Sentencing Bill

Debate between Linsey Farnsworth and John Hayes

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Linsey Farnsworth]

Does the right hon. Member realise that the Sentencing Council does not just pluck out of the air its sentencing recommendations? It consults widely with a variety of organisations, people working in the criminal justice system and the public before coming to its conclusions about the right sentences for offences. I would submit that there should be recognition of the work that it does.

[Sir John Hayes]

I simply say to the hon. Lady that when we delegate that kind of authority to those who are unelected and unaccountable, we are no longer doing our job. Her view, which has prevailed for a very long time, is not entirely the fault of Labour; it is a problem with the whole political class. We have created every kind of body imaginable in every aspect of government to do things that should be done by this House and by Ministers of the Crown.

The Sentencing Council is just another of those bodies. Who knows who is on the Sentencing Council? Certainly most of the hon. Lady’s constituents and most of mine would not have a clue, and they certainly would not know how to influence them in any way. Of course, it is working people who are most disadvantaged by that, not the privileged few who occupy the social circles that the Sentencing Council no doubt occupies. It is the hard-working, patriotic and law-abiding majority in my constituency and hers who are frustrated by a criminal justice system that persistently excuses the worst kinds of crimes rather than punishing them as they deserve to be punished.

There is a new future emerging in the post-liberal age as we build a new order. That order will be inspired by time-honoured truths, rooted in the will of the people and powered by a ceaseless determination to recapture our country for our people. Burke said:

“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”

The tyranny of the cruelty of crime and disorder will haunt places and people across our country as the vile and vicious are let loose. I urge the House to accept the variety of amendments that I have mentioned and the many others on the amendment paper that are attempts to rescue the Bill from that horror.