More prisoners will be sent out to work

Inmates should should be put to work in all jails as part of a drive to make prisons "places of retribution, but also places of reform", the Justice Secretary said yesterday.

Ken Clarke told the Conservative Party conference that the move would aim to rehabilitate a growing "feral underclass" in Britain, and that he was "dramatically" expanding the working prisons programme.

"The idea is to provide hard work in prison so that prisoners would be doing something productive, instead of doing nothing, plotting a more honest future instead of planning their next crime, earning money to pay back to [their] victims," Mr Clarke said.