CONSERVATIVE leader Michael Howard yesterday unveiled the tough new sentencing policies he believes could see an extra 14,000 criminals in prison if the Tories win the upcoming General Election.

He revealed his plans at a keynote speech at Darlington Football Club's Williamson Motors Stadium which, although close to the town, lies in Tony Blair's Sedgefield constituency.

Mr Howard pledged that Labour's early release scheme would be scrapped, criminals would serve the sentence laid down by the courts in full, and third-time burglars and drug-dealers would face mandatory minimum jail terms.

He accused the Prime Minister of leading Britain into a "moral quagmire" by blurring the distinction between right and wrong and allowing law-breakers to get away without proper punishment.

The Tories would build 20,000 more prison places by 2010 to deal with the 14,400 increase in numbers of inmates they expect.

Under Mr Howard's plans for "honesty" in sentencing policy, the average length of time served behind bars would increase by 20 per cent within four years.

The Conservative leader denounced the system currently in operation, where convicts frequently serve as little as half of the term handed down by the courts. "Sentencing today is a charade," said Mr Howard. "In fact, it's worse than that - it's a lie.

"Everyone knows that prisoners rarely, if ever, serve the sentences that are handed out by the judges.

"Nothing does more to undermine confidence in our criminal justice system than victims seeing offenders walk free from prison having served as little as half their sentence."

Mandatory minimum sentences of three years would be imposed on burglars convicted for the third time, while dealers in hard drugs would receive at least seven years on their third conviction.

Under Mr Howard's proposals, custodial sentences handed down by judges would include minimum and maximum terms.

Convicts who behave well in jail and no longer pose a danger to the public would be released after the minimum period, while those who misbehave or remain dangerous could be held right up to the maximum date.

Mr Howard also announced plans to increase democratic control over sentencing tariffs by making the independent Sentencing Guidelines Council accountable to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee.

Later, a Conservative spokesman said the first year's costs of their plans of £125m in 2007/8 would be met from efficiency savings.

"Beyond this, the medium term expenditure strategy allows for public spending growth of four per cent per annum," he said.

"An increase which will be spent on people's priorities, including the completion of 20,000 additional prison places by the end of the next Parliament."

However, a Labour spokeswoman said: "The Tory prison pledge is unravelling. Their costing for their promise of 20,000 extra places is changing on an almost hourly basis.

"When presented with evidence of their own costing of £760m, they now say they have arbitrarily revised this downwards to £600m and still have not set out where this money is coming from."

Crime reduction charity Nacro's chief executive, Paul Cavadino, said: "The proposals are based on the misconception that you are not serving a sentence unless you are behind bars.

"It ignores the fact that when offenders are released, they are under supervision and restrictions and that is also part of the sentence."