The Conservative Party has reacted angrily to new sentencing guidelines that recommend judges consider whether a criminal is from an ethnic, cultural or faith minority when deciding whether to jail them.
The sentencing council, which sets out recommendations to courts in England and Wales, is independent and ministers do not currently have the power to overrule it.
Its updated guidance, which is due to come into force from April, has been described as enshrining a “double standard” by the shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick.
In a post on social media, he accused the council of setting rules which make “a custodial sentence less likely for those from an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community”.
The independent body is now advising that a pre-sentence report (PSR) “will normally be considered necessary” before sentencing a criminal from an ethnic, cultural or faith minority.
A PSR assessment would also be expected for people from the transgender community and certain other groups, such as young adults aged 18 to 25, women and pregnant women.
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Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has said she will write to the council to “register my displeasure” and recommend reversing the change.
“As someone who is from an ethnic minority background myself, I do not stand for any differential treatment before the law, for anyone of any kind”, Mahmood said.
“There will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch.”
Commenting further, Jenrick told Sky News: “To me, this seems like blatant bias, particularly against Christians, and against straight white men.
“And in a time when many people feel that there is creeping two-tier justice in this country, this seems only to confirm it, and will be very corrosive to public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system.”
When Jenrick is told that the sentencing council is independent of government and that his criticism should not be directed at ministers, he responded: “No”
“The justice secretary is represented” at their meetings, he said.
He explained that he has read the minutes from the sessions in which the guidelines were signed off, and noted no objections from the justice secretary’s representative.
Jenrick added: “So either this was the policy of the justice secretary — she’s changed her mind, but this was her policy — or she was asleep at the wheel, and was not in command of her own department.”
He insisted that ministers were “sneering” at the people who suggested there was “two-tier justice” during the summer riots in the wake of the Southport murders.
Now it is written in “black and white” that a “two-tier system” is being created, he added.
“That’s deeply worrying because we believe in the rule of law… We don’t want to live in a country where people are being treated differently because of the colour of their skin or the faith they abide by.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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