Starmer says he is ‘disappointed’ that Sentencing Council won’t change its guidelines
Keir Starmer has said that he is “disappointed” at the Sentencing Council’s refusal to agree to the government’s request to withdraw the guidelines that have led to claims it is promoting “two-tier” justice. (See 11.44am.) Asked about the Sentencing Council’s letter this morning, he said:
Look, I’m disappointed in this response, and the lord chancellor is obviously continuing to engage on this, and we’re considering our response.
All options are on the table. I’m disappointed at this outcome, and now we will have to consider what we do as a result.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, asked what the government would do next and whether the government would rush through emergency legislation, the No 10 spokesperson said he did not want to “get ahead” of the government’s response. But he said all options were on the table, and he pointed out that Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has described the current guidelines as “unacceptable”.
Key events
Afternoon summary
-
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has tried to fend off claims that his party would force people to pay to see a doctor, saying Reform has “never said anything other than healthcare should be provided free at the point of delivery”. But Labour has pointed out that Farage has said he is “open to anything” in terms of healthcare funding reform, and that an insurance model, which he has advocated in the past, would involve patients paying. (See 10.35am.)
Government refuses to back Labour MP’s bill to nationalise polluting water companies, citing potential £200bn cost
A proposed law that would take failing water companies back into public ownership if they repeatedly pollute Britain’s waterways has been blocked, PA Media reports. PA says:
The government did not offer its support to Clive Lewis’s water bill, which included a series of measures to tackle water pollution, including nationalising repeat offenders.
The private member’s bill from the Norwich South Labour MP would have meant any firms that had three major sewage spills would have their licence terminated and be nationalised, without owners getting compensation.
It would also compel the government to ensure water is affordable, with the provision of free water “where appropriate”.
However environment minister Emma Hardy said it would cost more than £200bn to renationalise the water industry. But Hardy added the government was committed to improving water quality and the wider industry.
MPs debated the Bill for more than four hours today, but Lewis asked for it to be adjourned until 4 July after failing to get Government backing.
Hardy said: “[Lewis] says we can do it better, we can do it better, we absolutely can. This Labour party was elected on a manifesto for change, it was elected with a plan for change. The Labour Party was created to serve working people and the working class, and it’s our duty to do that.”
She said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimated it would cost £99bn to buy capital assets, as well as £104bn for already-announced investment in the water system.
Lewis had introduced his bill by criticising the legacy of private ownership and said his reforms would send failing owners “into the sunset without a penny in compensation”.
He said: “Under the bill, if a water company breaches the terms of its licence with a major sewage discharge it can forget shareholder payouts and piling on more debt.
“Do it twice and you’re in the last chance saloon. Three strikes and you’re out. Licence terminated, on your bike, and those price-gouging, asset-stripping, river-killing, vulture-capitalist outfits, they’ll be rolled into the sunset without a penny in compensation.”
Labour’s Welsh first minister refuses to back benefit cuts, as Plaid Cymru criticise her for lack of influence over No 10
Eluned Morgan, the Labour Welsh first minister, has declined to back the UK government’s benefits cuts, telling members of the Senedd she will “reserve” her position.
During a scrutiny committee hearing in the Senedd, Morgan said she was still waiting to get a reply to a letter she wrote to Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, about the impact of the cuts on Wales.
Asked if she supported them, she replied:
I have yet to get a firm understanding of how [the changes] will impact on Wales, and until I’m clear about the impacts, I want to reserve my position.
Morgan wrote to Kendall on 11 March 11 and told the committee “I still haven’t received a response from her”, and that she would be “chasing that today”.
Plaid Cymru’s Llŷr Gruffydd said Morgan’s position seemed to differ from how Jo Stevens, the Welsh secretary, had characterised it. Stevens previously told the BBC the reform reforms had been “welcomed” by Morgan.
When Gruffydd pointed this out, Morgan initially said nothing. When Gruffydd asked if Stevens was wrong, Morgan replied:
My position is that I want to see absolute clarity on what the impact on Wales is.
Until I get a firm view on that, I don’t want to make a judgment.
Until I know what the impact will be and where we then, as a government, can position ourselves in relation to how far we can go to stand with and by people.
“But I want to be clear that I don’t think it’s sustainable for us to see the kind of huge increases in the numbers of people who are going on to benefits. This is not a sustainable situation.
