Prime Minister's Questions: David Cameron & Ed Miliband

Labour leader Ed Miliband has urged Prime Minister David Cameron to sack Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, over comments he made on BBC Radio 5live about rape cases.

Mr Clarke told listeners of the Victoria Derbyshire programme that there were different types of rape, as he defended the government's suggestion that sentences could be halved if the defendant offers a guilty plea.

He said no one convicted of a "serious rape" would be released as quickly as some others convicted of the offence.

At Prime Minister's Questions on 18 May 2011, Mr Miliband said: "The justice secretary cannot speak for the women of this country when he makes comments like that."

The opposition leader declared: "The justice secretary should not be in his post at the end of today."

But Mr Cameron said he had not yet heard Mr Clarke's comments, and accused Mr Miliband of "jumping on a bandwagon".

The prime minister told him: "Rape is one of the most serious crimes that there is and it should be met with proper punishment."

He noted that criminals who plead guilty can already receive a reduction of one third in their sentences under the current plea bargaining system.

He said the government was consulting on whether to increase this to a half, and had not decided which offences would be covered by any extension of the system.

"The real disgrace in our country is that only 6% of rapes reported to a police station end in a conviction," he told MPs.