Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 7th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, what a lovely maiden speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Nichols of Selby. She did Selby and her family proud—and, what is better, she talked a lot of grounded sense on this issue, so I welcome her.

I also welcome this Bill. What we are discussing here—that pre-sentence reports will now not offer differential treatment based on race, religion or cultural background—is important, but, as we have heard, it was a close thing. As the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, outlined, it is important that we note that it is a serious democratic concern that an unelected quango set up by elected politicians sought to act against the wishes of those same elected politicians, and it has taken urgent, fast-tracked primary legislation to stop it. I know from the Minister’s letter that this broader debate is off limits today, but I emphasise that this tension cannot be sidestepped and needs to be taken head on.

The noble Lord, Lord Beith, and others say that this Bill is unnecessary. Is the problem for us not that it became necessary because the independent Sentencing Council flouted democracy? That should matter. The Minister’s letter, which I referred to earlier, reassures us that this Bill will not affect pre-sentence reports in general. That is fine, although it has to be said that some attention needs to be given to PSRs. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation’s latest annual report said that 70% of PSRs inspected between February 2024 and February 2025 were deemed insufficient.

I also think that more clarity needs to be offered to the public about the role of pre-sentence reports in general, now that we are talking about them in relation to this Bill. While there may well be broad acceptance that, in making sentencing decisions, the specific individual circumstances of any defendant can be looked at and taken into account, I think reassurance may be needed for the public that the main focus of sentencing decisions should be appropriate punishment for particular criminal actions and individual perpetrators’ culpability.

More broadly, and going back to the specifics of this Bill, I commend the clarity of the Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, about why the original Sentencing Council’s revised guidelines offended the principle of fair treatment before the law and how they seriously risked eroding confidence in the justice system in general. There is indeed an ever-deepening trust deficit, and I am not entirely sure that this narrow Bill is sufficient to fix it. The reason is that differentiated treatment in criminal justice goes far beyond this sentencing issue. Ms Mahmood seemed to acknowledge that when she stated:

“As someone who is from an ethnic minority background myself, I do not stand for any differential treatment before the law, for anyone of any kind”.


To borrow a phrase from the Prime Minister, she gets it.

Interestingly, Ms Mahmood also used a key phrase in opposing this differentiated approach when she confronted a “two-tier sentencing approach”. That is a choice turn of phrase. Previously, the popular critique of criminal justice as two-tier really resonated, particularly in relation to the sentencing post last summer’s riots, which was sneeringly dismissed as a far-right conspiratorial myth by many Ministers and politicians. It was written off as some culture war trope, and we have heard similar slurs here today. Even as recently as April, the Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry into last year’s “civil disorder” described claims of two-tier policing as “unsubstantiated” and “disgraceful”. Does the Minister acknowledge why there is a widespread perception, reflected in polling and grounded in real-life experience and evidence, that often, even before sentencing occurs, some crimes can be handled differently depending on the race, religion or community membership of the perpetrator?

I have just written the foreword for a forthcoming report entitled The Many Tiers of British Justice: When Identity Politics Trumps Impartial Policing, by Hardeep Singh. I will send a copy to the Minister when it is published next month: it is a crucial read. It uses as an example, and explores in detail, the loss of confidence in the impartiality of police operational decisions, which seem increasingly to be influenced by the particular community being policed, or by broader political concerns, rather than by criminal justice ones.

The plight of the suspended and now sacked chair of the Met Police Federation, Rick Prior, indicates this tension. Mr Prior was removed from his job after a TV interview in which he discussed how his members’ fears of vexatious investigations meant that police officers hesitated before engaging with minority-ethnic Londoners. Referring to some Independent Office for Police Conduct investigations, Mr Prior reported that some police officers had stopped applying the law fairly to people of all backgrounds.

Some noble Lords have expressed concerns about speeches made today that have raised broad political concerns, suggesting that we should have stuck to the narrow tramlines of the Bill—a bit like “Get back in your lane”. But this is Second Reading, so we are allowed to stretch broadly. I will also raise my concerns, which rather mirror those, that criminal justice is being used in a proactive, political way, and that those involved should potentially stick to their lane. Indeed, one thing that the whole Sentencing Council controversy has revealed is the tendency to try to use criminal justice to compensate for perceived racial unfairness and alleged social injustices. The Sentencing Council in its original statement admitted this by saying the quiet bit out loud:

“The reasons for including groups for PSRs vary but include evidence of disparities in sentencing outcomes”.


