Sentencing Council Guidelines

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking in response to the guidelines recently issued by the Sentencing Council.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

The Lord Chancellor has been clear about her concerns since the guidelines were published: that they risk differential treatment before the law. We asked the Sentencing Council to revise them and were disappointed by its refusal to do so. As a result, yesterday, we introduced legislation to address the very specific issue with this guideline. The Sentencing Council has put the guideline on pause while Parliament, rightly, has its say.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister please tell the House, first, how can the proposed Bill justifiably be regarded as emergency legislation when, plainly, a non-statutory resolution is available? Secondly, will he tell us whether consideration was given to referring the issues to the Gauke sentencing review—which will report shortly—and, if not, why not? Finally, will he tell the House whether the Government have consulted the Women’s Justice Board, which the Minister himself chairs? Have they realised that the proposed definition of “personal characteristics” in the Bill is a recipe for repeated legal challenges; for example, as to whether “pregnant” or “postnatal” are proscribed definitions? I thank Joshua Rozenberg for those examples.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

We believe that the guidelines represent a differential treatment before the law and that is why we oppose them. We asked the Sentencing Council to revise them and, as I said, it did not. The Lord Chancellor has introduced legislation to address this specific issue. The Sentencing Council’s guidelines were due to come into effect on 1 April, so it is right that we moved quickly on this and have introduced legislation to address the matter at hand.

I am grateful to the Sentencing Council for the constructive conversations it has had with the Lord Chancellor. It paused the in-force date of the guideline until the legislation, which was introduced yesterday, takes effect. The Independent Sentencing Review that David Gauke is chairing is a much wider review of sentencing that is due to report in the coming months. We look forward to considering its recommendations carefully when they come out.

On the Women’s Justice Board, which I proudly chair, I have spoken to several members about this and I am grateful to them for sharing their views. To be clear, judges will continue to be able to request pre-sentence reports in cases where they already would; for example, those involving pregnant women, young people or domestic abuse.