Sentencing Council Guidelines

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

Pregnant women and new mothers are at high risk in custody. They are seven times more likely to experience a stillbirth and at least two baby deaths have taken place in recent years. Among other important measures, the Sentencing Council has issued guidance on the use of prison sentences for pregnant women and new mothers, which were supposed to come into effect today. Any delay to that risks causing untold, preventable harm. I am relieved that the Lord Chancellor has committed to protecting that guidance, but how quickly will it be implemented, because women cannot wait any longer?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I can offer my hon. Friend immediate reassurance. The Bill that we have published today is a very targeted Bill on the ability of the Sentencing Council to bring forward guidelines relating only to pre-sentence reports and personal characteristics. It is a very tightly focused Bill and nothing in that Bill affects any Court of Appeal precedent, and there is already strong Court of Appeal precedent on the desirability of a court obtaining pre-sentence reports before it passes sentence in cases involving pregnant women and women who have recently given birth.

More widely, on the issues of policy relating to women in the criminal justice system, I hope my hon. Friend will welcome the fact that I have set up the women’s justice board specifically to look at the needs of female offenders across the whole criminal justice system. I am determined—it is a position of policy for this Government—that we will send fewer women to prison and ultimately have fewer women’s prisons. That is properly a matter for policy. I am sure it will be contested in this House, but that is the realm of politics, Parliament and ultimately the ballot box.