Sir Keir Starmer has said he did not want to release any of the prisoners who left jail early because of overcrowding.

The Prime Minister admitted he was “really angry” about the two waves of early prisoner releases – totalling around 2,800 people.

Inmate Daniel Dowling-Brooks on Tuesday said “big up Keir Starmer” as he celebrated his release with his friends, mother and sister, who picked him up in a convoy of a white Bentley and black Mercedes G-Wagon outside HMP Swaleside in Kent.

Speaking to reporters on the way to Samoa for a Commonwealth meeting, Sir Keir said: “I’m really angry about having to release these prisoners at all in batch one or two.

“I hope I’ve made that pretty clear to any of you who’ve asked me about it. I didn’t spend five years of my life as chief prosecutor putting people in prison in order to, as PM have to release them because our prisons are overfilled.

“But we’ve got to do it because they are at bursting point.”

He recalled how during the summer riots that gripped the UK, the government would receive daily charts mapping available jail spaces.

The Prime Minister said there was “real concern” about not having enough space for serious offences.

He added: “Under the previous administration, we had to tell our courts etc to go slower, because we couldn’t fit them into our prisons.

“That was a really disgraceful state of affairs. This is not for me just about party politics – Labour Party comes in and clears up the mess of the Tories.

“It is that but no Government of any political stripe should allow your prisons to get so full that you can’t run the criminal justice system.

“I don’t want to release any of these people and I’m angry that we’re having to do so. But we’ve got to fix it because if we don’t, the very things that were spelled by the chief constables to Rishi Sunak – they said before the election, ‘this is the situation you’ve got yourself into. You’re going to make it worse if you don’t do this and operationally we won’t be able to arrest the people in the way we would like. That’s the point we’ve got to.’

“So do I feel angry about it? Yeah I really do.

“We’ll clear it up and we’ll get it to a proper place so this never happens again. But should it be happening? No of course it shouldn’t.”

In a letter on June 27, police chiefs urged Mr Sunak to take “immediate action to begin to address this crisis and mitigate its worse impacts”

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood launched a review into sentencing that will look at handing out more punishments to offenders outside prison.

The review aims to explore tougher punishments outside prison while making sure there is space to incarcerate the most dangerous offenders.

The first release of around 1,700 prisoners from jails across England and Wales started on September 10.

The latest wave has expanded eligibility to include those serving sentences of five years or more.

Ms Mahmood said mistakes that previously led to the release in error of 37 prisoners as part of the scheme have been “ironed out”.