Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Siân Berry Excerpts

Committee of the whole House & Report stage
Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

As I said at the beginning of my speech, I believe everybody is not treated the same, and people outside this Chamber will not understand how so many Members, including so many Ministers, are trying to claim that we are all treated the same. If we want to hold our criminal justice system up to the light—if we want to show people that we as a House are concerned with making sure that the system is fair and is seen to be fair—we should accept the guidelines that have been put forward by the Sentencing Council.

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

I associate myself with every single thing that the Mother of the House has just said, because I could not possibly live up to it. I genuinely believe that this Bill will undermine efforts to ensure that equality before the law is a reality for everyone. It flies in the face of expertise and of the painstaking, authoritative work of the Sentencing Council —a rightly independent body run by, and for, the judiciary. This is a strange and populist Bill that is undermining and delaying good, well-evidenced independent guidelines for effective sentencing that would have made our justice system more fair, rather than less.

I will start my objections to clauses 1 and 2 standing part of the Bill—I am essentially opposing the Bill as a whole—by commenting on the process. We have before us a single-page Bill that in its specificity and intent cannot but bring to my mind how the current President of the United States is using executive orders to interfere intrusively and intricately in the rightly independent decision making of other bodies. This is a micro Bill that micromanages. I worry what else we might see from this Government if such an example is set today. On Second Reading, the shadow Justice Secretary was not shy of telling us about his next targets, which include the long-standing “Equal Treatment Bench Book”. The hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) has outlined other guidelines that might be immediately affected if we pass this Bill today.

My second objection is about the substance of the Bill, which is primarily contained in clause 1. I cannot believe that Ministers and shadow Ministers are unaware that achieving fair and equal outcomes does not mean treating everyone exactly the same. That principle is so fundamental that I think I learned it through the round window. I cannot believe they are unaware that systemic racism and unconscious bias are real things that still affect people at every stage of the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom in 2025. They must be aware that the good practice that we put together must mitigate those things, or else it will compound them.

I do not believe that the Government as a whole think that the findings of the independent Lammy review of 2017 are untrue, or that they and a wealth of other evidence did not demonstrate the need for guidelines of this sort to provide information to help mitigate the impact of systemic racism and prejudice. Yet here we are, being asked to vote for legislation that essentially bans this evidence and these principles from being part of independent judicial guidelines.

[Dr Luke Evans]

My concern and that of Opposition Members is that the guidance gave examples where pre-sentence reports would “normally be considered necessary” and picked out an identity of a religion or a minority, thereby entrenching racism back into the system. That is the very aim that the hon. Member purports to not want to see. That is the fundamental argument that the Government and the Opposition are putting forward. We do not want to see this situation made worse.

[Siân Berry]

This is—

[Ms Abbott]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Siân Berry]

Yes, of course.

[Ms Abbott]

Just to respond to the point that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) has just raised, the guidelines did not pick out race and ethnicity. In fact, they listed a number of circumstances in which a pre-sentence report might be considered appropriate, such as someone facing their first custodial sentence, someone who is under 25, someone who is a woman, pregnant, a primary carer or a dependent relative, someone who has said they are transgender or someone who may have addiction issues. Far from the Sentencing Council picking out race and ethnicity, that was only one in a long list of circumstances in which it suggested a pre-sentence report might be appropriate.

[Siân Berry]

To return to the intervention from the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), it is difficult for some to realise that with these guidelines, the definition of “normal” has flipped away from the male, the white, the Christian and the majority to shine more of a light on people who are parts of minorities and might have experienced systemic problems leading up to the sentencing decision. That is the point of the guidelines. That is how we act in an anti-racist way. It is how we put together policy that mitigates the great problems that the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), has outlined and we know well.

In contrast to this rushed Bill, the process that led to the now suspended new Sentencing Council guidelines was excellent: the document was consulted on widely; the Justice Committee looked at it; and it was given the green light by a Conservative Government, of which the shadow Justice Secretary was a member. Before I am intervened on, I am aware that a small change was made, but in essence the same document has come forward and the same principles were enshrined in the document that was proposed and approved. There was basically consensus that more use of pre-sentence reports should be made for people suffering from systemic injustices, that particular groups might be in greater need of them, and that judges should be permitted and encouraged to ask for such reports for those groups in more circumstances.

