Watchdog suggests alleged ‘two-tier’ sentencing guidelines may breach Equality Act – UK politics live

Scottish party leaders pay tribute to Sturgeon

Andrew Sparrow

John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has paid tribute to Nicola Sturgeon following her announcement that she will stand down as an MSP at the Scottish parliamentary election next year.

Swinney told PA Media:

I’m very sorry that Nicola Sturgeon has decided to stand down from the Scottish parliament.

She’s made an extraordinary contribution to the work of the Scottish parliament, and particularly to the Scottish government, as our longest serving first minister …

She’s got so many different policy achievements to be proud of in changing the lives of people in Scotland for the better. And I wish her well for the future.

But Rachael Hamilton, the deputy Scottish Conservative leader, said that while she wished Sturgeon well on a personal level, her party could “not forget the deep divisions in our country that Nicola Sturgeon created, fostered and encouraged”. She went on:

By any objective analysis, her record as first minister is one of failure.

Scottish education standards collapsed on her watch and the poverty-related attainment gap, which she promised to eradicate, widened.

She presided over a drugs death emergency, a ferries scandal, a crisis in our NHS, crumbling roads – and all while raising taxes on hard-working Scots, which stifled economic growth.

Her reckless gender self-ID policy betrayed women, her soft-touch approach to justice betrayed victims, and her shameful deletion of Covid WhatsApp messages denied bereaved families answers and highlighted the secrecy and cynicism that characterised her government.

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said:

Nicola Sturgeon has been a leading figure in Scottish politics for 20 years, but I have known her in local politics in Glasgow for almost 30 years.

This is a significant announcement that marks the end of an era in Scottish politics.

Whilst I have many disagreements with her, I never doubted her passion for Glasgow and Scotland. I wish her well for the future.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said while Sturgeon’s impact on politics was “undeniable”, the departure of another senior figure from the SNP was “further proof of their decline”.

Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said that when she and her co-leader Patrick Harvie served in government with the SNP under Sturgeon, “it was the first time anywhere in the UK that Greens had been in a government role, and we are proud of the change we delivered.”

Tom Ambrose is taking over the blog for a bit. I will be back later.

The equalities watchdog has raised concerns about the Sentencing Council’s new guidelines which allegedly favour minority ethnic groups.

In an interview with Times Radio, Lady Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said she had written to the council questioning whether the new advice complies with the public sector equality duty.

The government and the Conservartive have both claimed that the new rules amount to “two-tier” justice and Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is meeting the council tomorrow to ask them to think again. But so far the council is refusing.

Under the new guidelines, judges are advised that they should get pre-sentence reports before sentencing offenders in certain categories. These categories include young adults, women and people from an ethnic, cultural or faith minorities.

Since a pre-sentence report often leads to a reduced sentence, the Tories have claimed this makes the system biased against people like white Christians. But the Sentencing Council says minority ethnic offenders regularly get harsher punishments than equivalent white offenders and it argues that the guidance (which does not stop judges asking for a pre-sentence report for offenders not in the designated categories) is intended to make the overall system more fair, not less fair.

Falkner, who was appointed EHRC chair when Boris Johnson was PM, said she sympathised with the Sentencing Council’s desire to preserve its independence.

The EHRC is an independent body and we guard our independence very jealously indeed. We do not bow to government interference and I feel a lot of sympathy with the Sentencing Council in their current position.

But she also suggested on this issue it had made a mistake.

I do wonder whether it might benefit from another look. I wrote yesterday to the Sentencing Council because we do have some concerns from an Equality Act perspective in terms of the public sector equality duty and we’ve offered to assist them in ascertaining whether there might be some discrimination by leaving out some groups and elevating others. So we’re waiting to see whether they would like to avail of our assistance, but we stand ready to assist.

If having a pre-sentencing report is an advantage, then you run the risk of positive discrimination for those groups that are in the list and not for other groups. The correct constitutional position would be … that a judge already has tools at their disposal to seek pre-sentencing reports and that they should do so based on an individual case on a case-by-case basis, rather than categorising certain groups.

Justin Madders, the business minister, has described the employment rights bill as a “significant step forward” in modernising Britain’s industry and workers’ rights.

