The disclosure that Morton Hall in Lincolnshire is the first jail in England and Wales to have more foreign than British prisoners comes as the Prison Service faces record levels of overcrowding.

Two other jails are heading towards having a majority of foreign inmates. Whitehall officials are considering ways to tackle the growing numbers. It has even been suggested that a jail be built in Jamaica.

One in seven of the record 74,000 jail population is now a foreign citizen and one South London jail alone has 400 Jamaican inmates.

Overcrowded jails in England and Wales house people from more than 160 countries after a steady increase in foreigners convicted since the late 1990s.

The latest figures show that the percentage of foreign nationals — anyone without a UK passport — in the 138 jails has risen from 8 per cent in 1999 to 13.1 per cent in 2003.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, has repeatedly had to seek more cash to deal with the spiralling jail population but the Chancellor of the Exchequer is understood to be unconvinced that building more jails is good value. It currently costs £2.7bn a year to run the jail system.

Since Labour came to power the jail population has risen by 13,000 and is projected to reach 91,200 by 2006.

The Prison Service has funding to increase capacity to 77,500 by 2006 but ministers have been unable to say how the gap will be filled. Only two new prisons are being built The increase has even led to the astonishing suggestion by a Whitehall official that the Government should pay for a jail to be built in Jamaica.

The civil servant suggested to a 10 Downing Street-led review of prison and probation services that the Government should build a jail in Jamaica to allow many of the 2,795 Jamaicans in British prisons to be returned home.

Jamaicans are the biggest single foreign national group in jails, with the vast majority of Jamaican women offenders being drug smugglers, known as “mules”.

Wandsworth jail in London has the largest concentration of Jamaican prisoners with 400 on its wings. Recently the jail had to employ an Mongolian translator to help a prisoner.

But Morton Hall women’s prison, at Swinderby, has the first majority foreign population, with 65 per cent of the 350 population foreign citizens, and with 54 per cent from countries outside the EU and 140 from Jamaica. It is planning a pilot project to allow mothers to see and talk to their children in Kingston, Jamaica, over the Internet.

Olga Heaven, director of Hibiscus, a charity supporting overseas jailed women, said the prison service had become much better at providing support for foreign women in jail.

The Prison Service was now debating whether four women’s prisons should hold the vast majority of foreign citizens but no final decision had been taken.

The Prison Service is also focusing on the dietary, cultural and educational needs of the foreign prisoners. But Ms Heaven said it should focus on providing them with skills such as hairdressing, dressmaking and decorating which they could use on returning home at the end of their sentences.

Ms Heaven also said that many Jamaican women wanted special hair care products to be made available in jail shops.

Britain does not have a repatriation arrangement with Jamaica which would allow inmates to be sent back to the island. However, even if there was an arrangement, it would be impossible to return every Jamaican as the island’s jails — there is only one women’s prison — are already overcrowded. The Prison Service said that many foreigners were isolated and had difficulty keeping in touch with famiilies.

Some prisons allow them to have 40-unit telephone cards instead of visits to make long distance calls to their families.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said last night: “Most of these women are serving long sentences for drug importation. The sentence is supposed to be a deterrent but they do not appear to deter any woman who is poor and desperate from running drugs.” She added that more should be done to catch drug dealers who prey on women “desperate for money to help their children”.

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