Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts

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

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Sir Nicholas Dakin)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I wish to thank hon and right hon. Members for the points that have been made and the amendments that have been discussed, which I shall respond to in turn. I shall speak briefly to each clause and then remind us of why we are here debating this Bill.

In the last Parliament, the Sentencing Council consulted on a revised imposition guideline, which was due to come into effect on 1 April. The revised guideline includes additional guidance on when courts should request pre-sentence reports. It notes that pre-sentence reports will “normally be considered necessary” for certain offenders, including those from an ethnic, cultural or faith minority. The “normally be considered necessary” is replaced with “may be particularly important”, which the previous Government very much welcomed.

This Government note that a pre-sentence report is necessary. They agree that disparities exist in the criminal justice system. The reasons for that are unclear, but this is a matter for the Government, accountable to Parliament and to the ballot box, to address.

In effect, the revised guideline could have led to judges deciding whether to request a pre-sentence report based on an offender’s faith or the colour of their skin. The Lord Chancellor has been clear that this would be unacceptable, as it risks differential treatment. Singling out one group over another undermines the idea that we all stand equal before the law—a principle that has been in the foundations of our justice system for centuries, and that is why she acted immediately and quickly. By preventing the Sentencing Council making guidance on pre-sentence reports with reference to personal characteristics, this Bill helps to ensure equality before the law.

Clause 1 amends section 120 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. It provides that sentencing guidelines may not include provision framed by reference to different personal characteristics, including race, religion, belief or cultural background. Therefore, any existing guidelines that make reference to different personal characteristics will cease to have effect and the Sentencing Council is prevented from making such provisions in guidelines in the future.

The changes made by this clause prevent the Sentencing Council making policy about when pre-sentence reports should be obtained that risks differential treatment before the law, and which could undermine public confidence in the criminal justice system.

The sentencing code is clear that courts should obtain pre-sentence reports unless, in the circumstances of the case, it is unnecessary. The clause does not affect the independent judiciary’s ability to make decisions based on the personal circumstances of an individual offender, or determine where pre-sentence reports are necessary or desirable. Nor does it stop the Sentencing Council from advising, in general terms, that pre-sentence reports are sought in cases where the court would benefit from an assessment of an offender’s personal circumstances.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Pre-sentence reports, as the Minister has set out, are important in considering punishments that can address offending behaviour and help reduce the likelihood of reoffending. But, very often, probation is stretched so thin that officers do not have time to complete them. What will the Minister do to ensure that, where a pre-sentence report is required, probation has the capacity to do that important work?

Criminal Injuries Compensation

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) on securing this debate, and on his powerful and personal speech. It is an honour to follow the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who was eloquent and forceful.

The criminal injuries compensation scheme is an important fund of last resort for many victims of crime who cannot seek compensation through litigation. In the 17 years that I was a barrister, before I was elected last year, I represented many victims of crime at its tribunal. I saw the difference that it could make, but also the limitations and restrictions imposed on the scheme in 2012, which seemed more about saving money than ensuring that victims got compensation for the harm that they had suffered.

I rise to raise a specific concern related to a feature of the scheme that I think is indefensible, and one that the courts have sought to temper. Ultimately, the scheme itself should be changed so that it has a legally sound and consistent basis, and so that it makes sense. It may come as a surprise to many listening that the criminal injuries compensation scheme applies a different legal test from that applied in our criminal courts when it comes to consent.

Unlike our criminal law, the criminal injuries compensation scheme does not recognise that some people cannot legally consent. According to annex B, paragraph 2(d), only those who does not “in fact” consent can receive compensation. That means that if a victim says yes to sexual activity, even when under the age of 16, they are taken to have consented. A child abused or exploited over many years, who knows no better than to agree when an abuser proposes sexual contact, will not be taken to be a victim of a crime of violence because they consented.