I want to talk about another group who will suffer from the delay caused by the Bill suspending the guidelines. I do not know when we will get new guidelines, but there will be more harm to women, families and children, who were all given more specific focus in the new—now suspended—guidelines. I have worked for some years on the problems and injustices facing women in the criminal justice system. I am concerned about the serious consequences that will come from any delay to these long overdue changes to further widen the use of pre-sentence reports and to make those reports easier for these groups. There will be serious consequences not only for too many people with these characteristics or circumstances—however we define it—but for wider society too. Will Ministers tell us about the impact of this delay on women, families, pregnant people and other groups named? When will we get new guidelines that include them? How many people will be harmed in the meantime? This delay has already taken some weeks.

Some Members will be familiar with the seminal 2007 Corston report about women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system. Incidentally, that document reminds us in its introduction:

“Equality does not mean treating everyone the same.”

The Sentencing Council guidelines were about to help plug a gap that still remained in terms of addressing the recommendations and themes of the Corston report. Indeed, in its commentary, the Sentencing Council rightly points to deeply concerning evidence of this problem. I am aware of difficulties judges have had in justifying delays and adjournments to go and get pre-sentence reports. The old guidance pushed for often impossible same-day reporting back from the Probation Service and cautioned against adjournments. With this delay to the new guidelines, will it be 2027—20 years after Corston—before the old guidelines are fully removed? How many women might be harmed in the meantime?

As far as I can see, the shadow Justice Secretary has scored a major win today, seizing this issue to stage another culture war ambush against another minority. Instead of standing by judges and by important principles we have all known for a long time—instead of simply allowing these guidelines to be trialled while the concerns being raised were addressed calmly—this Government have essentially put an executive order-style Bill before us now for its remaining stages. There was not even time on Second Reading for opponents like me to point that out.

I am sorry, but I believe that this Bill represents nothing less than a rushed and extraordinary capitulation by this Government to hard-right propaganda. People will suffer injustice as a result. It is profoundly worrying to see the Government legislating in this manner, micromanaging justice in ways that are led by—let’s face it—dog whistles, rhyming slogans and disingenuous propaganda. I will support new clause 1, but I sincerely hope that other Members will join me in voting against this Trumpian Bill and showing our respect for the independence of judges and magistrates on these matters. It is vital that we do something today to stand up for evidence-led policy, judicial independence and genuine equality before the law.

[Ayoub Khan]

Let me begin by drawing Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a member of the Bar.

I will align my comments with those of the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), and the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry). The Bill, and the amendments, do not in reality tackle two-tier justice in this country; in fact, they risk entrenching it. Our justice system is founded on a principle that we all claim to uphold—fairness and equality before the law—but today we are being asked to support legislation that fundamentally undermines that principle.

Let me be absolutely clear. This is not a matter of opinion. Lord Justice William Davis, the chair of the Sentencing Council, has written candidly about the issue. He has said, for example, that defendants from minority ethnic backgrounds are statistically more likely to receive harsher sentences than their white counterparts for a similar offence. That is not the opinion of politicians or pressure groups, but a warning from within the senior judiciary itself. The Bill ignores that reality. Worse still, it undermines one of the very tools designed to correct it: the pre-sentence report.

--- Later in debate ---

Turning to specifics, as other hon. Members have referred to, the Bill and its amendments are rushed, knee-jerk and not the way to make policy about people’s liberty or our constitution. Why not negotiate with the Sentencing Council, now that the immediate emergency has subsided? To my knowledge, based on my engagement with the Ministry of Justice, Ministers and officials, the question of how long they would be prepared to pause before the implementation of the guidelines has not been asked. Why not wait for the Gauke review to report and ensure that the issue is explored comprehensively and that wider consultation takes place? Why not comprehensively address what is already a two-tier justice system, as hon. Members on the Benches behind me and the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), have referred to? As the Lammy review found, people from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to serve longer sentences for the same crimes than those who are not from ethnic minority backgrounds. It is disappointing that there is no provision in the Bill to consider that. If the Government insist on passing the Bill, we urge them to embrace our calls for an independent review of pre-sentence reports to be conducted within two years, as per new clause 1.

[Siân Berry]

I hope the hon. Member was listening to my speech when I talked about the harm that might be caused by the delay in bringing in the really excellent parts of the new guidelines that might help women and families. Are the Liberal Democrats asking for a delay, or would they like to support bringing in the parts of the guidance that are agreed as soon as possible?