Kemi Badenoch Plans 50,000 New Prison Places Funded by Foreign Aid Cuts Kemi Badenoch has unveiled a Conservative plan to build 50,000 new prison places, funded by cutting foreign aid to £1billion a year and slashing Whitehall spending. Kemi Badenoch has unveiled plans for the biggest prison-building programme since the Victorian era, proposing 50,000 new prison places funded mainly by slashing the foreign aid budget to just £1billion a year. The Conservative leader signed off the proposals ahead of the party conference, pledging to reverse what she calls Labour's soft-justice approach. The scheme would increase the size of the prison estate by more than 50 per cent. Badenoch Targets Labour Early-Release SchemeMrs Badenoch said the move would allow a future Tory government to scrap Labour's early-release scheme and drop the effective ban on short prison sentences for offences such as shoplifting and carrying a knife. She said a violent criminal does not become less dangerous just because the Government has run out of prison cells.She said Labour cancelled Conservative plans to rent spaces abroad and is now stuck, adding that their answer is to let dangerous offenders out even earlier instead of building the prison spaces needed. She said the first duty of government is to keep law-abiding people safe, and that full prisons are a reason to build more cells, not release more criminals.The plan comes just days after Labour's latest early-release scheme saw hundreds of offenders celebrate as they walked free from jails across the country, scenes that Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy described as disgusting.Nick Timothy Backs Prison Works ApproachIn an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Mr Timothy said Britain had offered too much understanding to criminals in recent years and not enough punishment. He said enough understanding had been done and that consequences need to return to the criminal justice system.Mr Timothy told the Mail he believes in the mantra Prison Works, which was popularised by former Tory home secretary Michael Howard in the 1990s. He said Labour's soft approach was undermining public confidence in the criminal justice system, adding that people expect crime to be punished and expect criminals who are put away to serve their sentence.The prison-building programme is designed to revive the Conservatives' traditional reputation as the party of law and order and restore public confidence in what the party describes as a creaking criminal justice system.Funding Cuts And Fiscal DetailsThe £2billion-a-year building programme will be funded by steep cuts to foreign aid and the Whitehall spin machine. The Conservatives had already pledged to slash international development from 0.44 per cent of GDP to 0.1 per cent. Under the new plan it will be cut to just £1billion a year, saving a further £2.5billion. Last year, Britain spent £13.1billion on overseas aid.Another £1billion will be cut from the budget of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, partly by reversing £700million in planned increases under Labour. A further £500million will be trimmed from the Cabinet Office's spending on communications consultants, which Tory sources said included highly questionable spending on social media influencers to promote Labour initiatives.In total, the cuts are designed to generate £4.2billion a year in savings. Half of this will be used to pay down the deficit under the Tories' golden rule on fiscal sustainability. The rest will be used to fund the biggest prison-building programme since the mid-19th century.Construction Timeline And Labour ResponseA review will be launched later this year to look at potential sites. Many of the places will be delivered by expanding existing jails, but others will be built on new sites as part of a seven-year construction programme. Mr Timothy said a future Tory government would legislate to speed up the planning process, which has led to previous expansion programmes being delayed.The landmark policy comes on the eve of the Conservative Party conference where Mrs Badenoch will warn her party it needs to gear up for a potential snap election within months. Labour Party chairman Bridget Phillipson said the proposals are just not credible from a party who left our criminal justice system at breaking point.