Justice secretary says new sentencing plans will result in ‘huge reduction in number of women going to prison’ – UK politics reside

Again within the Commons Desmond Swayne (Con) complained that that present sentences are a “fiction” as a result of the period of time spent in jail is far lower than the sentence learn out in court docket. He stated these reforms would make this worse.

Mahmood stated that Swayne was unsuitable, and that David Gauke, who wrote the report, agrees with Swayne concerning the significance of transparency in sentencing.

One of many suggestions within the Gauke report says:

Authorities ought to think about find out how to make sentencing outcomes as specific and unambiguous as potential, maybe by way of a mix of steerage, nationwide and tailor-made communications and engagement.

Right here is the Ministry of Justice’s information launch summing up its response to the Gauke assessment on sentencing.

Mahmood tells MPs that the Gauke proposals will result in “a huge reduction in the number of women going to prison”. She goes on:

Roughly two thirds go in for sentences of lower than one yr. Lots of these ladies are victims of home abuse. In future, we count on the numbers to drop very, very considerably, and I do know we are going to make progress in that regard.

Josh Babarinde, the Liberal Democrats’ justice spokesperson, stated his get together could be pushing for ensures that home abusers could be excluded from the early launch provisons. However, general, he was supportive of the federal government, and he condemned the Tories for taking part in politics with this situation.

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, responded to Mahmood’s assertion. He restated his declare that the federal government is decriminalising some offences. (See 9.24am.) He advised MPs:

Ought to violent and prolific criminals be on the streets or behind bars? I feel they need to be behind bars. For all of the Justice secretary’s rhetoric, the substance of her assertion couldn’t be clearer. She’s OK, her get together is OK, with criminals terrorising our streets and tormenting our nation.

In response, Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, stated the Tories ought to be apologosing for leaving the jail system “on the verge of collapse”.

A lot of what’s within the sentencing assessment has been effectively trailed prematurely, however it additionally contained a plan to increase the usage of chemical castration. This made the Solar splash right now. This can be a helpful piece of reports administration as a result of the Solar has devoted far more room to the chemical castration plan, which is more likely to have an effect on a small variety of offenders, and much much less house to the primary thrust of the plan, offenders spending much less time in jail, which is more likely to have an effect on way more individuals and which runs counter to the Solar’s default ‘lock ‘em all up’ method to penal coverage.

That is what Mahmood stated concerning the plan in her assertion.

The assessment has really helpful we proceed a pilot of so-called medicine to handle problematic sexual arousal. I’ll go additional with a nationwide roll out, starting in two areas overlaying 20 prisons, and I’m exploring whether or not mandating the method is feasible. After all, it’s vital that this method is taken alongside psychological interventions that focus on different causes of offending, energy and management.

Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is making an announcement to MPs now concerning the findings of the sentencing assessment, and the federal government’s response to it. (See 9.24am.)

She began by declaring {that a} yr in the past right now Rishi Sunak known as the overall election. She stated that Sunak known as the election then as a result of the prisons have been full, and he was about to must implement an early launch scheme.

The Residence Workplace report on asylum figures additionally reveals that the proportion of claims being granted at preliminary decison has fallen beneath 50%. The speed was 61% within the yr ending March 2024, however fell to 49% within the yr ending March 2025.

Commenting on these figures, Louise Calvey, govt director at Asylum Issues, a charity, stated this implies refusal charges are “extremely high”. She went on:

The issue turns into extraordinarily clear when you dig into the figures: for instance, we’ve seen over 4,000 refusals of Afghan nationals within the final six months underneath this authorities, up from simply over 700 within the final six months. Individuals fleeing from a rustic that’s fairly clearly unsafe, with apparent safety wants, are being refused at enormous charges.

The federal government seems to be attempting to clear the backlog with quick refusals, however when virtually half of refused claims are granted on attraction, it appears shoddy and rushed resolution making is leaving individuals who may very well be getting on with rebuilding their lives trapped in limbo, banned from working, typically trapped in motels, whereas merely shifting the backlog figures into a special column on a spreadsheet.

Asylum claims have been at a report stage within the yr ending March 2025, reaching 109,000, in response to Residence Workplace figures printed right now.

