Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Lord Bishop of Gloucester Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 7th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I declare my interest as Anglican Bishop for prisons. I am grateful to be speaking in this Second Reading debate. I too greatly look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Nichols. Having said that, I do not believe this is a debate we should be having at all. I do not believe this rather theatrical legislation is necessary.

In a world of sufficient resources, as has already been said, there would be comprehensive pre-sentence reports for everyone, to which careful attention would be paid in court. If we have to prioritise PSRs, then it makes sense to prioritise those we know are especially vulnerable, or where there is evidence of disproportionate outcomes from the justice system. Will the Minister comment on why he thinks there was such shock at this apparent two-tier justice with regard to ethnicity but not the other cohorts in the guidance, such as young adults and pregnant women? Do the Government believe the issues raised in the landmark report by the current Foreign Secretary almost eight years ago are now a thing of the past? Is there no role for judges in mitigating the issues raised in that report?

The use of the Sentencing Council guidelines apparently to feed a culture war is distressing. The allegation of two-tier sentencing based around race, religion, belief or cultural background is damaging to public understanding. This is already shaped heavily by media headlines and the shocking and extreme cases of violent crimes, which are not the norm. Public understanding of why and how criminal sentences are handed down is severely lacking, as evidenced by the Justice Select Committee in 2023 and a recent Prison Reform Trust report detailing a citizen jury exercise. My own experience of talking to teenagers in schools is that more information about sentencing results in more considered responses and a greater sense of engagement with what we are trying to achieve, which surely goes beyond mere punishment.

At the heart of the Christian gospel is a God who holds together both justice and mercy. We need a big long-term vision. Surely long-term vision must be about transforming lives and communities, and that includes victims as well as offenders, recognising that many offenders are also victims.

If we are committed to the transformation of society, we need to take account of the impact of sentencing on families and the wider community. I am not saying that people who commit crimes should not receive punishment, but I am saying that sentencing should be much more than this and give the best possible outcomes for society.

In a recent judicial critique focused on sentence inflation, four former Lords Chief Justice, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, highlighted that people in prison are individuals, not statistics, and that the

“consequences of imprisonment on people’s lives—in prison and upon return to the community—need to be considered in the whole”.

They go on to say:

“Evidence suggests that what happens during and after a sentence, including rehabilitative interventions and resettlement support, is more important than sentence length”.


If we are to treat people in the justice system as individuals, that surely includes taking into account people’s circumstances, such as whether a woman is pregnant, and their characteristics, such as neurodiversity. I echo what was said about characteristics. We cannot pretend that circumstances and characteristics do not matter. Wise sentencing is threatened by this am-dram politics, and the Bill risks taking us backwards, not forwards. I firmly believe that we need less political control over sentencing, not more.

I urge the noble Lord to revisit the House of Commons Justice Committee’s 2023 recommendation of the establishment of an independent advisory body on sentencing. I would propose an additional step: a commitment from the Treasury, set out to Parliament, where Ministers propose to expand or lengthen custodial sentences against recommendations from the advisory board, thus resetting the relationship between politics and justice, including the public purse.

There is more I could say—much more—but I will end by engaging with the Government’s own rationale for this legislation. The Justice Secretary says that inequality in society is a matter for policy and not for the judiciary. How, then, will the Government create an equal society over their term of office so that these guidelines become redundant?