Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Shabana Mahmood

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will make more progress. I think I have been more than generous.

That brings me to the Bill before us today. While the updated Sentencing Council guidelines are currently paused, if we do not act they will come into force— [Interruption.] Well, there was a lot to say, gentlemen, about the previous Government’s track record and it needed to be said. And I do not think the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) should mind me taking interventions from people on his own side. That is a novel approach for the shadow Front Bench.

Let me turn to the specifics of the Bill. It is tightly focused, containing just two clauses. Clause 1 amends section 120 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, which brought the Sentencing Council into existence. It dictates that the guidelines the council produces may not include references to personal characteristics, including race, religion or belief, or cultural background. Clause 2 relates to how the Bill will be enacted: that it will apply only to England and Wales, and that its measures will come into force on the day after it passes.

It is also important to be clear about what the Bill does not do. It does not stop the Sentencing Council from issuing broader guidance concerning requests for pre-sentence reports in those cases where it is helpful for the court to understand more about an offender’s history and personal circumstances. The Bill does not interfere with the courts’ duties to obtain a pre-sentence report in appropriate cases, for example those involving primary carers and victims of domestic abuse. And, as detailed in the Bill’s explanatory notes, it does not change existing precedent where the courts have determined that pre-sentence reports are necessary or desirable, in cases such as: Thompson, where the Court of Appeal recently emphasised their importance in sentencing pregnant women or women who have recently given birth; Meanley, in which the court referenced the value of pre-sentence reports for young defendants; or Kurmekaj, where the defendant had a traumatic upbringing, vulnerability, and was a victim of modern slavery. Instead, the Bill narrowly focuses on the issue at hand, putting beyond doubt a principle which finds its ancient origins in Magna Carta and has developed over the centuries to serve the interests of justice not just here but in jurisdictions around the world: that each of us, no matter who we are, where we come from or what we believe, stand equal before the law of the land.

Wider questions remain about the role and the powers of the Sentencing Council, as I have noted. The council does important work, bringing consistency to judicial decision making, but it is clear in this instance that it went beyond its original remit. It sought to set policy, which stood out of step with the Government of the day. Therefore, it raises the question: who should set sentencing policy? Today’s legislation only addresses this question in the narrowest terms, considering the guidance on pre-sentence reports. It does not give us a definitive resolution as to whether it is Government Ministers or members of the Sentencing Council who should decide policy in the future. As I noted, that leaves us with a democratic deficit.

As I told the House on 1 April, the question of the role and powers of the Sentencing Council must therefore be considered further. That work is already under way in my Department. Should a further change be required, the Government will include it in upcoming legislation. The Sentencing Council plays an important role in our justice system, and any changes to it must be made carefully and with the consideration it deserves. I am sure they will be discussed more in this House in the months ahead, and I welcome the opportunity to debate them.

The Bill we are debating today is small, but the issues it contains could not be of greater significance. I know the majority of right hon. and hon. Members in this House would agree that the Sentencing Council’s intentions on this issue were noble, but in trying to reach for equality of outcome, they sacrificed too much, undermining the sacred principle of equality before the law. It is right that we, as policymakers, stop the updated guidelines from coming into force. We must stand up for the idea that no matter our race or religion, no person should receive preferential treatment as they stand in the dock before a judge, so I beg to move that the Bill now be read a second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the shadow Lord Chancellor.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Shabana Mahmood

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Dear, dear, dear me. It seems that the right hon. Gentleman’s amnesia is as bad as ever: 14 whole years appear to have disappeared entirely from his memory. He talks about parliamentary sovereignty, but when his party was in government and he was a Secretary of State or a Minister, he appeared never to know what on earth parliamentary sovereignty was or how to exercise power.

I think the right hon. Gentleman is rather distressed that my approach has led to a pause in the guidelines, that I will introduce a Bill that will deal with the offending bit of this guideline, and that I will consider the wider role and powers of the Sentencing Council ahead of the sentencing Bill later this year. I understand that it must be very disappointing for him that he has been exposed as someone who is all talk and no action, and that I get the job done. I can see that that annoys him greatly.

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to begin by apologising to the country, as I often invite him to do when we have our exchanges across the Dispatch Box. In 14 years, he never appeared to discover any of the things that he now discusses regularly from the Opposition Benches. He did nothing about those matters when he was a member of the Government that ran the country. Perhaps that is the problem: the Conservatives never really ran the country; they gave up on the job. He never rolled up his sleeves and put in the hard work to get the job done. That is why we inherited prisons on the brink of collapse, and why I am now unwinding all the mistakes that his party made and the guidance that he and his party welcomed.

