Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood won a victory over the Sentencing Council (Image: Getty)
A planned “two-tier” sentencing system which provoked fury has been scrapped at the last minute after the Government threatened to abolish the quango advocating it. The Sentencing Council is set to announce it has “suspended” guidance telling judges to request a pre-sentence report before handing out punishments to ethnic minorities, transgender people and women.
The rules were due to come into force on Tuesday and critics said it meant white men would be more likely to go to jail than other people committing the same crimes. But the body, with has 14 members including eight judges, has backed down after Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood threatened emergency laws declaring the guidance “null and void”, making the Sentencing Council directly accountable to her or scrapping it entirely.
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It follows a battle of wills after Ms Mahmood, who is also Lord Chancellor, told the Sentencing Council to reverse its plans only for the quango to issue a defiant statement last week rejecting her demand.
Ministry of Justice officials have been working on legislation to be presented to Parliament this week and the Sentencing Council has announced it will delay the guidance until the legislation is in place, which effectively means it will never be brought into effect.
Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Robert Jenrick had written to the Sentencing Council threatening to request a judicial review of the decision. Last night he said: “The sentencing council had until 5pm to respond to my legal challenge or face an injunction. I was advised we had a strong chance of winning. They have folded under the pressure.”
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The sentencing Council provides advice to courts and describes itself as an independent arms-length body of the Ministry of Justice. It is accountable to the Government for how it spends public money but is currently free to issue its own guidelines on sentencing which courts must usually follow.
The u-turn followed a series of warnings that the Government was prepared to use legislation to take on the quango. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “We will now bring forward legislation. There is no other option so we will do that. We will fast track it.”
And Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “From the approach that we are taking to the Sentencing Council and the importance there of us bringing forward rapid emergency legislation, we are very clear that there can be no preferential treatment for anyone in the criminal justice system.”
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Sources said Ms Mahmood’s immediate priority was to reverse the guidance but she was also working on longer-term plans to make the Sentencing Council accountable to her or to abolish it entirely.
A Ministry of Justice source said: “The Justice Secretary very firmly believes it should be for elected ministers and parliament to make decisions on policy.”
And Ms Mahmood was backed last night by Labour veteran Jack Straw, one of her predecessors as Justice Secretary. Speaking to 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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The think tank said the affair showed that unelected bodies had too much power to overrule elected politicians and highlighted 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.”