Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has vowed to block the two-tier guidance (Image: Getty)
Emergency laws to block a two-tier sentencing system will take weeks despite Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to “fast track” the legislation. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has vowed to reverse guidance from the Sentencing Council which comes into force today and states judges should request a pre-sentence report before handing out punishments to ethnic minorities, transgender people and women.
Critics say the guidance means white men will be more likely to go to jail than other people. Ms Mahmood is to present legislation to Parliament after the body defied her demand to think again and Ministry of Justice officials are working on options including declaring the guidance null and void, or removing the authority of the Sentencing Council to issue it. The Prime Minister said yesterday: “We will now bring forward legislation. There is no other option so we will do that. We will fast track it.”
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However, sources say that while laws will be presented to Parliament this week it will be “extremely difficult” to complete the process before the House of Lords goes into recess on Thursday evening for the Easter break. It means legislation is unlikely to receive final approval until after the Lords returns on April 22.
Mr Mahmood’s immediate priority is to reverse the guidance but she is also working on longer-term plans to make the Sentencing Council accountable to her or to abolish it entirely.
A source said: “The Justice Secretary very firmly believes it should be for elected ministers and parliament to make decisions on policy.”
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There is cross-party support for measures to bring the Sentencing Council to heel and Conservative Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said there must be “a degree of ministerial oversight”.
He said it was right to provide judges with guidance to ensure courts across the country took the same approach. He added: “It is also important, however, that there is a degree of ministerial oversight over that so if they stray into policy and political decisions of great importance to the justice system, as has happened in this case, ministers such as the Justice Secretary can intervene.”
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Ms Mahmood was backed last night by Labour veteran Jack Straw, one of her predecessors as Justice Secretary. Responding to a new report by think tank Policy Exchange, he said: “It is clear that the Government will need to take steps to correct the error. Given the cross-party support for this to be resolved, as shown by the position of the Shadow Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, I hope that this can be done quickly.”
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Policy Exchange said the affair showed that unelected bodies had too much power to overrule elected politicians. It has produced a report on the Sentencing Council highlighting comments from one of the members, District Judge Richard Leake, who told climate change protestors that they “inspired him” as he sentenced Insulate Britain protesters for disrupting traffic on the M25. Presiding at Crawley Magistrates’ Court in April 2022, Mr Leake said “I have heard your voices. They have inspired me and personally I intend to do what I can to reduce my own impact on the planet, so to that extent your voices are certainly heard”.
David Spencer, Policy Exchange’s Head of Crime and Justice, said: “The Sentencing Council’s refusal to change their position is remarkable – and yet another example of how, as Policy Exchange has long argued, too many arm’s length bodies have been given the power to set policy and frustrate the will of the elected Government. By defending prioritising pre-sentence reports for ethnic minority criminals the Chairman of the Sentencing Council is entrenching two-tier justice within our court system.”
Conservative MP Nick Timothy also condemned the body, saying: “It is ridiculous that the Sentencing Council is free to demolish the principle of equality before the law without reference to Parliament.”