The right hon. Gentleman did not tell me what discussions he has had with the shadow Transport Secretary, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon). Before the Conservatives explain why they are so het up about things now, they should explain why they welcomed those things when they were in office. There was no answer to those questions. I do not believe that there were many questions in that diatribe from the shadow Justice Secretary.

On sentencing, the pause in the guideline was communicated—that is a matter for the Sentencing Council. I will, of course, engage with the judiciary to ensure that all is understood regarding the pause. Nothing has changed in relation to the ordering of pre-sentencing reports by judges in all the circumstances in which they would ordinarily do so. The guideline is what has been paused, and it will now not come into effect until Parliament has had its say. The right hon. Gentleman references two individuals. That is the difference between me and him: I do not make it personal. I just focus on the job, and I get the job done.

[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.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

There is only one group in this House that lost control of our justice system: the decimated former Government on the Opposition Benches. Overcrowded prisons, reoffending through the roof, victims waiting for justice—what a disgrace. That disgrace continues today through the downplaying of the impact of intergenerational trauma—of which child abuse is a form—by the shadow Justice Secretary.

I thank the Lord Chancellor for engaging with me on this issue in advance of her statement. Our criminal justice system’s ability to take someone’s freedom away is one of the most humbling powers that it holds, which is why sentencing decisions must include all available information. Pre-sentence reports are a critical part of that process. She mentioned pregnant women, survivors of domestic abuse and survivors of modern slavery as important examples of where that is considered. However, because everybody has a context, the Liberal Democrats believe that such reports should consistently be made available whenever anyone’s liberty is at stake. We will therefore scrutinise the legislation through that lens of equality before the law.

It is rich of the Conservatives to complain about inequality in our justice system when it was they who presided over a state of affairs in which someone from one our country’s most deprived areas is 10 times more likely to be in prison than someone from the least deprived, someone who looks like me is four times more likely to be stopped and searched than others, and people with special educational needs represent half the prison population compared to a fifth of the general population. Will the Justice Secretary outline how she will fairly tackle those disparities to restore confidence in the justice system, which was so shattered by the Conservative party?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesman for his questions. He is right: as I said in my statement, pre-sentence reports are an incredibly vital tool for judges. In fact, the requirement is that they should ask for a pre-sentence report unless the court considers it unnecessary to do so. There is a strong push towards obtaining pre-sentence reports in the vast majority of cases. The Probation Service that I inherited from the previous Administration has struggled under increased workloads. It was a service that the Conservative party privatised and then partly renationalised—our Probation Service officers, who do vital work every single day, have been through the mill.

I have been making changes to the focus of the Probation Service in the last few months to pivot its work to focus on high and medium-risk offenders and free up probation capacity, so that more time can be spent doing vital work such as the preparation of pre-sentence reports. I will carry on working with the Probation Service to ensure it is ready to do what is asked of it, to a very high and consistent standard, which I know will be important to all Members. I have already announced 1,300 extra probation officers in the financial year that has just passed and another 1,000 in the coming financial year. Probation remains vital to the preparation of pre-sentence reports, and we will ensure it is in a position to meet the asks that are made of it.

On the hon. Gentleman’s wider points about disparities across the criminal justice system, I thank him for the spirit in which he has engaged with me on those matters. I have the same concerns as him, but I believe we should understand what the latest data is showing us. That is why I have asked for a review of all the current data, and we should test any solutions we come up with. They are policy solutions, so they would have to be debated and passed in this House, and politicians are ultimately responsible at the ballot box for the choices they make, but those solutions have to work—they have to yield a change in these disparities. That is what I want to test.

In my engagement with the Sentencing Council on this particular guideline, it has accepted that the causes of the disparities are unclear, and no one is sure whether the changes to pre-sentence reports would make a difference anyway. I am not willing to sacrifice public confidence in the criminal justice system or chip away at the idea of equality before the law for solutions that are appropriate for debate in this place and that we are not even sure would work. I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman closely in the coming weeks and months on these issues.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because he gives me an opportunity at the conclusion of my statement to support the Probation Service. In all of the Tory party’s terrible legacy in the criminal justice system, including prisons on the point of collapse, what it did to the Probation Service was unconscionable. This Government are putting things right. I have already made changes to the Probation Service, and I will ensure that it is on the strongest possible footing going into the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the Lord Chancellor for her statement.