Plaid Cymru has posted the clip on social media.
This is awkward…
The Secretary of State for Wales says the First Minister supports Westminster’s brutal welfare cuts.
The First Minister says she’s waiting for an impact assessment that won’t come.
What is clear is that Labour is failing Wales. pic.twitter.com/bD9K8mAQwe
— Plaid Cymru 🏴 (@Plaid_Cymru) March 28, 2025
Later Gruffydd said:
Some of the first minister’s comments in committee this morning were quite frankly jaw-dropping. She said she was ‘reserving judgement’ before taking a stance on Labour’s welfare changes, but the secretary of state for Wales says that the first minister has already supported the cuts.
She went on to admit that the conversations she had with Number 10 were not with the prime minister, nor any ministers either. If her influence in Westminster only reaches a middle-ranking official, it’s obvious that it is non-existent.
It’s clear from today’s session that the first minister has no direct influence – this so called ‘partnership in power’ just isn’t delivering, and it highlighted how this Labour Welsh government is unable to move the dial on devolution.
Photograph: Cameron Smith/Getty Images
Liberal Democrat MPs are also continuing to attack Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, over his call this morning for a trade deal with the US that would expose British farmers to competition from American food produced to lower standards. (See 11.12am.)
These are from Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland.
This is typical of Farage the plastic patriot: undermining British farmers for the benefit of his boss Donald Trump. Farage does not know the least bit about farming communities and his utter ignorance is on full display here.
British farmers are rightly proud of the high standards we have for the food we produce in the UK. That is something we should support and celebrate, not denigrate. The last thing we need is chlorine-treated chicken or hormone-treated beef on our supermarket shelves.
Farage is showing his true colours, as he did with our fishing industry in the past. He wants to use farmers as political pawns – and then sell them out at the first opportunity. We cannot let that happen.
And these are from Danny Chambers, MP for Winchester, and a vet.
Nigel Farage may dress up in a wax jacket for a photo next to tractors in Westminster, but he’s an opportunistic weasel who is no friend of British farmers or British agriculture.
It is not only farmers and vets who are proud of our high animal welfare standards, but the British public are too, and we should not compromise them in trade deals with the USA.
Reform UK party for the rich, with ‘no track record of delivering’, say Greens
The Green party says Reform UK is just a party for the rich, with “no track record of delivering”.
In a statement issued ahead of Reform’s campaign launch, Adrian Ramsay, the Green co-leader, said:
We know people are struggling after 14 years of Conservative austerity, now followed by the crushing disappointment of a new Labour government making more cuts to front line services. But Reform will never be the answer to the decline of the two old parties.
Reform is a party designed to benefit the very richest and has no track record of delivering for people. Green councillors up and down the country are delivering real hope and real change in their communities every day.
We are offering a hard-working and democratic alternative to the dead end, divisive choice of Reform and their impossible promises.
Reform UK could win ‘potentially hundreds of seats’ in local elections, Richard Tice says
Reform UK has played down suggestions that it could win almost 500 seats in the local elections in May.
In an interview on the World at One, Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, was asked about an Electoral Calculus MRP poll published earlier this month suggesting the party is on course to win about 470 seats. Asked if he thought that was possible, Tice replied:
I think if we did [reach that figure] that would be truly remarkable, and we’d be absolutely delighted, but it’s very hard to predict.
At the end of the day, where we’re allowed elections – because there’s 5.5 million people being denied elections, let’s not forget [in areas where elections are delayed because of local government reorganisation] – but where we’re allowed elections, hopefully we will win dozens and dozens and potentially hundreds of seats.
And if we do win hundreds of seats, then we could win control of some councils. That gives us the opportunity to say, ‘Look, we can run councils well.’ Then you look forward to next year’s devolved nation elections, in for example Wales, where we would go very hard. And there are great opportunities to prove ourselves.
Asked what Reform would be offering to voters in the local elections, Tice said the party was opposed to “the waste of money at all levels, whether it’s at national public sector level or at local council level”. He went on:
The waste of money everywhere is colossal. People are paying ever more council tax for ever worse services. Something is going hideously wrong with procurement and costs within all our councils. And we’re saying, if you vote for Reform and we win councils, you will get root and branch review and reforms, line by line of all the cost items.
