Sentencing Bill

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

Dangerous and reckless driving that takes innocent lives is a serious and painful issue that causes lots of anguish across our country, so I applaud the work of the hon. Member’s constituents and thank him for raising that issue; no doubt it can be explored further in Committee.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know the new Justice Secretary will not want to be accused of misleading the House on such important matters. A moment ago, he referred to the measures before the House not affecting the sentences for people accused of “the gravest crimes”. The measures before the House will reduce sentences for rapists and child abusers. He either thinks that those are grave crimes and wants to correct the record, or he does not—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. That is quite simply not a point of order but a point of debate, which the shadow Secretary of State could well come to in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lizzi Collinge]

I agree that retail premises need relief from that shoplifting, but I would like that relief to be permanent. I would like to see the causes of shoplifting stopped, and quite often that is drug use and organised criminal behaviour. I do not want just to chuck people in prison for a bit and then let them out to reoffend again.

We need sentences that give offenders proper access to drug and alcohol rehab and mental health care—the kind of support that tackles the root causes of crime. We need sentences that ensure the offender pays back their debt to society. Public safety is the bottom line here. Judges will have discretion to hand out prison sentences of less than 12 months, say, for domestic abusers or violent offenders. They will be able to make sure that survivors have the confidence to rebuild their lives knowing that the perpetrator is behind bars. Rapists and criminals who commit other serious sexual offences will spend their custodial term in prison.

[Dr Mullan]

Rapists and sexual offenders will spend less time in prison as a result of this Bill. Does she know that?

[Lizzi Collinge]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman’s analysis of the Bill is correct. I understand that perhaps he has some personal experience here and I appreciate that he has very strong feelings on the matter. Perhaps he will listen again to my former prison officer, who welcomed the changes.

[Dr Mullan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lizzi Collinge]

I will not give way—[Interruption.] I think the hon. Gentleman is perhaps not showing the House the respect it deserves—[Interruption.] I would appreciate it if he would allow me to continue without this continuous chuntering.

At their core, these reforms do two things at once. They keep the most dangerous offenders where they belong, in prison, protecting the public, and they end the waste of locking up low-risk offenders. The evidence is really clear. I know that the Conservatives really struggle when the evidence contradicts their instincts and their prejudices, but it is simply true. The hon. Gentleman disagreeing does not make it any less true.

The victims of crime in my constituency deserve better than this current crumbling justice system. They deserve better than our overstuffed prisons that just churn out more and more criminals. They deserve this Sentencing Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I am grateful to colleagues on all sides of the House for their contributions to the debate, and I welcome the Minister to his post—I think today is his first time at the Dispatch Box. As I have said before, wanting to see more consistent delivery of justice for victims of serious crime was one of the primary reasons I sought election to this place, and I do not think that any Government in my lifetime has universally delivered that. For decades, across parties, our justice system has fallen short far too often. I am sure that many Members from all parties can relate to the experience of hearing about some of the most horrific crimes that take place and being appalled by the sentences given. That is not new, but the question we have to ask ourselves today is whether the Bill we are considering will make the situation worse or better. Will more victims get what we would consider justice as a result of this Bill, or fewer?

Since this Labour Government came to power, we have quite rightly been holding them for account for the measures they have already taken to let people out of prison earlier. Members on both sides of the House will be familiar with the consistent debate we have had about pressure on prison places, where responsibility for that lies, and what can be done about it. Labour Members point to our prison-building record, while I point out to them that the pressure on the prison system left by the last Labour Government was worse, and that there are other options for foreign nationals and the remand population. A lot of heat is generated, but there is not much more to it. Labour Members point out that they have had to take emergency steps, and it is true that the measures they have taken have not been permanent changes to our sentencing framework. However, I say to them that the Bill we are considering today does something very different.

As the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) and others have demonstrated, I am not sure that Labour Members fully recognise what the Government are asking them to support today. There are measures to be welcomed in this Bill—the new restriction zones and the measures to better track domestic abuse cases, which the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), also supported—but there are a number of reasons why I do not support the Bill. We have heard Members including the shadow Justice Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), raise criticisms relating to short sentences, community sentences, Parole Board reform, probation and the Sentencing Council, but I am not surprised that Labour Members do not agree with those criticisms.

