Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Diane Abbott

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

Well, either our judiciary is world-class and highly regarded, or it is so soft-minded that the very existence of a pre-sentencing report will make it rule in a way in which it would not otherwise have ruled.

Decisions by judges and magistrates on individual cases are not the same as policy. The Sentencing Council itself is very clear that it does not seek to dictate policy; it is simply trying to ensure that judges and magistrates have the maximum amount of information. Leading King’s Counsel Keir Monteith says that there has been a deliberate misreading of the rules in order to generate a row, and I believe that is correct.

Then we come to the talk, which I have heard on both sides of the House, about two-tier criminal justice. That can only mean that black defendants are treated more favourably than white defendants. Yet the facts tell us to the contrary. Ministers will be aware of the Lammy review, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy)—now the Foreign Secretary. It was a review of race in the criminal justice system, in which he found that

“Despite making up just 14% of the population,”

black and ethnic minority men and women

“make up 25% of prisoners, while over 40% of young people in custody are from BAME backgrounds.”

He added:

“If our prison population reflected the make-up of England and Wales, we would have over 9,000 fewer people in prison—the equivalent of 12 average-sized prisons.”

My right hon. Friend did not find a criminal justice system where black and brown people are treated more favourably than white people, and he did not find equality before the law. There is no reason to believe that things have changed since he drew up his review.

We need to appreciate that not only do we have a two-tier system, but it is a two-tier system in completely the opposite way to what the Lord Chancellor suggests, and it has been like that for decades. The population wants to see our two-tier criminal justice system taken seriously.

Members may remember the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence in the early 1990s. It took a Labour Government and a Labour Home Secretary to commission a judge-led inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence case. In 1999 the Macpherson inquiry reported. It spoke in an unequivocal way about institutional racism in the police service, and it spoke in a way that I had never heard it spoken about in this House or at the most senior levels in the state. Nobody since then has challenged the notion that there is institutional racism in the police.

Do we have to have our own Macpherson inquiry into the workings of the judicial system before people will accept that institutional racism is an issue in the courts as well? It is not enough to say, “Well, you know, the facts point in that direction but we are not quite sure why the figures are like that.” We know why the figures are like that, and we have known that for decades.

If we want to win the respect of the community as a whole, we must be seen to be working towards a fair criminal justice system, not just trying to score points off the opposition; and we must look at the long term, rather than the short term. We know that, in England and Wales, black people are much more likely to be arrested than white people. Specifically, black individuals are twice as likely to be arrested as white individuals. That disparity extends to imprisonment, with black individuals being more likely to be sentenced to prison and serving longer sentences than their white counterparts. Everybody knows that people are not treated the same, and it is misleading of Members on both sides of the House to imply that that is so.

Peter Herbert, chair of the Society of Black Lawyers, said:

“We have experienced racist two-tier policing for over 500 years. If we achieve equal treatment that is not two-tier as it is long overdue. We have never asked for special treatment only equal treatment.”

The Lord Chancellor should pay attention to the wish of so many members of the community, in her constituency in Birmingham and my constituency in east London, and the wishes of so many millions of people in the community to see a fair criminal justice system that treats people fairly, not unfairly as has happened in the past. Members will know that it took the Macpherson inquiry to get a measure of understanding about criminal justice in policing.

In closing, I will say this. It is interesting to hear the banter about this issue between those on the two Front Benches, but this is not an issue for banter. This is people’s lives; this is people’s liberty. I do not think that the debate is enhanced by some of the Trump-like narrative that we are getting from the Opposition. We do not need Donald Trump-type politics in Britain today. We need seriousness about the unfair discrimination in the criminal justice system, and a willingness not just to talk about it, but to do something about it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Josh Babarinde.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Diane Abbott

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Mother of the House.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I realise that this is not a popular view in the House, but the Justice Secretary will be aware that some of us are astonished that she thinks our judges are so weak-minded as to be affected by what are guidelines in relation to how they sentence black and brown defendants.

The Justice Secretary will be aware that report after report and repeated statistical analysis have demonstrated what some of us consider to be unfairness in relation to black and brown people and the criminal justice system. She will also be aware that the reason the Sentencing Council was made a statutory independent body was to avoid even the appearance of ministerial interference in sentencing. This is not the United States; our political and judicial systems are entirely separate. Can she explain why she is so triumphant about not just interfering in sentencing, but passing a piece of legislation to cut across what the Sentencing Council is saying?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her questions—at least she asks some proper questions. She says that her view on the policy might be an unpopular one, but this is the place where views on policy, popular or unpopular, can and should be debated. That is at the heart of my disagreement with the Sentencing Council on the guideline.

I think that the matters that my right hon. Friend raises in relation to race and the disparities in the criminal justice system are the proper preserve of politicians. The answer to how we deal with those issues will be a policy answer, and it is for the Government, the Opposition and other Members to debate that policy answer and pursue it through Parliament. That is why I reject entirely the suggestion that anything I have done impinges upon the independence of the judiciary or calls into question the separation of powers in this country.

The Sentencing Council is itself a creature of statute; it is only 15 years old. It is entirely proper for a politician—a Government Minister, the Lord Chancellor—to assert that there is a boundary between that which is policy and a matter for Parliament and that which is judicial practice and consistency in judicial cases. I have sought to reassert that boundary. I look forward to working with Members with differing views from across the House in considering the wider role and powers of the Sentencing Council. As I have said, I will return to those matters in the coming months.