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No 10 sounds retreat on cuts to prison numbers while justice secretary insists Treasury must bear costs Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke has been forced by Number 10 to abandon a plan to give rapists, and other serious offenders, a 50% sentence discount in return for early guilty pleas, but he is fiercely resisting Treasury demands to make his justice ministry bear the multi-million pound cost. Clarke had proposed to increase the discount from 33% to 50% for all offenders, so saving £130m from a departmental budget being slashed by a quarter. Following talks with David Cameron over the past 48 hours, Clarke accepted rapists will now be excluded, but he is battling to retain the extra discount for less serious offences, a policy that would free up badly needed prison places. In difficult talks yesterday with the Treasury chief secretary, Danny Alexander, Clarke pointed out he had last year won Treasury agreement that if the government’s so-called rehabilitation revolution did not deliver a lower jail population, then the Treasury would bear the costs from the reserve. Clarke is insisting this be honoured by the Chancellor, George Osborne; if jail places are to go up, Clarke should not pay by finding cuts elsewhere in his budget such as legal aid. The Treasury is insisting he has a four-year settlement with clear ceilings. A Clarke ally said: “He is a former chancellor, and he is involved in a negotiation. He offered up some of the biggest cuts of any government department last year, and if Number 10 wants to change the policy, they are going to have to pay for it.” Clarke’s allies insist he enjoyed the clear agreement of the Treasury and the prime minister for the increase in the discount for pleading guilty early, but that support had gone cold in the past 48 hours. Cameron had been warned by his chief strategist and pollster, Andrew Cooper, that the Conservatives’ credentials as the party of law and order were being fatally damaged by a furore over shorter sentences in return for rapists pleading guilty. Cameron decided to execute a policy U-turn last week, but had not forseen that one-to-one discussions with Clarke on Tuesday would leak. Coming alongside the U-turn over health policy, Cameron will be aware of the danger in being seen as weak or irresolute. He is due to make a crime speech later this month, and the tabloid barrage over rapists was threatening to obscure his message, as well as anger his backbenchers. At prime minister’s questions Cameron went out of his way to praise Clarke, saying “he is doing a superb job” and adding “he has got plenty more fuel in his tank”. In face of claims by Labour leader Ed Miliband that “government sentencing policy was in a mess”, Cameron insisted there had been no U-turn, arguing the discount proposal had only been floated in a consultative green paper. Yet Clarke had in the Commons a fortnight ago described the policy as agreed, and is personally in no doubt Cameron sounded the retreat. The problem for Clarke is that the discount is a major part of his drive to stabilise the record 85,000 prison population in England and Wales. The Ministry of Justice has agreed to find savings of £2bn from a budget of £8.7bn. Ministry estimates show 3,400 of the 6,000 fewer prison places that will be needed as a result of his sentencing package will come from the plan to increase the maximum available sentence discount from 33% to 50%. In practice, the ministry estimates the average actual discount in sentences for early guilty pleas would rise from 25% to 34%. There were 1,058 rapists sentenced in 2010, of which 466 had pleaded guilty. Asked by Miliband to confirm the policy had been dropped, Cameron told MPs: “What we want is tough sentences for serious offenders. We produced a consultation paper that had widespread support for many of the proposals that it made, and in the coming weeks we will be publishing our legislation.” Miliband said there was widespread concern about the proposal and asked Mr Cameron if he had “torn it up, yes or no?” In one of Miliband’s weaker Commons performances, Cameron was able to hit back by pointing out that Sadiq Khan, Miliband’s own shadow justice secretary had described the plan as “a perfectly sensible vision for a sentencing policy”. He suggested it was Miliband who had undergone “a sudden U-turn”. Downing Street is also believed to have insisted that ministers look again at a plan to restore a judge’s discretion in imposing indeterminate sentences for public protection, a major factor in the increase in the jail population in England and Wales. The changes were welcomed on the Tory right. Philip Davies said today: “I think the Prime Minister has realised that Ken Clarke was in danger of single-handedly ruining the reputation of the Conservative party as the party of law and order.” Kenneth Clarke David Cameron Rape Crime Prisons and probation UK criminal justice Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk