Ken Clarke squares up with Tory right over controversial sentencing proposals

• Homeowners will be able to STAB burglars without fear of prosecution, says Mr Clarke
• Tory right don't want indeterminate sentences for public protection axed
• Labour claim cuts to legal aid will deny poorest justice
  

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 1:14 PM on 29th June 2011

Commons clash: Ken Clarke faces opposition from the Tory right and Labour as his bill gets its second reading today

Ken Clarke will square up with the Tory right when his controversial sentencing bill goes before the House of Commons today.

The Justice Minister faces a storm of criticism over proposals to scale back indeterminate sentences for people who have committed serious offences.

Labour claim that by cutting back on legal aid Mr Clarke will be denying justice to the poorest.

He is also planning to jail less suspects while they are on remand for crimes - saving up to 1,400 prison places and £40million.

Shadow Justice Minister Sadiq Khan said keeping less suspects in custody before they stand trial 'undermines a vital tool judges and magistrates should have at their disposal', Mr Khan said.

He added: 'This Government is out of touch with public concerns on crime and justice.'

Warning of 'dire consequences for communities across the country', he said: 'Their bid to cut costs and prison places seem to come before their duty to protect the public and support victims.'

Red-faced Mr Clarke has been forced to ditch controversial plans to offer criminals a 50 per cent sentence discount if they plead guilty early.

Campaign: A 'Sound off for Justice' protest group campaign against proposed cuts to legal aid

Ahead of his appearance in the Commons this afternoon as his Bill gets its second reading, he denied that David Cameron had forced him into a U-turn over proposals to slash jail terms.

'The Prime Minister never ordered me to do anything,' he said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

IN A NUTSHELL: KEN CLARKE'S JUSTICE PLANS

• Plans to give suspects a 50 per cent discount for pleading  guilty have been dropped after a public outcry

• Less suspects will be held on remand - saving 1,400 prison places and £40million

• Cuts will be made to Legal Aid budget which Mr Clarke says is the most generous in the world

• Justice Minister is cutting budget by £2billion but department must still find a further £100million savings

Mr Clarke said it was 'a pity' that he had not been able to go ahead with the 50 per cent discount plan, which would have relieved many victims and witnesses of the ordeal of having to appear in court, but insisted it did not amount to a U-turn.

'You can't have a system whereby every time you consult, if you alter it people get laughably excited about a U-turn,' said Mr Clarke.

'I have made U-turns sometimes when I have made mistakes, but I don't think this is a U-turn.

'It was a huge process of consultation with thousands of responses and, if you know anything about the criminal justice system, it is not easy just to put out proposals without having to modify them in the light of what people say.'

Mr Clarke said an extra £100million in savings he is having to find in his budget as a result of dumping the 50 per cent discount plan was 'not a very large amount' as a proportion of overall reductions totalling £2 billion.

He denied that he was planning to deal with the unexpected shortfall by slashing the budget for the probation service.

'It isn't just going to come out of probation,' he said. 'Probation has already been reduced in spending.

'Probation, like everything else, is going to have to contribute to better efficiency and being better targeted, but we need the probation service if we want to stop people reoffending.

'I don't just go around slashing budgets in all directions. I am now trying to identify where we can make the savings.

'I am going to make my best endeavours to find the £100million and I am looking through the whole department.'

Conservative backbencher Philip Davies urged Mr Clarke not to scale back indeterminate sentences as they were the 'single best' way of reducing reoffending.

Mr Davies told Mr Clarke the re-offending rate for people granted indeterminate sentences for public protection was just 5 per cent.

But Mr Clarke said the IPP 'experiment' left prisoners in a 'Catch 22' situation, with no way of showing they were a 'minimal risk to society', which they must do before they can be released, from behind bars.

Mr Clarke's plans were also attacked by the Law Society, which said the Bill will increase criminality, damage social cohesion and penalise victims of crime.

HOMEOWNERS CAN STAB BURGLARS, SAYS MR CLARKE

Bashing the burglar: Munir Hussain was jailed for attacking a masked intruder who broke into his home. The intruder was not prosecuted

Householders will be able to stab burglars or hit them with a blunt instrument such as a poker without fear of prosecution under new legislation guaranteeing their right to defend themselves and their property, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke said today.

Mr Clarke said that an act of Parliament will be used to 'clarify' the existing legal right to use 'reasonable force' against intruders.

Prime Minister David Cameron last week promised that the new justice Bill would 'put beyond doubt that homeowners and small shopkeepers who use reasonable force to defend themselves or their properties will not be prosecuted'.

Today, Mr Clarke spelt out the sort of action which will be permitted under the new regime, and made clear that it will remain illegal to pursue intruders to attack them or to shoot them in the back as they flee.

The Justice Secretary told the BBC: 'If an old lady finds she has got an 18-year-old burgling her house an d she picks up a kitchen knife and sticks it in him, she has not committed a criminal offence and we will make that clear.'

He added: 'There is no doubt that you or I or anybody else is entitled to use reasonable force to defend ourselves and to protect ourselves or our homes or both.

'That has to be the law and we are going to make that absolutely clear. We are clarifying the law.

'We will make it quite clear you can hit the burglar with the poker if he is in the house and you have a perfect defence if you do so.'

Mr Clarke accepted that the defence of reasonable force already exists, but said: 'Given that doubts are expressed, we are going to clarify that.

'It is quite obvious that people are entitled to use whatever force is necessary to protect themselves and their homes.

'What they are not entitled to do is go running down the road chasing them or shooting them in the back when they are running away or to get their friends together and go and beat them up.

'We all know what we mean when we say a person has an absolute right to defend themselves and their home and reasonable force.

'Nobody should prosecute and nobody should ever convict anybody who takes these steps. It will be much clearer when we have set it out in this act of Parliament.'

Mr Cameron's official spokesman told reporters: 'The objective is to put beyond doubt the fact that home-owners and small shopkeepers who use reasonable force to protect themselves or their property should be able to do that without being prosecuted.

'Precisely how we do that is something we are looking into. Whether it requires changes to law or sentencing guidelines is something we will look at.'

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Ken Clarke squares up with Tory right over controversial sentencing proposals 2011-06-29T06:37:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: admin