Asked about the party’s chances of winning the Runcorn and Helsby byelection, which is being held on 1 May, the same day as the local elections, Tice said it was Labour’s 16th safest seat, but that Reform would “run it very close”.
Tice was being interviewed ahead of Reform rally in Birmingham this evening which is serving as the party’s local elections campaign launch. The party claims it will be the “most ambitious campaign launch in British political history”.
There were three council byelections yesterday, and Britain Elects has the results. Independents held a seat in Swansea, the Tories held a seat in Maldon in Essex, and Labour lost to an independent in Redbridge (in a byelection caused by the resignation of Jas Athwal, who has left the council because he is now an MP).
Britain Elects has the results.
✅ Independent Group HOLD
Penllergaer (Swansea) council by-election result:
INDG: 63.9% (-23.9)
LDEM: 13.6% (+13.6)
REF: 10.7% (+10.7)
LAB: 6.6% (-5.6)
CON: 3.1% (+3.1)+/- 2022https://t.co/QSSdXxbUXt
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) March 28, 2025
❗ Independent Group GAIN from Labour
Mayfield (Redbridge) council by-election result:
INDG: 42.5% (+42.5)
LAB: 26.1% (-44.7)
CON: 19.4% (+3.6)
REF: 4.8% (+4.8)
LDEM: 3.9% (-3.0)+/- 2022
Estimated turnout: ~25% (-8)https://t.co/QSSdXxbUXt
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) March 28, 2025
✅ Conservative HOLD
Maldon North (Maldon) council by-election result:
CON: 41.1% (+18.4)
LDEM: 36.4% (-5.4)
REF: 16.7% (+16.7)
GRN: 5.8% (+5.8)No Lab (-14.1) and IndGrp (-21.3) as prev.
+/- 2023
Con defence was of second seat in ’23.
Estimated turnout: ~34% (-19)…
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) March 28, 2025
Andrew Teale has good guides to all three contests in a blog on his Substack.
In posts on Bluesky, Luke Tryl, a polling specialist and director of More in Common UK, says the Redbridge result may say something about how Muslim voters are becoming ever more disengaged from Labour.
From focus groups while the split between some Muslims & Labour may have been triggered by Gaza, it clearly reflects something deeper and potentially longer lasting – above all a sense of being taken for granted – this result in a majority Muslim ward seems to confirm that trend
Comparison i’ve made based on what we hear in groups is that Gaza has acted to some Muslim voters similar way Brexit did to Red Wall voters, it’s the trigger for a split from Labour, but it’s not the underlying issue, it’s the sense that their communities have been overlooked
Speak to Muslim voters who backed independents & yes there is often anger about Gaza, but it’s usually secondary to frustration at lack of investment in their area, crime, poor opportunities. Their vote for independents is so they have a champion for their community
I always remember what Rafia, an account manager in Rochdale said to me “There’s no point in you tackling world peace when the area you live in is a shithole”, these issues run far deeper than just international affairs, and addressing them needs to go deeper too.
There are about 2,000 clocks on the parliamentary estate, and workers have already started the task of adjusting them, before the clocks go forward on Sunday.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has unveiled a poster attacking Reform UK over its health policy (see 10.35am) at an event in Runcorn and Helsby, where Reform is hoping to take the seat off Labour in the byelection on 1 May.
Streeting said Nigel Farage may be able to afford the premiums and the upfront costs that people would pay under an insurance model of the kind he favours.
But not everyone in this country is like Mr Moneybags, and the great thing about the NHS is that it is publicly funded through fair taxation – public service free at the point of use.
We don’t know whether it’s Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenoch that we’ll face at the next general election. It’s a bit like watching Alien Vs Predator, but neither of them are really committed to the NHS funding model.
Photograph: Cameron Smith/Getty Images
Sentencing Council says Robert Jenrick was wrong in what he told MPs about alleged ‘two-tier’ guidelines
The Sentencing Council has criticised Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, for misrepresenting the new guidelines it has issued saying the pre-sentence reports should normally be required before judges sentence people from ethnic, cultural or faith minority groups.
In his letter to the justice secretary released today, Lord Justice William Davis specifically identifies Jenrick and says comments he has made about the guidelines are wrong.
