Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

The hon. Gentleman says that he does not want to get involved in semantics. I am sorry, but in that case he is in the wrong place. This is what we are about. We are about trying to construe a new piece of legislation here. While he continues in his present position, he will have to grin and bear it, and go through the process of deconstruction of clauses. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. I look at subsection (4) and I see that it is qualified by subsections (5) and (8), which gives that latitude in terms of the state of mind of the person under attack at the time, and allows them to believe something that is wholly wrong, provided that they genuinely believed it at the time and can show that to the court. I look at new clause 8 and I see a quite different test—that it should have been apparent to the person that he was using ““grossly disproportionate force””, a term that is undefined. So the householder is still left in the quandary: ““Is what I am doing grossly disproportionate? Will a court find at the end of the day that what I did was grossly disproportionate? I don't know. It's the middle of the night, I have a golf club in my hand, do I give him a thwack or not?”” That is the real problem. On that basis, I prefer new clause 6. It is a better formulation. It provides that latitude in law, but at the same time better defines the law. I do not accept that this is a signal, because it goes further than that and changes the ground rules for the legislation that applies. That will be of benefit to householders. New clause 8 may be of benefit, but not as much benefit as the Conservative party appears to think. Its determination to press the new clause to a vote in competition is absurd under the circumstances—grossly disproportionate, I might say.