If the House wants to be horrified by a legal principle that is still good law, it should read the decision of the Court of Appeal in a case called August from 2000. In that case, a 13-year-old boy, described by the then Lord Chief Justice in the criminal proceedings as “already corrupt”, was paid for sex by a 53-year-old man, but was held not to have been a victim of a crime of violence because he had allegedly consented.

It is true that in the years since the case of August, the courts and tribunals have sought to narrow the principle a bit. A few years after, the Court of Appeal found—some may consider unsurprisingly—that submission is not “real consent” and, in another case, it directed a focus on the applicant’s “relative vulnerability”, “subservience” and “lesser responsibility” as relevant factors, though many may be surprised that any responsibility in those circumstances was found. Far more recently, the Court ruled in the case of RN vs. CICA that sexual abuse causing non-physical injury is included within the scheme. However, the very fact that these sorts of workarounds have had to be introduced shows the indefensibility of the underlying principle. We cannot, and should not have to, rely on tribunals to apply legal rules creatively to seek to achieve just outcomes.

I understand that the Conservative Government left us with the public finances in tatters and public services on their knees, and I understand the concern about expanding the number of victims who might be eligible for compensation, but I hope that the Government will consider this clearly inconsistent approach between our criminal law and the law when it comes to compensating victims, and fix it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

11. What steps her Department is taking to help reduce levels of reoffending among young people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Sir Nicholas Dakin)]

The Government are determined to reduce youth reoffending as part of our safer streets mission. Despite the huge fiscal challenges we inherited, we have been able to increase our core funding to youth offending teams across the country, allowing them to support children away from crime.

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. In the past, antisocial behaviour has been too easily dismissed as low-level, but as he rightly describes, it can cause real distress and misery to our communities. I am pleased that the new Crime and Policing Bill includes measures to enhance police powers to seize nuisance offroad bikes and other vehicles used in an antisocial manner.

[Catherine Atkinson]

Engineered Learning in Derby teaches welding skills to young people at risk of offending and reoffending. A qualified, experienced welder can earn more than £50,000, yet we have a national shortage of welders. Does the Minister agree that preventing reoffending and securing the skills our country needs is a win-win, and will he look at how we can get more young lives back on track, learning trades such as welding?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. What Engineered Learning is doing is a clear win-win, teaching welding skills and moving people away from crime. The Department will continue funding youth offending teams to work with local education and employment providers to help young people get the skills they need to have productive careers and positive lives.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) on bringing forward this Bill, which has been the occasion of a very important national conversation. I recall to the House the fact that, in 1969, Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty for murder. Public opinion was actually against that change, but MPs believed, on a point of principle, that the state should not be involved in taking a life. It was a good principle in 1969 and it remains a good principle today.

I am not against legalising assisted dying in any circumstance, but I have many reservations about this Bill. In particular, I do not believe that the safeguards are sufficient. They are supposed to be the strongest in the world because of the involvement of a High Court judge, but the divisional courts have said that

“the intervention of a court would simply interpose an expensive and time-consuming forensic procedure”.

Sir James Munby, the former president of the family division of the High Court, said recently:

“Only those who believe implicitly in judicial omniscience and infallibility—and I do not—can possibly have any confidence in the efficacy of what is proposed.”

Is the judge supposed to second-guess doctors? Will the judge make a decision on the basis of paperwork? Or will there be a hearing in open court? Where will be the capacity in the criminal justice system to deal with all this? Far from being a genuine safeguard, the involvement of a judge could just be a rubber stamp.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

More than two thirds of care proceedings involving the most vulnerable children in our society cannot be completed within six months. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a real concern that the safeguard is not deliverable, or risks being the rubber stamp that I know my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) does not want it to be?

[Ms Abbott]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

Robust safeguards for the sick and dying are vital to protect them from predatory relatives, to protect them from the state and, above all, to protect them from themselves. There will be those who say to themselves that they do not want to be a burden; I can imagine myself saying that in particular circumstances. Others will worry about assets they had hoped to leave for their grandchildren being eroded by the cost of care. There will even be a handful who will think they should not be taking up a hospital bed.