Tony Blair admitted today that the Government had failed to deliver a criminal justice system that matched the will of the people.

The Prime Minister said that people craved a society without prejudices and discrimination, but which abided by rules that were fair and applied equally to everyone, with adequate punishments if they were broken.

"I think most people don't believe that we live in such a society," said Mr Blair, at a Labour consultation event on the public services.

"To transform the community and reform the criminal justice system, to reform often uncovered problems which have lain long unnoticed, the problem is that this is the public service most distant from what people want."

Mr Blair's admission follows weeks of controversy which began with the sacking of Charles Clarke as the Home Secretary over his department's Office's failure to deport 1,023 foreign criminals after they served their sentence.

In an update on that fiasco today, the Government said that 98 foreign criminals who committed serious offences still remain at large, including a murderer and sex offenders.

The Government remained under intense pressure from the Conservatives and the media after further high-profile cases including a court's decision to allow nine Afghan hijackers to stay in Britain.

Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, conceded at the weekend that there had been too many occasions when there was evidence of something going wrong with the use of the Human Rights Act. He cited the case of the rapist Anthony Rice, who murdered a woman while on parole.

In an attempt to regain the initiative, Mr Blair promised yesterday to consider new legislation to stop offenders taking advantage of the Human Rights Act. Today he expanded his attack, suggesting that British justice appeared to put the civil liberties of offenders before public safety. He called for a new debate on the limits to human rights.

"My point is that we cannot reform (the criminal justice system) unless we change radically the philosophical context in which it operates," he said.

"We need a profound rebalancing. That doesn't mean caring less for civil liberties, but asking what civil liberties mean in the 21st century. The demands of the majority of the law-abiding community should take precedence."

Mr Blair is seeking to regain control of the political agenda after three torrid weeks for him and his party, during which Labour has slipped in the polls.

Last night he sent letters to Cabinet ministers spelling out key aims, telling John Reid, the Home Secretary, that his top priority was to shape criminal justice around "targeting the offender and not just the offence . . . to enhance public protection".

Mr Blair ordered improved management of offenders after the foreign prisoners fiasco, in which more than 1,000 criminals were released when they should have been considered for deportation. Mr Reid was also told to look again at whether new legislation was needed after recent Human Rights Act rulings.

Mr Reid disclosed today in a written statement that of the 98 serious foreign offenders still at large, nine were convicted of the “most serious offences” - one of them had committed murder.

Forty-eight serious offenders went on to commit further crimes following their release. Ten of the offences involved violence or a “sexual element”, Mr Reid said.

The Home Secretary added that of the 1,023 released without being considered for deportation, 179 were now classified as having committed "serious offences" including armed robbery. Of those, 35 had been convicted of the "most serious offences" - murder, manslaughter, rape or child sex offences.

David Cameron, the Tory leader, said last week that he would repeal the Human Rights Act if it could not be improved.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said that the Government was catching up with concerns raised by the Tories since the Act was passed in 1998. He told BBC1’s Sunday AM programme: "Tories are not against human rights but we think the way the Government has done it has led to disasters . . . Lord Falconer attacked me three years ago for raising these sorts of problems."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, blamed the Prime Minister for the criminal justice system's failings. He said: "Tony Blair has presided over a wholesale degeneration in our criminal justice system. We have grotesquely overcrowded prisons, a Probation Service demoralised by Government interference, re-offending rates amongst the highest in the Western world, and conviction rates for serious crimes, such as rape, as low as 1 per cent.

"Who does Mr Blair think he’s kidding when he now claims he is the man to restore confidence in our criminal justice system, after such a lamentable nine-year record?"

Michael Smyth, Head of Public Policy at Clifford Chance, criticised Mr Blair for seeking to undermine the Human Rights act that his own Government had introduced.

"This is the Government's flagship law which it is now repudiating, which is very strange. The government is also apportioning a large amount of the blame to the judges, yet the proposal to amend the Act to require judges to have regard for the interests of the community would give them even more power to adjudicate on policy issues."

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