Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Jeremy Wright

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

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

My hon. Friend echoes much of what the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) picked up on earlier. Probation is a significant part of the landscape. That is why we are onboarding 1,300 more probation officers over the next year.

The Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), raised issues about the impact of the guidelines on existing guidelines. We expect that other guidelines will be affected by the Bill, including offence-specific guidelines related to mitigating and aggravating factors, which set out guidance about pre-sentence reports for specific cohorts. We will continue working with the Sentencing Council on the implementation of the Bill. We have had constructive discussions and will continue to do so.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick referenced, the Bill’s explanatory notes point out, existing precedent is not changed where the courts have determined that pre-sentence reports are necessary or desirable. Such cases include: Thompson, where the Court of Appeal recently emphasised the importance of reports in sentencing pregnant women or women who have recently given birth; Meanley, in which the court referenced the value of pre-sentence reports for young defendants; and Kurmekaj, where the defendant had a traumatic upbringing, a vulnerability and was a victim of modern slavery. The Bill narrowly focuses on the issue at hand, putting beyond doubt the principle that we all stand equal before the law of the land.

Clause 2 is concerned with details about how the Bill will be enacted. The Bill will apply to England and Wales only, and its measures will come into force on the day after it passes. The Bill may be cited as the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Act 2025 once enacted.

I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for tabling his amendments and for the very thoughtful and comprehensive way in which he dealt with them. Amendments 1 and 2 would replace the term “personal characteristics” with “demographic cohort” to describe the type of provision about pre-sentence reports in sentencing guidelines that the Bill will prohibit. The Government have considered the proposed change to the wording very carefully and would like to take the opportunity to briefly explain the Government’s approach.

The Government’s objective is to help ensure equality before the law so that offenders are treated according to their own particular circumstances and not by virtue of their membership of a particular group. To ensure that the Bill prevents sentencing guidelines about pre-sentence reports including provision framed by reference to any specific personal characteristics of an offender, we have used the term “personal characteristics”. The Bill sets out that personal characteristics include race, religion or belief, or cultural background. However, this is not an exhaustive list. We accept that personal characteristics and personal circumstances have, over the years, been elided in different court judgments, and we are clear that it is intended to cover a wider range of characteristics including sex, gender identity, physical disabilities and pregnancy status.

The right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam has rightly noted that the term “demographic cohort” is used in the Bill’s explanatory notes. However, the use of the term was not intended to narrow the definition of personal characteristics, and I believe it does not, though I note that he believes that it might do. Rather, it is a different term used to describe individuals who share certain personal characteristics.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I accept that the Minister is trying to give us clarity, so for the purposes of clarity is it the Government’s view that all personal characteristics can also be described as personal circumstances?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

No, that is not the Government’s view. “Personal characteristics” is a term that is understood and applied in other contexts, whereas “demographic cohort” is a term that, on balance, the Government feel is more imprecise and would ultimately need to be defined with reference to a group with shared personal characteristics. Therefore, I understand where the right hon. and learned Gentleman is coming from, but from the Government’s point of view, the amendments do not add anything to the drafting of the Bill and risk causing further confusion. As he pointed out in his helpful contribution, there is a danger of getting into detailed semantics, which probably does not help any of us.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I take on board the Minister’s warning, and I am not sure whether this will make it any better. I think he is saying that the term demographic cohort is a subset of personal characteristics, but personal characteristics are not the same as personal circumstances. Is that right?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

If we had used the phrase demographic cohort, we would have to define what that means, whereas personal characteristics is a phrase that already has a level of definition and is therefore preferred by the Government.

I turn to the similar issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick. We carefully considered whether the Bill should be narrower than referring to personal characteristics—for example, an offender being from a cultural minority—but in the end we felt that was not helpful.

As such, while I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam for suggesting alternative wording, the Government remain of the view that, having considered it carefully, the term personal characteristics is the most appropriate way of capturing the issues raised by the guideline.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Jeremy Wright

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

The Minister is right to stress the independence of the Sentencing Council, but would he accept that he cannot criticise the shadow Secretary of State for having a view on these draft guidelines when the Secretary of State herself did exactly that? I also ask him to consider in this debate the real purpose of a pre-sentence report. It is there to give more information about an offender, but it also enables a judge to impose a non-custodial sentence if they believe that is the appropriate course. It is hard for a sentencer to do that, unless someone has been assessed as suitable for a community penalty. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this debate, is it not important that the Sentencing Council makes clear that what is important in deciding whether to ask for a pre-sentence report is whether that extra information is needed and not anything else, including protected characteristics?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

That is exactly what the Lord Chancellor is saying.