Independent Sentencing Review

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Studies show a 60% reduction in offending. My hon. Friend is right to say that, for one subset of offenders, offending relates to power. For another subset of offenders, we believe that a combination of chemical suppressants and psychological interventions can have a big and positive impact. A pilot has been trundling along for many years, and nobody has shown much interest in it, including any of my predecessors—Tory Justice Secretaries just let it carry on. I am not willing to do that, and I am not squeamish about taking further measures. We are going to have a national roll-out of this programme, and I will ensure that is what happens. I am expanding it to two further regions, including for prisoners in 20 further prisons, so that we can build the evidence base and make sure that we are using every tool at our disposal to cut reoffending.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I welcome the Government’s commitment to extending the pilot scheme to give free sentencing transcripts for rape and serious sexual offences—something for which I have long campaigned. I am sorry that the Victims Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), has just left the Chamber, because I wanted to pay tribute to her for all her work on this issue. I also pay tribute to the victims, survivors and campaigners, and particularly my own constituent Juliana Terlizzi, for their bravery and advocacy on this issue. I look forward to continuing to work with the Minister on this issue. Can the Lord Chancellor tell us what measures will be taken to ensure that victims know about the scheme, and that they understand their right to request a transcript of the sentencing remarks? I know that the pilot has shown how much that contributes to their recovery and their welfare after sentencing.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her work in this area, and I will pass on her remarks to the Victims Minister. I also pay tribute to her constituent. It is very difficult to raise these issues and talk about them openly, and her constituent has shown real bravery in coming forward and explaining why the scheme would have made a difference to her own recovery.

I am very pleased to extend the pilot scheme. We will learn the lessons about how the first pilot scheme worked in the first year, and if we need to do more on publicising what the scheme can do and its availability, we will do so. The hon. Lady will know that I want to make further progress on using AI technology to make transcripts more widely available, because I believe in a transparent justice system. I do not believe that we are very far away from having tech that is accurate enough to be a matter of court record, but we are not quite there yet. It is something we continue to work on.