Downing Street defends Cherie Blair's speech

Cherie Blair delighted prison reformers last night by calling for a drastic cut in the jail population but found herself stirring further controversy for speaking on political issues.

In the first Longford Lecture, sponsored by The Independent, Mrs Blair complained that many inmates in a record jail population of nearly 72,000 were women with babies and prisoners on remand. She said: "The huge increase in numbers and the prevalence of short-term sentences is crippling any attempt at a constructive approach to prison."

Yesterday, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Norman Baker, said: "Cherie Blair is an intelligent woman who talks a lot of sense, and she is right to highlight the problems in our prisons. But the question is: should she be talking at all? It is difficult for the Prime Minister to argue on the one hand that his family should be kept out of the media, when his wife seems so keen to court them."

Mrs Blair's speech followed her controversial comments on Palestinian suicide bombers, who she said had "no hope but to blow themselves up".

Speaking as Cherie Booth QC, the Prime Minister's wife spoke out on prisons after making her own inquiries into conditions during a tour of some of Britain's most infamous jails, including Belmarsh high- security prison in south London and Holloway prison, north London. She also went to Wormwood Scrubs jail in west London and Altcourse, a privately run prison in Merseyside.

Mrs Blair met many prisoners including drug dealers and inmates with mental health problems. She was particularly "shocked" by the "enormous number of women prisoners who report having suffered a history of violence and sexual abuse".

Yesterday, the Prime Minister's spokesman said: "Mrs Blair is making a speech in her own right as a legal figure ... We have always said that prison has an important part to play in the criminal justice system ... but it's also about ensuring that we look at rehabilitating people."

Juliet Lyon, of the Prison Reform Trust, praised the speech for advocating the use of non-custodial sentences. She said: "Because of chronic overcrowding, prisons cannot do their job to prevent reoffending."