Kenneth Clarke faces twin-track assault on jail reform plans

Labour and Tory MPs attack prison plans to limit remand in custody and tackle explosion in use of indeterminate sentences The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, faces another embarrassing U-turn over his controversial sentencing reforms on Wednesday as the Labour frontbench combines with rightwing Tory MPs to further attack his prison plans. Tory backbenchers and Labour spokesmen served notice on Tuesday night that they would fight Clarke’s plans to limit the use of remand in custody and tackle the explosion in the use of indeterminate sentences for public protection (IPPs). Clarke’s Commons opponents scent fresh blood after last week’s U-turn when Downing Street disowned his plan to introduce a 50% maximum discount for early guilty pleas, although it would have stabilised the growth in the record 85,000 prison population in England and Wales. The move took out 3,400 of the 6,000 prison places Clarke was hoping to save over four years as part of his “rehabilitation revolution” and left him with a £140m hole in his spending plans. A fresh revolt against his plans to limit the use of remand in custody would lose a further 1,300 saved places and mean he would have to find a further £40m from his justice budget. The IPP reforms would have saved 600 prison places and £10m. Clarke is expected to battle on Wednesday to save what remains of his reforms when he opens the Commons second reading of his legal aid, sentencing and punishment bill. He further infuriated the Tory right on Tuesday when he insisted the only change in the law on self-defence – hailed last week by the tabloids as a “bash a burglar charter” when announced by Downing Street – would be a further clarification of the law. It comes as a supreme court justice, Lady Hale, warned that £350m legal aid cuts in the bill would hit the “poorest and most vulnerable in society” and amid predictions that more than one-third of law centres in England and Wales would have to close as result. In a speech to the Law Society on Monday, she said: “There is a well-known ironic saying … that in England, justice is open to all – like the Ritz. Courts are and should be a last resort but they should be a last resort which is accessible to all, rich and poor alike. The big society will be the loser if everyone does not believe that the law is there for them.” Labour’s shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan, gave Clark a taste of the argument to come on Tuesday when he cited the opposition of victims and witnesses commissioner Louise Casey, circuit judges and magistrates to the plan to take away from courts the option of remanding in custody defendants who are unlikely to receive a prison sentence if convicted. Defendants on domestic violence charges have already been exempted from the move. Khan said that banning the use of remand in this way was simply a cost-cutting measure to reduce prison numbers which undermined a vital tool of the courts. Khan also served notice that Labour would oppose any plans to “water down the protection given to the public” by IPPs, claiming the government’s proposal to review their use showed it was out of touch with public concerns. The rightwing Tory MP for Shipley, Philip Davies, Clarke’s self-appointed bugbear on the Tory backbenches, also weighed in against any reform of IPPs, describing the sentences as “the single best part of the criminal justice system”. Clarke strongly defended his plans, saying there were now 6,000 IPP prisoners without a definite release date. The IPP system, which has been condemned as a national scandal by prison governors, includes more than 3,000 prisoners who had already passed their tariff indicative release date: “They’re only released when they can demonstrate to the Parole Board that they are a minimal risk to society, which is the present test, but in a prison cell they will find it almost impossible to satisfy that test. We need long, determinate sentences for serious criminals. That is the way the criminal justice system works,” Clarke told MPs. He said Labour’s 10-year IPP experiment had “undoubtedly failed” and one in 10 prisoners would soon be serving indefinite sentences unless a better alternative was found. David Cameron has suggested that a new “two strikes and you’re out” mandatory sentence for repeat serious sexual or violent offenders should be introduced instead. Hale’s comments came as figures provided by Julie Bishop, director of the Law Centres Federation, showed that at least 18 of the 52 centres in England and Wales would have to shut, because three-quarters of their income comes from legal aid that will no longer be available. Last year, law centres helped 120,000 people, Bishop said. Soon, because of the government’s determination to slice £350m out of its annual £2.1bn legal aid budget, the number who can be helped will fall by two-thirds to 40,000. Hale, who is the patron of Hammersmith and Fulham’s law centre, noted in her speech that legal aid was now being removed from “most civil and legal cases”. But providing legal advice at an early stage, she said, could often save greater costs for government agencies at a later stage when problems spiralled out of control. Prisons and probation UK criminal justice Kenneth Clarke Alan Travis Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk

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