Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Ayoub Khan Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The Sentencing Council says that if, for example, someone is a white, Christian male, they are less likely to benefit from a pre-sentence report than if they were a member of a religious or ethnic minority. I believe that that is wrong.

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

Does the hon. Member know that any defendant before the courts who has no previous convictions, despite the seriousness of the offence, is entitled to a pre-sentence report?

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. As a former solicitor, I am familiar with that provision, and I agree that any defendant who has not yet received a custodial sentence should have the benefit of a pre-sentence report. However, imagine two criminals who both have a criminal record, but one is a member of a religious or ethnic minority and one is not. The guidelines propose treating them differently, and that is not justice.

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[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.

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[Dr Luke Evans]

From a medical perspective, there would be a genetic predisposition. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that people would, on a genetic basis, find themselves affected by the law purely because they were black? The comparison he has just made is exactly that, from a medical standpoint. I do not think he would really make such a suggestion, and I would certainly be against that position.

[Ayoub Khan]

The hon. Gentleman has made his point, but as a criminal practitioner who has frequented courts over the last 20 years, I have seen disparities. I have seen sentencing which, in my view, was not fair. Lived experiences among certain communities are just as important as those of other minorities, whatever their backgrounds. Ultimately, who has decided that this is an important element that needs to be taken into account in the sentencing guidelines? This went through all the consultation under the last Government. People had seen it, and agreed to it. It did not raise a concern back then, so why should it now?

Addressing inequality is not the same as creating inequality. It is, in fact, the only way in which to ensure real equality—to ensure that justice is not just blind in theory, but fair in practice. I know some will argue that we need to understand the root causes of disparity, and they are right: that longer-term work is essential. However, while it is going on we must act in the present. We must allow the experts to do their jobs and support the guidance that they, not we, have developed through years of experience, research and consultation.

This Bill is not just misguided; it is regressive. I cannot and will not support legislation that sidelines expert insight, ignores data and compromises the principles of fairness that we all claim to defend in the name of political convenience. Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done, and right now the communities that face this disparity will no doubt be concerned about the Government’s approach.

[Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet) (Lab)]

First, I acknowledge that disparities in outcomes in our judicial system are a real issue and merit serious attention. I recognise the work of the Lammy review in 2017, as well as the conclusions of the Ministry of Justice’s 2020 report, “Tackling Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System”, which found disparities in how people from minority ethnic groups are treated in the judicial system. It is important that these issues continue to have the focus that they merit.

However, I am glad that the Bill has passed its Second Reading and that we are progressing through its remaining stages today. I am firmly of the view that it is not for the Sentencing Council to make policy decisions on this matter, for those are the domain of politicians and must remain so. The Government should be able to make political decisions and implement them, and the ballot box is the right place for us to be held to account.

What I find refreshing about the continued passage of this Bill is that we are showing that politicians do not have to be jelly-like in the face of blockages to their desire to make political decisions. At the same time, I support the unamended passage of the Bill, because it finds a way to thread the needle with a targeted intervention. Amendment 3, tabled by the shadow Secretary of State for Justice, goes too far and would undermine the independence of the Sentencing Council.

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[Josh Babarinde]

I refer the hon. Member to the comments the shadow Justice Secretary made at the last Justice questions—I think the hon. Member was not in attendance for that—when he named a specific judge and made a critique of or complaint about them outside the formal processes.

[Ayoub Khan]

Judges have been vilified, as have others sitting on the Sentencing Council, by Members of this House. Does the hon. Member agree that, if there is to be any vilification, it should be of the Conservative Members who formed the previous Government, who held the consultation and agreed to the guidance?

[Josh Babarinde]

I do not agree that vilification is the right approach from any side of the argument. This debate should be conducted with respect and courtesy, and I feel that that was missing from some of the comments I just referred to. Absolutely, there must be accountability. Indeed, the previous Government were held accountable in huge respect at the general election, where they suffered the biggest defeat in their history. So desperate is the shadow Justice Secretary to rise to the top of our democracy that he is prepared, in the ways I have described, to undermine our democracy itself.