That translates as, “The aim was to go easier on certain groups to address alleged inequalities”.

The Lord Chancellor, in the Minister’s letter, acknowledged the Sentencing Council’s good intentions in addressing disparities of sentencing outcomes, but I am not sure that we should flatter those intentions. Even if the Minister rightly emphasises that these discussions should be had by policymakers, with decisions accountable to the public, I have a nagging concern, and perhaps the Minister can reassure me as I finish off.

The Government seem to be accepting at face value the Supreme Court’s thesis that racial disparities or inequalities of outcome must mean inequality of treatment and racist discrimination. I fear that such conclusions are exactly what leads to inappropriate, proactive anti-racist correctives and cloud the ability to look dispassionately and objectively at the issue. At the very least, alternative explanations need to be considered. For example, ethnic minorities tend to plead not guilty at a higher rate, leading to less leniency at sentencing. One hypothesis to explain this is that there is more distrust of advice given by state-provided lawyers—distrust that might legitimately have its roots in the legacy of historic racism.

If criminal justice bodies and politicians push a narrative that the state is institutionally racist, will that not simply deepen and embed such distrust? What we need are not narrow Bills but broader discussions. However, in this instance I hope that the narrow Bill will clear the way for those broader discussions, which should be about the use of the law and the judiciary for political purposes—something I think is worrying.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question, and I recognise its complexity. That is why my right honourable friend wants to look at this question in the round, because the point he made is correct. I do not want to anticipate what the answer to his question will be, but nevertheless I acknowledge the complexity that he has pointed out.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I commend the Justice Secretary and, indeed, the Opposition for agreeing on the need for legislation on this matter. Does the Minister agree that, as illustrated perhaps by many of the comments that we have already heard, the guidance on pre-sentencing reports or differential bail et cetera, which is designed by an unelected quango, is not the place to pursue wholly political and often divisive and contentious policies around identity, whether it is race, ethnicity, faith, transgender and so on? It is just not the right place for it to happen. Is not the problem a bit broader in that whenever an unelected quango, such as the Sentencing Council, acts in defiance of Parliament, it undermines public trust in democracy, not just in the courts? That is why I am glad the Justice Secretary acted at last.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her support.

Sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

There are 241 IPP prisoners in secure mental health settings as of the last figures published. It is those who are of real concern to me, because they are so far away from being safe to be released. We need to make sure that we support them—as in the example I gave earlier of the prisoner whom I met recently—in their journey. The work that the Government are doing on the Mental Health Act, with the provisions being put in place, will, hopefully, contribute to a more successful outcome.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, next.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, following on from the request of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for more detailed data, will the Government make public detailed data of the different gradations of risk presented by the various cohorts of the IPP prisoner population, assuming that they are not treated as an undifferentiated blob? Then, could the Government apply the same risk-assessment criteria used for early release decisions to the least risky IPP prisoners and release them now—hardly early—because to exclude IPP prisoners from emergency measures to ease overcrowding seems irrational and even cruel?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will be pleased to know that I raised this when we had the Peers round table a few months ago—I am hoping to have another one in May—when we talked about the RAG rating of IPP prisoners. At the time, we just RAG rated those in prison, and I am pleased that everybody in the community is now also RAG rated, which will help. I am hopeful that noble Lords will suggest to me what they would like on the agenda for our round table, which I hope will be in May. Maybe we can discuss the important questions around data then.

Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

My Lords, we will hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches, which we have not heard from as yet.

Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I agree with every word the noble Baroness has said. My noble friend Lord Timpson has just whispered in my ear that he has been to Holland, so we are looking at that very closely. The other point he made is that they use a lot of tagging in Holland, so that is another factor when we are looking at reviewing sentencing as a whole, although of course the sentencing review will look at adult sentencing and not at youth matters.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am worried about a public loss of confidence in the contradictions around sentencing. I think there was public disquiet about the high-profile case of a woman given a two-and-a-half-year sentence for a social media post, which the noble Lord has pointed out was possibly somebody being made an example of. Yet letting people out before their sentence is up for more serious crimes seems to contradict that. Also—dare I mention?—many IPP prisoners have served their tariff in prison. Will the Minister comment on whether some of those could be looked at to see whether, having done their time, they could be released earlier than their indefinite sentence? They have done their time for the crime they committed and yet they still languish in prison. It just does not seem to make any sense to the public.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. In a sense, she exemplifies the difficulty of the various matters we are grappling with when trying to address the overall problem of having this large number of people in prison at the same time as the riots were happening over the summer period. I acknowledge that that is a difficult situation. Regarding the IPP sentences, the Government have set up an IPP action plan which they are working at full speed on, and proposals will be coming forward in due course.

Prison Capacities

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in two minutes I will speak about two films.

I recently saw the film “Sing Sing”, based on the wonderful Rehabilitation through the Arts programme at Sing Sing maximum security prison in New York. One key figure, Divine G, a former prisoner who plays his younger self in the film, is an inspiring reminder that, yes, prison is there to punish and prisoners need to acknowledge they have been anti-social and were a threat to their fellow citizens, but that prison can find ways to help prisoners to become the best version of themselves.

However, we also know that prisons can be unsafe hell-holes that breed criminality, cynicism, addiction and despair. This sadly brings me to the second film. I was proud to speak at the premiere of “Britain’s Forgotten Prisoners” at the Sheffield documentary festival in the summer. The director, Martin Read, does an excellent job of following the stories of individuals on IPP sentences, trapped in

“a Kafka-esque world of labyrinthine bureaucracy that has seen them swallowed up by a system”.

I cried at both films, one at the humane hope of rehabilitation and one at the frustration and cruelty of inhumane and unjust prison policy.

For prisoners to stand a chance of rehabilitation, they need to believe that, however firm the system is, it is at least relatively fair. Recent events suggest there is no fairness for IPP prisoners. Never mind two-tier policing; we have a two-tier prison policy. Imagine you have done the crime, you have done your time—years earlier, in fact—yet now, way beyond your release date, you are still locked up indefinitely. The excuse is that IPP prisoners are too risky and could present a threat to public safety, with no evidence ever given. Now fellow prisoners, who have committed far worse crimes and have not done their time, are being released early for pragmatic political reasons. Will the Minister promise to at least look at releasing a batch of IPP prisoners via the early release scheme as a gesture of good faith that could restore much-needed hope to the IPP prison community?

Public Libraries

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, perhaps it is understandable in the face of library closures to plead defensively their case as community assets, but as we listen to the long list of services libraries are said to provide for the elderly, the lonely, victims of domestic abuse and bullying, et cetera, I worry that this moves their focus away from their core and vital role as the repository of books made accessible to the public. Once libraries are rebranded as glorified community hubs, there is a danger that books are sidelined. This can create a confusion of purpose and allows all sorts of faddish political activism to move in on libraries.

There is a lesson from Wales, where I am from. There, libraries have become embroiled in an unsavoury culture wars dispute. Only recently, Welsh libraries hit the headlines as staff were being sent on training courses in critical whiteness studies and told to eradicate racism from the libraries by 2030. Once books are deprioritised, we can even have forms of censorship, with libraries advised to decolonise their collections from the libraries sector and its own professional association targeting “lawful but awful” problematic books. My plea: put books centre stage in any libraries strategy.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

