The Government has been accused of “running scared of rather nasty right-wingers” over plans to block new sentencing guidelines.
New guidance from the independent Sentencing Council would have recommended a pre-sentence report (PSR) be sought before sentencing offenders from ethnic, cultural or faith minorities.
Pre-sentence reports provide information about the offender’s background, circumstances of their offence, the risk they pose and suitability for certain types of sentence.
The use of these reports has been linked to higher rate of community, rather than prison sentences.
The Government brought forward the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reporters) Bill to block the new guidelines, arguing that it would lead to a differential treatment under the law and a “two-tier” justice system.
The implementation of the updated rulebook has been put on hold to allow Parliament to consider this legislation.
However, supporters of the guidance argued that the UK already has a “two-tier” justice system, due to entrenched racial bias.
The Lammy Review, published in 2017, found disparities in outcome across the justice system for those from minority backgrounds compared to their white counterparts, including in sentencing.
As the House of Lords debated the Government’s Bill during its second reading, Green Party peer Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb argued that politicians were trying to “interfere” with the workings of an independent body.
She said: “The Sentencing Council is an independent body that saw a problem and tried to do something about it.
“It has done what it was designed to do and now the Labour Government is running scared of these rather nasty right-wingers who are trying to interfere.
“I think it was Elon Musk, perhaps amongst others, who first said that Britain had a two-tier justice system.
“And he was right, that is exactly what we have, because some groups are worse treated than others.
“We do not have equality under the law.
“We’ve known about women being less fairly treated for decades, with women being imprisoned for things that men would not be.
“The Sentencing Council came up with the mildest of changes to address that issue and has been slammed for it….
“When the Government says it wants equality under the law, everybody wants that.
“But the difference is that I accept the evidence that we currently have a two-tier system of justice where you can end up receiving worse treatment because you’re a woman or because of the colour of your skin.”
The Bishop of Gloucester, the Anglican bishop for prisons, branded the Bill “theatrical” and unnecessary, brought on by “am-dram politics”.
The Rt Rev Rachel Treweek said: “In a world of sufficient resources, there would be comprehensive pre-sentencing reports for everyone to which careful attention was paid in court.
“But if we have to prioritise PSRs, then it makes sense to prioritise those that we know are especially vulnerable or where there is evidence of disproportionate outcomes from the justice system.”
Referring to the Lammy Review, she asked: “Does 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 to apparently feed a culture war is distressing, and the allegation of two-tier sentencing based around race, religion, belief or cultural background is so damaging to public understanding…
“We cannot pretend that circumstances and characteristics do not matter.”
However, unaffiliated peer Baroness Fox of Buckley hit back at the culture war argument, branding it a “slur”.
She said: “The popular critique of criminal justice as ‘two-tier’, that actually really resonated, particularly in relation to the sentencing post-last summer’s riots, was sneeringly dismissed as a far-right conspiratorial myth by many ministers and politicians.
“It was written off as some culture wars trope, and we’ve heard similar slurs here today.”
She criticised the “tendency to try and use criminal justice to compensate for perceived racial unfairness and alleged social injustices”.
Responding, prisons minister Lord Timpson said: “Implementing a sentencing guideline, which could lead to differential treatment before the law, puts trust in the legal system at risk, which is why we acted quickly to address this…
“The Government’s objective is to help ensure equality before the law. We are clear that an offender should be judged by a court on an individual basis according to the particular facts and circumstances of their case.
“It is not for the Sentencing Council to set in guidance that judgments should be made on the basis of personal characteristics like race or ethnicity.
“Any reference to preferential treatment for a particular cohort is unacceptable.”
He insisted that tackling disproportionate outcomes within the criminal justice system is “a policy matter” to be determined by the Government, not judges.
However, he acknowledged the need to tackle inequalities and told peers that the Government has commissioned a review into data held by the Ministry of Justice on racial disparities and will “carefully consider next steps”.
