Sir Ashley Fox

This Bill is unfortunately necessary because of the unwise actions of the Sentencing Council. While the Lord Chancellor is right to bring the Bill forward, she did so only at the very last moment. It was on Monday 31 March, mere hours before the guidelines were due to come into force, that the Sentencing Council was forced to perform a U-turn. Those guidelines would have led to a two-tier justice system in England and Wales. The Sentencing Council did not withdraw those guidelines out of wisdom or principle—it did so because it was caught out. Its backtrack was quietly communicated to judges and magistrates several hours after courts had already opened on Tuesday. To make matters worse, the Sentencing Council’s message said that it still believed the policy was necessary. There was nothing necessary about that policy. Under the proposed guidelines, judges and magistrates were told that pre-sentence reports should normally be required when sentencing individuals from ethnic, faith or cultural minority groups. What about those who are white, male and not part of a specified minority? They would not have fallen within that description. The implication was clear: defendants will be treated differently, not based on their actions or the harm they have caused, but based on their identity, and that is wrong. It was only after the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), the shadow Justice Secretary, that the Lord Chancellor rightly took action. Race, culture and religion should never determine whether someone goes to prison. The Lord Chancellor said that she was willing to legislate to stop this travesty if the Sentencing Council refused to back down, and that is what we are now doing. This is about the most fundamental principle in a free society: equality before the law. The question we must now ask ourselves is how the Sentencing Council got this so badly wrong and, judging by the comments of Lord Justice Davis, would continue to get wrong. The Sentencing Council’s guidelines would have had real consequences. In borderline cases where a judge is unsure whether to issue a custodial sentence, the presence or absence of a pre-sentence report can be decisive. The whole purpose of these reports is to influence the outcome. By tilting the system toward giving those reports preferentially to certain identity groups, the council would effectively be tipping the scales of justice, and the council knows it. Baroness Falkner, chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, has warned that the guidelines may violate the Equality Act 2010. If we allow sentencing outcomes to be guided by race, faith or cultural identity, we abandon the core British principle that the law applies equally to all of us. I agree with the Lord Chancellor that we should pass this legislation to override this guidance, but how confident is she that we will not face a similar situation again? I would like her to go further and ensure that Parliament is given oversight of all future sentencing guidance. We must put into law the principle that no factor like race, religion or cultural minority status should ever influence sentencing procedures. Justice must remain blind, not selectively blinkered. If we lose equal justice, we lose the foundation of a free society.