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• MPs to examine increased discounts for early guilty pleas
• Cameron backs justice secretary after rape comments furore
The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, has postponed plans to announce his sentencing reforms, including the controversial move to increase discounts for early guilty pleas, until after the Whitsun break.
Clarke had hoped to announce the sentencing package designed to stabilise the record prison population next Tuesday, but that has been delayed for a few weeks while ministers look again at the impact of the controversial proposal.
Downing Street expressed its full confidence in Clarke, who promised on Thursday to "choose my words more carefully in the future". But David Cameron was privately furious with Clarke for what No 10 regarded as his "tin ear" when he appeared to suggest on Wednesday that some rape cases are more serious than others.
Clarke once again apologised on Thursday night for his choice of words. In an appearance on BBC1's Question Time, filmed in the chapel of Wormwood Scrubs prison in west London, he said: "I obviously upset a lot of people by what I said and I'm sorry if I did, by the way I put it. All rape is serious. It's one of the gravest crimes. My choice of words was wrong. It's because I got bogged down in a silly exchange.
"As a politician I made a mistake by allowing myself to get drawn into a great long argument about exactly what the gradations of rape were."
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty who was also a panellist on the programme, offered qualified support for the substance of Clarke's original remarks. "All rapes are horrific but some are particularly aggravated," she said.
Clarke, who had initially refused to say sorry, wrote late on Wednesday to apologise to Gabrielle Brown, the victim of an attempted rape who confronted him in a live radio interview. Sir George Young, the Commons leader, announced to MPs that Clarke would meet Brown next week. She said she would "reserve judgment" on whether he should resign until then.
The justice secretary is standing firm behind his plan to increase the maximum discount available for offenders who plead guilty at the earliest opportunity from 33% to 50% in an effort to boost conviction rates and save £130m a year. He told Question Time, filmed for the first time inside a prison with eight inmates in the audience, that his plans would apply to "every crime".
A Ministry of Justice impact assessment of Clarke's green paper on sentencing and rehabilitation has disclosed that the sentence discount plan is due to provide the lion's share of the reduction in demand for prison places that Clarke needs to stabilise the jail population, which will enable a new drive to cut reoffending rates.
Justice ministry official estimates show that 3,400 of the overall saving of 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 discount from 33% to 50%. In practice the MoJ estimates that the average actual discount in sentences for early guilty pleas will increase from the current 25% to 34%.
These official estimates show why Clarke is loathe to give up the proposal as it would knock the heart out of his prison reform plans. But ministers are now looking at excluding the most serious offences, such as attempted murder and rape, from the proposed new maximum discount. Support for this move came from the Association of Chief Police Officers who said the level of discount for offenders who pleaded guilty to the most serious crime should not be the same as for those who admit less serious offences.
"We have not set out but support the view taken by others that such discounts should not apply at the same level to more serious crimes, such as murder," an Acpo spokeswoman said. "Acpo supports the concept of sentence reduction for early guilty pleas, with a maximum reduction applying from the point a suspect is first asked if they committed an offence in a police station. Such admissions save victims and witnesses from further distress and the traumatic process of having to go through a trial at court."
But the pressure on Clarke was highlighted when a senior Liberal Democrat backbencher questioned whether it would be right to apply the discount plan to rapists. Sir Alan Beith, chairman of the Commons justice select committee, told Radio 4's The World at One: "There's a very serious risk that the level at which the offence is treated will not be commensurate with the general public view of how serious it is."
Amid fears among Lib Dems that Cameron may be tempted to sack one of their most supportive members of the cabinet, Beith warned those on the centre-left to temper their criticisms of the justice secretary: "I think Ken used some foolish words which did not reflect what I believe is his own view and certainly is the government view and mine about the seriousness of rape. But I think some of those who are joining in the hue and cry to get rid of Ken Clarke ought to be careful what they wish for, because he is someone that recognises that the agenda in criminal justice has got to be about how you cut reoffending not how you sound tough."
New Sentencing Council research published this week shows there is very little public support for increasing the maximum discount with only 22% backing the move. A small number of victims surveyed did however say they would be supportive if it spared them having to testify in court. The Sentencing Council, which sets guidelines for judges, said they had seen little evidence to show a 50% discount would actually encourage more criminals to plead guilty.
A joint letter from the End Violence Against Women Coalition and Rape Crisis England and Wales demanded the government publicly confirm that there is no such crime as "date rape" and that "all non-consensual sex is serious".
Cameron's greatest anger was directed at Crispin Blunt, the junior prisons minister, who singled out rape suspects to illustrate the government's plans to increase the discount for early guilty pleas from a third to half the sentence.