The Residence Workplace says:

-109,000 individuals claimed asylum within the yr ending March 2025, referring to 85,000 instances, 17% greater than within the yr ending March 2024 and better than the earlier recorded peak of 103,000 in 2002

-the variety of individuals claiming asylum has virtually doubled since 2021

-in 2024, slightly below a 3rd of asylum seekers had arrived within the UK on a small boat and barely greater than a 3rd had travelled to the UK on a visa

-in 2024 the UK acquired the fifth largest variety of asylum seekers within the EU+, after Germany, Spain, Italy and France

Catherine McKinnell, an training minister, has advised MPs that the federal government will announce the pay award for academics in England this afternoon. It is going to be introduced within the type of a written assertion. McKinnell stated:

This afternoon we are going to announce the academics pay award, which would be the earliest announcement for a decade, as a result of we perceive the significance of giving colleges certainty, giving them time to plan their budgets and making certain they will recruit and retain the skilled academics our kids want. The secretary of state’s written ministerial assertion can be popping out this afternoon.

She was responding to an pressing query tabled by the shadow training secretary, Laura Trott, who stated it was “outrageous” that ministers weren’t prepared to disclose the pay award determine within the chamber this morning. She stated:

That is completely outrageous. It’s astonishing that we’ve needed to summon the federal government to the benches right now they usually can’t even inform us what pay rise they’re going to get and whether or not it’s going to be funded. That isn’t permitting us to scrutinise this on this home.

All of this within the last two weeks that headteachers up and down the nation must resolve whether or not to make academics redundant in time for September. The truth is, sadly, many colleges may have already made a tough resolution to let good academics go. These are job losses on her watch attributable to her lack of ability to offer colleges with the readability that they want.

Priti Patel, the shadow international secretary, has posted a message on social media claiming that the injunction blocking the Chagos Islands deal is a “humiliation” for Keir Starmer.

Labour’s Chagos Give up Deal is unhealthy for our defence and safety pursuits, unhealthy for British taxpayers and unhealthy for British Chagossians. At present’s authorized intervention is a humiliation for Keir Starmer and David Lammy.

A excessive court docket listening to over a last-minute block on the federal government from concluding its deal on the Chagos Islands has begun, PA Media studies. PA says the listening to on the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, earlier than Mr Justice Chamberlain, started shortly after 10.35am. The listening to comes after an injunction was granted by a special choose at 2.25am.

David Lammy, the international secretary, has posted a message on social media condemning the killing of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington. He stated:

Horrified by the killing of two Israeli Embassy employees in DC.

We condemn this appalling, antisemitic crime.

Our ideas are with the victims, their households and colleagues at this terrible time.

The Conservative get together must “get moving” with new insurance policies or threat being minimize adrift in a social media-informed world the place individuals make up their minds rapidly, Robert Jenrick has stated. Peter Walker has the story.

Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.

Keir Starmer as but unspecified U-turn on winter gas cost (WFP) got here on the identical day on the Scottish Labour candidate for the essential Hamilton byelection admitted that the difficulty was developing usually on the doorstep and two days after first minister and SNP chief John Swinney confirmed {that a} common pension age winter heating cost of a minimum of £100 can be launched for Scottish pensioners from St Andrew’s day, 30 November.

In Scotland, the winter gas cost was changed with the pension age winter heating cost (PAWHP) final yr, as a part of the devolution of welfare powers, and the Scottish authorities introduced it will reintroduce common funds final November, in a bid to outstrip Labour forward of the Holyrood elections.

Underneath the Scottish authorities’s plans for the winter, each pensioner family will obtain £100, and a few will obtain £200 or £300 relying on their age and means, with round a million pensioners are anticipated to profit.

Labour canvassers in Hamilton – the place there may be panic that the get together could be pushed into third place by Reform – says that winter gas is developing always with voters offended at Starmer and Rachel Reeves as they wrestle to get traction on extra native points.

This morning on BBC Radio Scotland, the Scottish authorities’s social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville stated:

Pensioners elsewhere within the UK are nonetheless worrying about whether or not they’re going to get this winter gas cost or not, whereas Scotland’s pensioners don’t must.”

Your funds will arrive as a result of the Scottish authorities already stepped in and we didn’t look forward to Labour to flip-flop and at last change its thoughts.

She added that her authorities was nonetheless ready to see the small print of the announcement and who it’s going to apply to earlier than confirming the place the Barnet consequentials from it’s going to go.