Penal reformers last night reacted sharply to the "bombshell" announcement by the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, that three-times-convicted burglars will in future be jailed for at least three years.
The new measures, intended to take effect before the end of the year and add some 4,000 to Britain's prison population over a 10-year period, will be backed by a £50 million investment in burglary prevention schemes. The package, said Mr Straw, represented "a sensible and balanced" programme combining punishment and prevention.
But while the Conservatives mocked Mr Straw's "basic conversion" to policies first developed by the former home secretary, Mr Michael Howard, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, Mr Stephen Shaw, said mandatory sentences were wrong in principle and likely to be disastrous in practice.
Mr Straw's proposed crackdown came on the second day of a sustained attempt by government ministers to refocus on policy issues, after the traumas caused by enforced ministerial resignations, renewed evidence of factionalism at the highest reaches of the cabinet, and the weekend allegations against the Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, by his former wife.
With the Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, likely to seek to compound the government's embarrassment during his first post-Christmas encounter with the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, in the Commons this afternoon, Downing Street was still battling yesterday to quash speculation about Mr Peter Mandelson's possible early return to front-line politics.
Mr Mandelson's retention on the Anglo-German working party has increased speculation about his continuing connections with the government. But a Downing Street spokesman insisted: "These stories about an imminent return have not been encouraged by ourselves or Peter, and the rest is hype and mischief-making."
Mr Straw's latest crime crackdown drew opposition fire, with the Conservatives maintaining the government was merely adopting policies Labour had previously opposed. The new three-year minimum for persistent burglars builds on legislation pushed through by Mr Howard towards the end of the last parliament which also provided for minimum jail terms for drug dealers and life sentences for repeat serious sexual and physical offenders.
Mr Straw said the measures were not brought into effect earlier because of fears that the prison service would be unable to cope with the extra prison population. However, since the rise in the prison population had stabilised, it was right to crack down.