Almost 400 prisoners have been released early from Sussex prisons in seven months under the Government's controversial scheme to ease prison overcrowding.

Ministry of Justice figures show 396 inmates were let out of jail up to 18 days before their sentence was due to end between June last year, when the end of custody licence (ECL) scheme was introduced to free cell space, and the end of January this year.

Most of them, 282, were released early from Ford Open Prison, while 114 were released early from Lewes Prison. The figures show 29 were let out early from Ford and 14 from Lewes in January alone.

Nationally, more than 18,500 prisoners have been released early in the past seven months, including 2,386 in January.

Meanwhile, the prison population in England and Wales has risen to a record high of 82,006, leaving the system only 21 beds below capacity.

Nick Herbert, shadow justice secretary and MP for Arundel and South Downs, said: "The longer this disastrous early release policy goes on, the more the public are put at risk. Nearly 500 violent criminals were released early in January alone and more than 100 prisoners who breached their licence conditions are still on the run."

Mr Herbert has committed a future Tory government to ending the early release scheme and funding 5,000 extra prison spaces - on top of the 15,000 spaces being created by the Government over the next five years.

Launching the Tories' prisons policy yesterday, the MP said inmates would have to "earn" their release through good behaviour, hard work and making reparations to their victims.

He said: "Under Labour, reoffending by criminals has risen, jails are in crisis and more than 18,000 prisoners have been released early on to the streets. A new approach is desperately needed.

"We will create prisons with a purpose, with a new focus on rehabilitating prisoners before and after their release. By driving down reoffending, we will break the cycle of crime and make Britain a safer place." Labour said Mr Herbert's plans were "uncosted".

The Ministry of Justice defended the early release scheme. A spokeswoman said four per cent of those released had been recalled to prison and one per cent were believed to have reoffended during the ECL period.

She said: "Those prisoners who present the highest risk to the public are excluded from consideration. All prisoners released on ECL would have to have been released anyway in a maximum of 18 days' time.

"We are monitoring the scheme carefully.

So far the data collected about ECL indicates that the scheme is working well and the rate of recall has been lower than expected."