Ken Clarke has said that people have a “perfect defence” if they “hit [a] burglar with the poker” and defended the right of elderly women to use a knife in self-protection if their house is broken into. He said, however, that he was not introducing a new law, but clarifying the current situation.
The Justice Secretary has come under fire from Conservative and Labour backbenchers over the sentencing bill. MPs have said that they will fight his plans both to limit the use of remand in custody and to curb the use of indeterminate sentences for public protection. Mr Clarke will defend the Sentencing Bill today when it has its second reading in Parliament today.
The Justice Secretary told the BBC's Today programme that the Prime Minister had not made him change his policies, and that it was "a very worthwhile effort to get some people to plead guilty earlier and give a great deal of help to victims and witnesses".
As the Ministry of Justice's proposals to slash the legal aid bill by £300m go to Parliament for the second reading, the Law Society has restated criticisms that the Bill is "short sighted" and would lead to more crime.
Peter Lodder QC, the chairman of the Bar Council, said earlier that the legal aid system in Britain was "average" and not the "most generous in the world" and the Government has claimed.