New rule on courts guidance introduced after major row over ethnicity

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has banned the Sentencing Council from issuing guidelines for judges after it suggested an offender’s ethnicity should be considered in a case.

In March,new guidance from the Counciltold judges to consider a criminal's ethnicity before deciding how long to jail them for, amid huge disproportionality in the system. Ms Mahmood reacted with fury at the plans and argued it would result in “a clear example of differential treatment”.

Today, the Lord Chancelloris introducing new rules that will mean she has to give explicit approval before any guidelines are issued. She insisted the move would not interfere with the independence of judges as she braced for criticism.

READ MORE: Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood's response branded 'knee-jerk' after Labour agrees with Tories

Ms Mahmood said: “Individual sentencing decisions will always be the responsibility of the independent judiciary – and this is something I will staunchly defend. However, policy must be set by parliamentarians, who answer to the people.

“Government and Parliament have a legitimate role in setting the sentencing framework. It is right that we now have greater democratic and judicial oversight of the direction of the Council’s work and the final guidelines they publish.”

The Cabinet minister faced criticism for her response to the Sentencing Council’sguidance earlier this year. At the time, former Tory Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told the Mirror it was a “knee-jerk reaction” which surprised him “for not respecting the independence of the Sentencing Council”.

The row was sparked after the Sentencing Council released new guidance for judges about pre-sentence reports (PSR) on Wednesday. A PSR is simply a document providing more information about an offender to the courts and does not mean their sentence will be made more lenient.

The Council said PSRs should be requested in all cases to get information about the offender’s personal circumstances, risk of dangerousness, the causes of the offender’s behaviour or other factors that might be helpful to the court.

The guidance gives a “non-exhaustive” list of examples of groups of people who might particularly benefit from a PSR, including those from an ethnic minority or a faith minority community, has disclosed they are transgender, has addiction issues, is pregnant, or is a victim of domestic abuse, modern slavery or coercion.

Ms Mahmood unusually sided with Tory MP Robert Jenrick on the issue, who branded it “two-tier justice”. The shadow Justice Secretary said including ethnicity on the list was "social engineering" and “blatant bias” against straight white men.

The new change will be introduced today as part of the Sentencing Bill. Under the legislation, both the Justice Secretary and the Lady Chief Justice will be given individual – and separate – powers requiring them to approve any future guidelines before they can be issued.

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