Sentencing Council Guidelines

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

In fairness to the Sentencing Council, it sought views from the previous Government and was told that the Government welcomed its findings, both in the consultation and the guideline. The Sentencing Council did not do anything wrong in the process that it followed. I invited it to consider that there had been a change of Government and a change of policy since it began work on the guideline, and asked it to consider reopening the consultation. I was disappointed that it chose not to do so, but I am not interested in making this a personal debate about individuals. I am grateful to the Sentencing Council for pausing the guideline, which has not come into effect. All our previous arrangements in relation to pre-sentence reports remain in place. As I say, I am considering the wider role and powers of the Sentencing Council, and I will return to the House with further proposals in due course.

[Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

The cherished idea of equal treatment before the law is fundamental to my constituents’ understanding of British justice, so why did the Justice Secretary not act immediately to stop the imposition of two-tier sentencing, rather than the last minute scramble we saw yesterday? In her statement today, she says:

“The proportion of ethnic minorities within the judiciary has risen from just 7% 10 years ago to 11% today.”

To what extent does she consider that that simply reflects a wider demographic change, rather than discrimination in the judiciary?

[Shabana Mahmood]

On diversity in the judiciary, there has been consensus in this House on that point. A lot of effort has gone into encouraging applications from people who may want to consider leaving private practice and becoming judges, which has started to have an effect. Having institutions that are more representative of the country that they represent is an important principle. I hope that there is cross-party consensus that it is important for Parliament to look, at least a little bit, like the people that it seeks to represent. However, I am not sure whether an increase in the diversity of judges is necessarily going to be the fix for the disparity issues that we see in the criminal justice system. That is why I have asked for a review of what the current data is telling us, to tease out whether there is a relationship between those two things. If there is not, then we will need to think more carefully about the other policy levers that might be needed. I think those are proper matters for this House to discuss.

On the hon. Lady’s broader point about the Sentencing Council, I used a power that has never been used before, in the 15 years of the Sentencing Council’s existence, to ask it to think again. I have done everything the proper way: I asked it to think again and I engaged with the Sentencing Council. At the end of last week, it told me that it was going to stick with and publish the guideline, and that it would come into force today, 1 April, which is why I said I would legislate. I brought forward a Bill, which has been published today, and thankfully the Sentencing Council has chosen to pause the guideline until Parliament has had its say. I have done everything exactly as I should have done, instead of rushing to rhetoric, which I do not believe solves anything.