3rd reading
Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

It is not the Oscars ceremony, but I just wanted to agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, in relation to the Arbitration Bill. I am precluded by the rules of the House from mentioning the other, uncontentious piece of legislation—but I quietly agree with him.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I just want to say that it is the Victims and Prisoners Bill and it is very important that we acknowledge the work that has been achieved for IPP prisoners. I thank the team for that. Even though I wanted it to go further, I understand when progress has been made.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, will not mind me saying that the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, have also been very receptive and very helpful. For the first time since I have been here, I have had meetings with officials—it has all felt very grown up—in which I felt that they were listening and that things were being done. So, on this Bill at least, I felt that it was a very constructive engagement. Even though sometimes we have to be antagonistic and critical of the Government and the Front Bench, because they do not do exactly what we want them to do, that does not mean that we do not appreciate the work that has gone on and goes on. I for one will now be contacting the IPP prisoners who, like the people who have been mentioned in relation to the blood scandal, have been, with their families, contacting me all night, saying, “Please don’t let this drop”. Leaseholders are less happy, but that is a different story. Anyway, in this instance, I say thank you on behalf of both victims and prisoners.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy, the ministerial team and everybody across the Chamber from different teams. It has been heartwarming to see everybody trying to get the best result for victims and their families and make sure that the system understands what their journey is about. I also thank the Bill team, whom I have worked with not just on this Bill but as Victims’ Commissioner. I am very proud to be able to work my way round in that role as well.

Most importantly, it was not very nice to have “victims and prisoners” on the Bill, but we are where we are. However, to understand what victims go through is very important. I give huge congratulations on not throwing the baby out with the bath-water in all the politics. This is about people and this legislation is so important. It is a driver for getting other things on to it, whoever gets into power. It is important never to forget that victims have a voice and that voice must always be listened to. That is, as legislators, how we make legislation far better as it goes through these Houses.

I thank the ministerial team and everybody else who has joined in support of these amendments.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

I have a premonition that the Minister may have some very helpful things to say in response to Amendment 140. If he cannot see his way to supporting it today, can he at least agree to meet the experts from the forensic faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and me? If he is agreeable to this modest request and my premonition comes true, I could well be persuaded not to press Amendment 140 to a vote.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I wish I could speak as eloquently as a number of those who have already spoken—I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, will do so in a moment. We have travelled quite some way over the last few weeks, to a large extent due to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and other colleagues of his on the Cross Benches, and my noble friend Lord Moylan, who has been our shop steward in our discussions with my noble and learned friend the Minister.

I hope I will not embarrass my noble and learned friend by repeating what others have said about him, but it is clear that without his willingness to listen and his understanding of the deeply serious problems that IPPs present, we would not be where we are today. I salute him for his patience and kindness in listening to me and in understanding the plight of IPP prisoners. As a Government Minister—particularly one in charge of the justice system and the prison system—the most important phrase that concerns you when you get up in the morning, or go to bed at night, and think about a Bill such as this is “the protection of the public”. We have heard him use that expression any number of times during our discussions. The great advantage we have had in talking to him is that we have had discussions, not rows. The whole temper of the debate this afternoon demonstrates that, across the House, we want a discussion because we want to reach a just and fair answer to this very difficult problem.

I have co-signed a number of the amendments on the Marshalled List, but I want to concentrate, reasonably briefly, on Amendment 149A, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and others, have spoken. It seems to me to encapsulate the essence of what we are trying to do: yes, to ensure the protection of the public when it is necessary to do so, as the Minister wishes to do, but also to bring a degree of proportionality into the decisions that have to be taken by the Parole Board. There are no double negatives in this proposed new clause; there is a straightforward fixation upon doing what is just and fair.

Many noble Lords will have read the terms of the noble and learned Lord’s proposed new clause, but really one has to read carefully only subsection (2) of it to see that it allows for the Government—any Government—to protect the public, but also allows for our justice system to end the monstrosity which is the injustice and the unfairness of the IPP system. We have had two examples from the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and two more examples from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, but there are many, many more. Those are the prisoners who have survived, but bear in mind that there are a number of IPP prisoners who have died by their own hand because they have run out of hope. The one thing that a justice system must provide is the ability for a prisoner to get better, to rehabilitate, to return to society and to make his or her way in the world.

Subsection (2) says that

“the Secretary of State must by order pursuant to section 128 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 … direct that, following the prisoner’s referral to the Parole Board they will not be released unless the Board is satisfied that, having regard to the proportionality of the term served to the seriousness of the offence or offences of which they were convicted”.

