Prisoners should pay £40,000 a year says Ukip MEP Bill Etheridge

Bill Etheridge says he wants to see "a return to the days" when prison focused first and foremost on punishment, and vowed to "rehabilitate without using significant financial resources".

His measures include:

• Removing all luxuries from jails, including all electronic devices

• An automatic 10-year sentence increase for prisoners who attack prison officers

• Locking prisoners in their cells for the first six months of sentences

• Banning all visits over the same period

• A £40,000 annual charge on prisoners to be levied until ‘their assets are depleted’

It comes after Mr Etheridge called for a referendum over bringing back the death penalty, a measure which he says he is in favour of.

Mr Etheridge, who is also a Dudley councillor, said the measures would reduce re-offending and 'ensure people do not want to return to a hostile environment', as well as driving down the cost of prisons.

"There should be no requirement to provide miscreants with the sort of electronic gadgetry that the poorest in our society struggle to acquire," added Mr Etheridge, who says he has never seen the inside of a prison.

"Prisons should be there to provide shelter, toilet provision, food and access to reading materials for self-advancement. Anything more than these basic essentials is an unnecessary waste of tax payers' money."

"We must drive down the cost of prisons and ensure that they are places that no one would wish to return to."

The prison population in the UK is around 80,000, with the cost of imprisoning someone in excess of £40,000 a year. West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson, said: "I would be more than happy to take Bill on a tour of one of the region's prisons to inform him of how they actually operate. I'd also be happy to take him to meet some of the West Midlands employers who take on former offenders and turn them from tax burdens into tax contributors."