Prison reform campaigners have accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown of "penny-pinching" after he blocked plans to increase inmates' pay.

Mr Brown intervened personally to overrule Prison Service Management Board proposals to raise the minimum weekly pay rate for prisoners for the first time in a decade from £4 to £5.50, a rise of 37.5 per cent.

He said any pay changes should form part of a new contract which will reward offenders for good behaviour and completing programmes designed to prevent reoffending, such as drug treatment.

The announcement that the pay rise was being blocked came days after a senior prison officers' union leader claimed life in Britain's jails was so "cushy" that inmates were passing up chances to escape.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Overturning the decision to raise prisoners' pay for the first time in ten years is not only penny-pinching but also short-sighted.

"Many prisoners would have spent the extra £1.50 on a phone card to ring home or try to sort out accommodation or a job."

Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, added: "This is a disappointing decision, one which we hope is merely a delay due to what Downing Street sees as unfortunate political timing.

"The Government should be doing everything it can to break the culture of laziness in our overcrowded jails.

"Prisoners shouldn't be lying in their cells all day but engaged in skilled and productive work which is as close to real employment as possible.

"Being paid a pittance to do menial and repetitive tasks does nothing to increase a prisoner's employability on release."

Mr Brown explained: "We are now debating a contract with prisoners so they are better behaved...I think any debate about what prisoners receive in pay should be part of that new contract.

"There should be rights, but there should be responsibilities, and it's the responsibilities of prisoners that I am interested in."

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