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Private jails are morally unacceptable and a Labour government will halt prison privatisation, Jack Straw, the Shadow Home Secretary, said yesterday. But he conceded that Labour would honour existing deals with the private companies which will be running about eight jails by the time of the election. Some contracts are for 25 years.

Mr Straw told the Prison Officers Association conference in Portsmouth: "I consider it morally unacceptable for the private sector to undertake the incarceration of those whom the state has decided need to be imprisoned for the protection of society. There are few more fundamental aspects of the role of the state. Almost all people believe that this is one area where a 'free market' does not exist."

He admitted, however, that Labour would have "severe difficulties" in reversing the 13 per cent cuts in prison budgets. And with an ever-spiralling prison population, probation officers and penal reform groups suggested that unless Mr Straw also pledged to reverse the Home Secretary's "prison works" centred criminal justice policy, he will be unable to tackle the present prison crisis.