A law change to block potentially different sentencing approaches for offenders based on their race and religion has cleared its first Commons hurdle.
The Government brought forward the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill after new guidelines for judges to consider a criminal’s ethnicity before sentencing prompted claims of a “two-tier” justice system.
The Bill aims to clarify that guidance relating to sentencing reports should not single out specific groups of people for differential treatment when it comes to ordering pre-sentencing reports, which help judges make decisions.
MPs approved the Bill at second reading on Tuesday evening and it will undergo further scrutiny next week.
New guidelines from the independent Sentencing Council were scheduled to come into force earlier this month but were delayed due to the Bill tabled by Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
The council’s guidelines for judges said a pre-sentence report would usually be needed before sentencing someone of an ethnic, cultural or faith minority, alongside other groups such as young adults aged 18 to 25, women and pregnant women.
The Bill would ban the Sentencing Council from making guidelines about pre-sentence reports with specific reference to an offender’s personal characteristics.
Ms Mahmood told the Commons: “Addressing inequalities in the justice system is something this Government takes very seriously and we’re determined to increase confidence in its outcomes, which is why we’re working with the judiciary to make the system more representative of the public that it serves.
“I’ve also commissioned a review of the data my department holds on disparities in the justice system to better understand the drivers of the problem.
“But while I agree with the Sentencing Council’s diagnosis, I believe they have prescribed the wrong cure.
“Going ahead with the new guidelines would have been an extraordinary step to take. It would have been extraordinary because of what it puts at risk – the very foundations of our justice system which was built on equality before the law.
“The unintended consequences of this would have been considerable because the idea that we improve things or people in this country who look like me by telling the public that we will be given favourable treatment is not just wrong, it is dangerous.
“We are all safer in this country when everyone knows we’re treated the same.
“If we sacrifice that, even in the pursuit of a noble ideal like equality, we risk bringing the whole edifice crashing to the ground.”
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick described the Bill as “half-baked” and a “half-job that stores up problems for another day”.
He told the Commons: “Make no mistake, we will be back here again. Like Groundhog Day, we’ll be back again and again.
“The Justice Secretary has left the very same individuals in post at the Sentencing Council, the same people who drafted these rules and declined her initial invitation to change them.
“She’s left the system intact, and she’s left the door wide open for it to happen again.”
Mr Jenrick later added: “This Bill is not the solution. It’s a fig leaf, it’s damage control.
“It’s political theatre to distract from the deeper rot that this Government has permitted to fester.
“Until this type of guidance is ripped out root and branch from sentencing, from bail, from judicial training and appointments, the principle of equality before the law remains under direct assault.”
He said Conservative MPs “won’t vote against this Bill, because we never support two-tier justice”.
Former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said there needed to be a Macpherson-style report into the judiciary to judge whether the system was racist.
Ms Abbott said the inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, which found the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist, could provide a template for a similar examination of the judiciary.
She referred to the higher arrest rates for black people over white people in the UK.
The Labour MP said: “Does it have to be that we have our own Macpherson inquiry into the workings of the judicial system for people to accept that institutional racism is an issue in the courts as well?
“It’s not enough to say that well, the facts point in that direction but we’re not quite sure why the figures are like that. We know why the figures are like that and we’ve known that for decades.”
She added: “If we achieve equal treatment, that is not two-tier as it is long overdue. We have never asked for special treatment, but only equal treatment.”
Labour MP Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) called for the abolition of the Sentencing Council, claiming it was a case of “unelected officials” clashing with “democratically accountable politicians”.
He said: “Far too much of the British state now appears to operate beyond the reach of those democratically elected to lead it.
“There are too many quangos, too many faceless bureaucracies, too many levers of powers seemingly detached from those the people chose to govern.”
