Justice: Prison numbers to be cut and new jail plan is shelved

Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, promised a 3,000 reduction in the jail population and shelved plans for a new prison after suffering a £1.6bn cut to his budget.

He will urge magistrates to jail fewer minor offenders in an attempt to trim the jail population from 85,000 to 82,000 within four years.

The attempt to reverse the steady increase in numbers behind bars since the early 1990s could leave the Government open to charges of going soft on crime.

But the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) argues that the reduction can be achieved through moves to cut the high re-offending rate.

Plans for a new, privately-run 1,500-place prison in Runwell, Essex, will be put on hold.

The MoJ budget will drop from £8.9bn to £7.3bn in 2014-15, with up to 15,000 job losses in prison, probation and court staff.

The ministry said it believed it could claw back £1bn through efficiency savings and administration costs and £350m from the legal aid budget. It has already announced plans to shut 157 under-used courts.

Mr Clarke said: "These reforms will allow us to slow the extraordinary rate of increase in the prison population, and begin to reduce it back to 2008 levels – around 3,000 less than today."