State run jails in England and Wales are to be “locked down” for the weekend from Friday lunchtimes in an emergency measure to meet Treasury-imposed cuts.

The move will mean that tens of thousands of inmates in 129 jails will be “banged up” in their cells and allowed out only for a few hours. Prison service chiefs have imposed the postlunchtime lockdown to meet savings of £60 million a year demanded by the Treasury as part of a Whitehall-wide efficiency drive. Paul Tidball, the president of the Prison Governors’ Association, disclosed the latest emergency measure to hit the overcrowded prison system when he gave evidence to the Commons Justice Select Committee yesterday.

The early lockdown means that inmates will be locked in their cells for more time than at any point since 1969.

The committee was also told that London required two 2,500 place jails to deal with the number of offenders being imprisoned in the capital. Mr Tidball also gave warning of the risk of gang culture and violence taking hold in super 2,500 jails which Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, announced last week were part of plans to increase the prison spaces by 20,000 by 2014.

Under the early lockdown plan, activities such as education, skills training and offender management courses will largely stop at lunchtime on Friday from April next year. Mr Tidball said: “This is our best way to meet the savings next year. We are reducing the core week, which will mean they are locked up from half a day longer to meet the saving”. He added: “Prisoners will spend more hours locked up then they were in 1969 from April next year.” He said the move would mean that prisoners were spending less time out of their cells then they did in 1743 at the country’s oldest jail, Lancaster Castle.

Last week the Government announced plans to build up to three 2,500-place jails as part of a programme to provide 20,000 new spaces by 2014. The jails were a key part of Lord Carter of Coles’s review of the prison building programme.

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