The Two Tory amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-Sentence Reports) Bill, designed to stop two-tier Kier’s anti-British sentencing have been voted down by MPs. Amendment 3, which would have stopped sentencing guidelines coming into force without the approval of the Lord Chancellor, was defeated by 222 votes to 86, majority 136 by the Greens and Pro-Gaza independents deciding to stop the amendment and also to demolish Amendment 4, which sought to ensure pre-sentence reports cannot include a defendant’s status as part of a group, was also defeated by 226 votes to 88, majority 138.
Labour’s Diane Abbott has said that “Pre-sentencing guidelines referring to offenders’ race or religion would ensure “everybody is treated the same” under the law. The Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said that the Labour Government’s efforts to block guidelines from the Sentencing Council raise a question as to how seriously ministers “are prepared to take the proven history of racial discrimination in our criminal justice system”.
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.
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. During debate on the Bill’s final stages Ms Abbott told the Commons: “I entirely agree with members that are making the case that we should all be equal before the law“. The problem is that the statistics, the figures show that is not the case, and it’s not been the case for decades.
In addition, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood admitted today that Human Rights claims in the immigration courts ‘do not always stand up to scrutiny’ and following Reform polling the Government has been forced into a a review of the use of the controversial ‘right to private and family life’ – under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – in immigration cases, which has been used repeatedly over the last 20 years by foreign nationals to dodge deportation after committing horrific crimes in Britain, including rape and manslaughter.