Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Act 2025
The Sentencing Guidelines Act 2025 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It forbids the Sentencing Council from using personal characteristics in making sentencing guidelines concerning pre-sentence reports.
Background
The Sentencing Council makes sentencing guidelines for offenders in England and Wales. Under the Sentencing Act 2020, judges and magistrates who are sentencing offenders must consider and apply these guidelines.In March 2025, the Sentencing Council released guidelines relating to the imposition of community and custodial sentences, which included a presumption that a pre-sentence report ought to be ordered for offenders from a number of groups and statuses, including age and gender, serious chronic medical conditions, being a sole or primary carer for relatives, being a victim of trafficking or domestic abuse, and being from a minority ethnic, cultural or religious background.
Supporters of the change argued that the new guidelines would potentially contribute to undoing existing inequalities in sentencing and make the justice system fairer. Opponents argued it amounted to "two-tier" justice: Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice minister, said of the guidelines: "this seems like blatant bias, particularly against Christians, and against straight white men".
The Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, requested that the Sentencing Council overturn the guidelines. The Sentencing Council later delayed the guidelines.