The council started consulting on the guidelines in 2022, and there were no objections – including from the then Conservative party government – until Jenrick told MPs in the the Commons earlier this month that they amounted to “two-tier sentencing”. Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, soon adopted Jenrick’s argument, and since then she has been trying to get the guidelines changed.
In a letter released on 10 March Davis said it was “completely wrong” to say the new guidelines would lead to minority ethnic offenders getting more lenient sentences, as Jenrick claimed. But Davis did not refer to Jenrick directly.
In his new letter Davis does quote Jenrick twice, from exchanges in the Commons, and argues that that in both instances what Jenrick was saying was wrong.
Referring to Jenrick’s claim that an offender is less likely to be jailed if the judge gets a pre-sentence report first, Davis says:
A pre-sentence report of itself does not make a custodial sentence less likely. It provides the sentencing court with information.
Davis even argues that in some cases a pre-sentence report can make a custodial sentence more likely.
Frequently the information provided will not assist the offender’s prospect of avoiding a custodial sentence: rather the reverse. By way of example pre-sentence reports set out the attitude of the offender to the crimes they have committed. A probation officer will provide a frank assessment of whether the offender has proper understanding of the damage caused to their victim. If the offender does not, the sentencing court may use that factor in its approach to the offender’s culpability and the risk presented by the offender.
Davis also says Jenrick was wrong to tell MPs that the new rules “will ride roughshod over the rule of law”. He says:
No part of the guideline is a set of rules which ignore the rule of law. In relation to sentencing, the rule of law requires that all offenders are treated fairly and justly by judges and magistrates who are fully informed about the offences, the effect on the victims and the offenders. The section of the guideline relating to pre-sentence reports is directed to the issue of information about offenders, no more and no less.
In her letter to the Sentencing Council sent a week ago, Mahmood said she was opposed to the guidelines on the grounds that they amounted to “differential treatment on the basis of race or ethnicity”.
In his reply, Davis says sentencing outcomes are different for ethnic minorities (they often get harsher treatment than white offenders) and he says dealing with this is a policy matter (and hence a matter for government, he implies.) “It is not for judges to introduce overarching policies to redress the imbalance,” he says.
But he argues that the new guidance does not amount to differential treatment.
Any judge or magistrate required to sentence an offender must to do all that they can to avoid a difference in outcome based on ethnicity. The judge will be better equipped to do that if they have as much information as possible about the offender. The cohort of ethnic, cultural and faith minority groups may be a cohort about which judges and magistrates are less well informed. In our view, providing the sentencing court with information about that cohort could not impinge on whatever policy might be introduced to deal with the underlying problem.
Richard Adams
Richard Adams is the Guardian’s education editor.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has said it is “categorically untrue” that she wants to end free meals for infants in England’s primary schools.
A report in The Times on Monday claimed Phillison had offered to axe universal infant free school meals, as “part of a package of measures being put forward by Phillipson as the Treasury looks for cuts” ahead of June’s spending review.
But Phillipson told the Guardian on Thursday:
We are not cutting universal infant free school meals. That’s not happening.
Phillipson added that it was “categorically untrue” she had made the suggestion.
The policy, introduced by the coalition government in 2014, gives free school lunches to all children in reception, year one and year two classes at state primary schools, without means testing. Around 1.6 million children receive the meals, with schools funded by the Department for Education £2.58 per pupil.
Starmer pays tribute to outgoing communications chief Matthew Doyle
Keir Starmer has paid tribute to Matthew Doyle, who – as Pippa Crerar revealed this morning – is leaving his post as communications director at No 10. In comments released at the lobby briefing, Starmer said:
Matthew brought his considerable experience to my team in summer 2021 and has worked tirelessly by my side every day since, playing a leading role in Labour’s historic election win.
On a personal level, it has been a real privilege to work with him. On behalf of the entire team, I wish him all the best in his next role.
Keir Starmer has restated his willingness to consider retaliatory tariffs against the US. Speaking to broadcasters, he said he did not want a trade war, but that all options were on the table.
Obviously any tariffs are concerning and we’re working hard with the industries and sectors likely to be impacted.
None of them want to see a trade war, which is why we’re engaged in discussions with the United States about mitigating the impact of tariffs.
Now, that’s what we’re working hard on, but in answer to your question yes – in the end, our national interest has to come first, which means all options are on the table.