However, I do not believe Labour Members can sincerely think what I am about to talk about is something they would knowingly want to support. I am going to read out a list of offences: rape; assault by penetration; rape of a child under 13; assault of a child under 13 by penetration; inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity; paying for the sexual services of a child aged under 13; kidnapping or false imprisonment with the intention of committing a sexual offence; and creating or possessing indecent photographs of children. I hope Labour Members felt as uncomfortable being forced to consider those offences and what they entail as I did while reading them out. I am going to read them again: rape; assault by penetration; rape of a child under 13; assault of a child under 13 by penetration; inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity; paying for the sexual services of a child aged under 13; kidnapping or false imprisonment with the intention of committing a sexual offence; and creating or possessing indecent photographs of children. In fact, there are even more of those sorts of offences that we need to have in mind this evening.

Why do we need to consider these offences? Because despite what some Labour Members have said to the contrary—without ill will, I accept—and for all the things it does that Members might support, the Bill we are considering this evening will mean one thing for the vile criminals who commit those sorts of offences. It will mean that they are let out of prison earlier, not as a temporary measure in response to the kind of short-term prison crowding challenge that we have debated and recognised, but as a permanent and profound change to our sentencing laws.

Members who support this Bill will be putting their name to legislation that will forever change our sentencing laws to let rapists and paedophiles out of prison earlier. The hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson) talked about legacy. I cannot honestly believe that Government Members want to support a Bill that will allow rapists and paedophiles to get out of prison earlier. That is not political posturing or hyperbole or scaremongering, as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) described it. It is not an unfair interpretation or misrepresentation of the Bill before the House today. Rapists and paedophiles—those are the people that Members will be voting to let out of prison early if they support this Bill this evening. Is that really what they came to this place to do?

[Gareth Snell]

The shadow Minister is reading out a series of crimes that are reprehensible, and no one in this House would want to see the individuals who commit such crimes having anything but the book thrown at them. In the spirit and tone in which he has read that list out, his Government oversaw a 2.6% charge rate for people who were arrested for rape. Does he want to say anything to the House about that particular damning figure? There are people today who have not been let out of prison early, because they never even got there in the first place. What does he say to that?

[Dr Mullan]

The hon. Member will have noted that at the outset of my remarks I said that I have never been entirely in support of all the policies of a Government of either party on these issues. He has every right to make those criticisms, but they do not change the vote he is being asked to make tonight. They do not change the policy he will be putting his name to and supporting. There is no excuse for the things he will be changing on a permanent—not temporary—basis to deal with a short-term prison crisis. I do not think that that is what any Government Member’s constituents want.

These profound and permanent changes to our sentencing laws are the exact opposite of what the vast majority of victims, their families and the public want. They will sit on the record of those Members and this Government until the next election. They will need to justify themselves to their voters. I do not believe that the majority of Labour Members, deep down, want to support such changes tonight. It will be a great compliment to party managers if, after this reality has been spelled out to Labour Members, they decide to support this Bill anyway. If they speak to their constituents like I speak to mine, and ask them about child abusers and rapists, their constituents will tell them that they are already concerned by the limited time they spend in prison, which undermines justice. We have heard so many times from Members in this House about the horror of rape and other sexual offences, about the victims of grooming gangs and about the horror of all kinds of sexual abuse. Not once do I recall a campaign or a concern raised by Members that the answer is to make such offenders spend less time in prison.

I accept that there is a different debate to be had about different cohorts of offenders and different offences. There is always a tension between prison time as a punishment and helping to rehabilitate offenders. As others have said, and I agree, I do not think the Bill strikes the right balance in that area, but I respect those Government Members and members of the public who would draw the line in a different place from me for certain types of offences and offenders. However, we are not talking about drug addicts stealing to fund their habit, or the young man from a broken home who spent their childhood in care and vandalises the local playground. The hon. Members for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop), for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) and the hon. Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), and others coherently and sensibly raised the debates we might have about how long those individuals spend in prison and how we rehabilitate them.