Come back to the 18-month tariff, come back to the two-year tariff, and see that these men are in prison 18 years after being sentenced, nearly two decades after that tariff has expired. Importantly, the subsection also refers to “any other relevant factors”. The Parole Board is not required to just open the door and release them regardless because they are still there 20 years later, well beyond their two-year or 18-month tariff. It can take into account any other relevant factors. That could be the mental instability of the prisoner concerned or any number of characteristics or behaviours that the prisoner demonstrates, which demonstrate to the Parole Board and those who advise it that this particular prisoner—albeit he has served 20 years beyond his two-year tariff—is still, none the less, unsafe to release.

The burden must surely be on us, as representatives of the state in your Lordships’ House and as makers of legislation, to do things which promote fairness and justice, in a way that is transparently sensible. If I may say so, Amendment 149A speaks nothing but common sense, justice and fairness. Even at this very late stage of the Bill, I urge the Government to have one more think. This is not a matter of Labour against Conservative, Cross-Benchers ganging up on the Government, or the Liberal Democrats ganging up with the Labour Party against the Government. It is not even a matter of a couple of lily-livered, pinko Conservative drips ganging up on their Government and trying to engender a rebellion.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

It is a cross-party justice question. If I cannot stand up and speak for justice as a Conservative, I am in the wrong business. I will be voting with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, this evening.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, how do I follow those words about pinko commie Conservatives? Quite easily.

Perhaps we would not start from here, but as we are here, I too warmly welcome the Government’s concessions. They show that the Minister has been listening in Committee and at all the meetings. I hope that his listening continues, because there are many very fine amendments in this group, as reflected by the many very fine speeches. Even if the amendments are not voted on, I still think that they are worth considering, and I hope that the officials and the department will take on board what is being said.

All the amendments in this group tackle very specific, and sometimes seemingly technical, matters that remain outstanding in trying to tackle the IPP issue. It strikes me that all these fiddly, piecemeal issues could have been dealt with historically in one fell swoop, and once and for all, by a resentencing amendment. Although I know that that is off the table for now, it will need to be brought back by some future Government. For all that, this group of amendments adds up to more than the sum of its parts, which is why I hope that the amendments will still have an impact, even if they will not all be voted on.

Before I speak to the amendments that I put my name to, I want to show my support for Amendment 145, which the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said he cannot now press because of a lack of support. The notion of reversing the burden of proof when applying for parole made for one of the most important amendments in this group, not least because it would have had a material impact on the 3,000 IPP prisoners still in jail and it presents the most hope of the amendments here. A lot of people have rightly congratulated UNGRIPP and Donna Mooney on the work that they have done. She reminded us why she wanted Amendment 145 in particular to pass: she is worried that the IPP prisoners who are still incarcerated feel doubly abandoned by this Bill, because it does so little for them as a group. I concur, and I wanted to see that rectified.

That is why it was so gratifying in Committee to hear the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, had described then as a “nudge” to the Parole Board that would make a significant difference. Indeed, as we speak, the words of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, from the Dispatch Box are being echoed and cheered on widely in a clip featuring them in Peter Stefanovic’s latest short vlog, which has had over 1 million views in a matter of days. It is interesting that those words are being cited as a positive example of cross-party co-operation on an important matter of principle about criminal justice. I hear that the Labour Front Bench is now unable to support this amendment.

I want to counter something that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, mentioned. He said that, in the build-up to an election, this is a toxic topic. I understand the nervousness about law and order, but I will challenge that. I do not think that it is as toxic as we in this House or the other place sometimes suggest to the public. In fact, I think that public opinion can be won over—and is being won over—on IPPs. The fear that politicians have of the public and public opinion is sometimes an underestimation of the public’s sense of fairness and justice, as we have seen with the range of scandals over recent weeks and months—there have certainly been far too many.

The principle behind Amendment 145 is still important to consider, because if the state insists on retaining the power to continue incarcerating people for decades after their original tariff is spent, using a sentencing regime that the state itself has abolished as not fit for purpose, it is only right that the burden of justifying such extraordinary power should then lie with the state.

Parc Prison

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

I regret that, but unless I am advised otherwise, it was a 10-minute Question and it has been completed.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

With no Back-Benchers.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

The time is complete.