Step to legally prevent new ‘two-tier’ sentencing guidelines begins today, justice secretary says
A bill to legally prevent new sentencing guidelines on how ethnic minority criminals should be punished will be introduced today, the justice secretary said.
Shabana Mahmood told MPs in the House of Commons the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence reports) Bill would be presented on Tuesday to stop the guidance coming into effect.
The independent Sentencing Council said a pre-sentence report, the results of which are taken into account when considering a criminal’s sentence, will “usually be necessary” before handing out punishment for someone from an ethnic, cultural or faith minority.
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However, Ms Mahmood called the guidance “unacceptable” and said it amounted to “differential treatment before the law” as she urged the council to reverse it.
The council refused so she said she would legislate to overturn the guidance – which is what she is now doing.
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‘Blatant bias against straight, white men’
After Downing Street said on Monday the government planned to introduce legislation on Tuesday and to push it through quickly, the Sentencing Council suspended the guidance, due to come in today.
Ms Mahmood also announced on Tuesday the government would carry out a review of the Sentencing Council “in the coming months”.
“Should further legislation be required, I shall propose it as part of the upcoming Sentencing Bill,” she added.
The justice secretary acknowledged the council “holds an important position” within the justice system.
She also said pre-sentence reports are “an incredibly vital tool for judges before passing sentence”.
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Conservative justice secretary Robert Jenrick claimed magistrates and judges were only informed of the guidance suspension at midday, so said some may have used the guidance in sentencing that morning.
He accused Ms Mahmood of having “completely lost control of the justice system” and said her “incompetence took this down to the wire”.
But she dismissed his criticisms, saying he had never raised these issues while in government and said communication of the suspension was up to the Sentencing Council.
Mr Jenrick had previously called the guidance “two-tier justice” as he said it would lead to “blatant bias” against Christians and straight white men.
He also argued that it would make “a custodial sentence less likely for those from an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community” – something the council denied.
When TV cameras are let in to film world leaders meeting in person, the resulting footage is usually incredibly boring for journalists and incredibly safe for politicians.
Not with Donald Trump.
Sir Keir Starmer ran the gauntlet on Monday.
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Put through a total of almost 90 minutes of televised questioning alongside the American leader, it was his diciest encounter with the president yet.
But he still just about emerged intact.
For a start, he can claim substantive policy wins after Trump announced extra pressure on Vladimir Putin to negotiate a ceasefire and dialled up the concern over the devastating scenes coming from Gaza.
There were awkward moments aplenty though.
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Top of the list is Mr Trump’s trashing of the prime minister’s Labour colleague, London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan.
But more important than that, Monday’s meeting was the clearest representation of the political gulf that separates the two leaders.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me,” Mr Trump said of Sir Keir when he arrived in Scotland.
What an understatement.
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The two leaders held talks in front of the media. Pic: Reuters
On green energy, immigration, taxation and online regulation, the differences were clear to see.
Sir Keir just about managed to paper over the cracks by chuckling at times, choosing his interventions carefully and always attempting to sound eminently reasonable.
At times, it had the energy of a man being forced to grin and bear inappropriate comments from his in-laws at an important family dinner.
But hey, it stopped a full Trump implosion – so I suppose that’s a win.
My main takeaway from this Scotland visit though is not so much the political gulf present between the two men, but the gulf in power.
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Sir Keir flew the length of the country he leads to be the guest at the visiting president’s resort.
He was then forced to sit through more than an hour of uncontrolled, freewheeling questioning from a man most of his party and voters despise, during which he was offered unsolicited advice on how to beat Nigel Farage and criticised (albeit indirectly) on key planks of his government’s policy platform.
In return he got warm words about him (and his wife) and relatively incremental announcements on two foreign policy priorities.
So why does he do it?
Because, to borrow a quote from a popular American political TV series: “Air Force One is a big plane and it makes a hell of a noise when it lands on your head.”
With Amazon and Walmart exploring stablecoins, institutions may be underestimating potential exposure of customer data on blockchains, posing risks to privacy and brand trust.
The European Central Bank may rely on regulated euro stablecoins and private innovation to counter the dominance of US dollar stablecoins, says adviser Jürgen Schaaf.
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