However, here we are talking about rapists and paedophiles—criminals who sexually assault children, criminals who create sexual images of children and circulate them around the world and criminals who snatch unsuspecting women walking home through a park, drag them into the bushes and rape them. Those are the sorts of criminals that Labour Members will agree should be let out of prison earlier if they support this Bill.

We should be clear that not a single voice among victims’ representatives supports this element of the Bill—not a single one. The Victims’ Commissioner does not support it. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner does not support it. Justice for Victims does not support it. Victim Support does not support it. The Victims’ Commissioner for London does not support it. Apparently, however, we will see this evening that Labour MPs do.

Let me also clear up any confusion about the circumstances under which these violent and sexual offenders will be released early. Members, innocently, may have been led to believe that prisoners will have to jump over considerable hurdles to secure early release. In fact, the former Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Birmingham Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) told us they would need to “earn” their release. The reality of the proposals in the Bill make clear what a complete sham that suggestion was. Actually, prisoners will actively need to break prison rules to run the risk of losing early release. That is not earning anything. That is doing what the majority of the public do day in, day out, without any reward—just behaving themselves and not breaking the rules. Apparently, however, if a rapist or a child abuser does it, Labour Members think that should entitle them to walk away from the proper punishment that they have been given for their crimes.

In fact, what Labour said to the press in an attempt to manage the news of this terrible set of policies gave the impression that the large discounts amounting to, in some cases, many years off prison time could be quickly reversed for bad behaviour, and that this was a radical departure. While the amount of time after which the Government are choosing to let people out is certainly radical, the mechanism to keep people in is nothing of the sort. As we see in the detail of the Bill, they will simply make use of the existing prison punishment legislation.

I wonder whether Labour Members are aware of the average number of days in prison that is added by the prison punishment regime. According to the latest data I could find, the average number of additional days given to a prisoner who breaks the rules is 16. When sentences for rapists and child abusers will be discounted by many months and years, they run the risk of having a handful of days added back on for breaking prison rules. That is shameful, and it does not apply only to the offences that I have mentioned. The hon. Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes) spoke about a 15 year sentence, and about how the victims of the person concerned would feel about their not being given a lifelong driving ban. How will they feel when they are told that instead of serving 15 years in prison, that person will spend five years there?

The parlous state of this Government is a blessing for Labour Members tonight. There are many other issues receiving media coverage at present—the political survival of the Prime Minister himself is in question—so they may get away with voting this Bill through unnoticed. However, this is just the first stage. I know that the timetable for the Bill is as short as the Government could make it—just a day of Committee of the whole House, which also means that the many victims groups will not be able to come before the House and voice their objections, and then one day for Report and Third Reading. The Government clearly hope that the Bill will also go through its future stages unnoticed by their constituents, who, they hope, will not know that Labour MPs want to let rapists and paedophiles out of prison earlier. [Interruption.] That is the reality of the Bill that they are voting through. Labour Members are chuntering and saying, “Shameful.” What is shameful is that they are preparing to vote for that policy this evening. Shame on all of them.

The Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Justice Secretary and I will do our utmost to hold Labour Members to account for this grave, grave injustice to victims and their families. We will do our best to make sure that their constituents do know, do hold them to account, and do understand the choice that they make in the end. I honestly do not believe, despite the chuntering, that that is a choice many of them would want to make if they had listened clearly to the position that I have set out. I do not think it is a choice that any of them came to this place to make.

We have seen Labour Back Benchers exercise their power over the welfare Bill. They can do that again—if not tonight, in future stages of the Bill, because we will seek to amend it. Labour Members can support us in that. Rape, assault by penetration, rape of a child under 13, assault of a child under 13 by penetration, inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, paying for the sexual services of a child under 13, kidnapping or false imprisonment with the intention of committing a sexual offence, creating or possessing indecent photographs of children—tell your Whips that you will not support people responsible for those offences being let out of prison early. Do your job as representatives of your constituents, do your job as advocates for women and girls—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. “You” and “your”—it has to stop, Dr Mullan.

[Dr Mullan]

Labour Members should do their job as advocates for women and girls and advocates for all victims of crime, and vote against these horrendous proposals this evening.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I see that we have a fresh Minister, whom I congratulate and welcome to the Dispatch Box. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]