustainability.
The rest will be used to fund the biggest prison-building programme since the mid-19th century.
A review will be launched later this year to look at potential sites. Many of the places will be delivered by expanding existing jails, but others will be built on new sites as part of a seven-year construction programme.
Mr Timothy said a future Tory government would legislate to speed up the planning process, which has led to previous expansion programmes being delayed.
Labour Party chairman Bridget Phillipson said: ‘These proposals are just not credible from a party who left our criminal justice system at breaking point.’