Opening this afternoon’s report stage debate on the bill, Madders said the government was intending to introduce a number of changes to the originally drafted bill, covering trade union communications, access to workplaces and recognition processes.

As PA Media reports, the new Fair Work Agency will also get new powers, including the ability to fine employers who have underpaid their staff.

Madders said: “As a result the Fair Work Agency may be able to help workers get money they are owed more quickly than if they had to go through an employment tribunal.”

Another change will stop the requirement for unions to hold a vote every decade on whether to have a political fund, which can then be used to give money to political parties, including Labour. Madders said:

Instead unions will provide reminders about members’ right to opt out every 10 years, ensuring transparency without imposing costly and time consuming ballots.

There are many people eager to speak in the debate today which will ensure workplace rights are fit for a modern economy, empower working people and contribute to economic growth. I urge members to support this bill and the amendments we are moving today, which will show that we are pro-business, pro-worker, pro-family, and pro-growth.

Daniel Zeichner, the rural affairs minister, has told MPs that the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme because it is “fully subscribed” and the government cannot afford to keep it open.

In response to a Commons urgent question about the sudden closure of the scheme yesterday, Zeichner said:

The fact is the high uptake of the scheme means it is now fully subscribed. Now, I’m afraid, as a Government, we inherited SFI with no spending cap despite a finite farming budget and that cannot continue.

So we will continue to support farmers to transition to more sustainable farming models, including through the thousands of existing SFI agreements over the coming years and a revamped SFI offer. But this is an opportunity to improve how we do that under a fair and just farming transition.

Ziechner said a revised version of the SFI would open after the spending review, which is due to be announced in June.

Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, accused the government of “Orwellian doublespeak” in how it made the announcement yesterday. She said:

The statement issued by the government last night was a masterclass in Orwellian doublespeak. It says the SFI scheme has, I quote, ‘reached completion’. Well, what criteria has the government used? Because it hasn’t set those criteria out before. The government’s own website stated that up to six weeks’ notice would be given for the withdrawal as SFI. Why was this disregarded last night?”

Zeichner replied:

It’s not a complicated thing to say that when the budget is spent a responsible government responds to that. The budget has been spent.

In response to a later question from the Tim Farron, the Lib Dem spokesperson, Zeichner said that the fact that the budget for the SFI had been used up was something that “should be celebrated”.

Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, has been appointed as the new Home Office permanent secretary, the Cabinet Office has announced.

She will replace Sir Matthew Rycroft, who is leaving after a 35-year career in the civil service, including five years as the top official at the Home Office.

Romeo, who was permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade before moving to justice, was one of the last four civil servants shortlisted to be cabinet secretary at the end of last year, but lost out to Sir Chris Wormald.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said:

I am delighted to announce Antonia Romeo’s appointment as permanent secretary at the Home Office. Antonia has huge experience delivering transformation across a range of government departments, as well as a track record of delivery and strong systems leadership, both of which will be vital to lead the Home Office to deliver its mission on safer streets and border security.

In our Guardian story today about Keir Starmer’s plans to slim down and reform central government (see 11.55am), Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Eleni Courea say that “No 10 and the Treasury are understood to be taking a close interest in proposals drawn up by Labour Together, a thinktank with close links to the government, to reshape the state under plans dubbed ‘project chainsaw’.”

At the post-PMQs lobby briefing, No 10 was very keen to reject the nickname, used by some at the thinktank.

The PM’s spokesperson told journalists that Keir Starmer would not be adopting a chainsaw approach. The spokesperson said:

We are not taking an ideological approach to this. There is no approach here where we are taking a chainsaw to the system.

The focus that we are taking is making the state more effective, we are making the state more agile in a way that delivers for working people.

Part of that will obviously mean that the state must be delivering value for money for people and … that will be at the heart of the spending review, but also we want to see a state that is more effective at delivering for people.

A Labour spokeperson went even further, describing the phrase as a “juvenile characterisation” and saying that Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, told broadcasters at the weekend that the government’s plans were about reshaping the slate, not about slashing it.

The chainsaw reference comes from Javier Milei, the radical right Argentinian president, who deployed a chainsaw when he was campaigning to illustrate his commitment to slashing public spending. Since his election, Milei has implemented what he promised, curbing inflation but sending poverty soaring.

In the US Elon Musk has enthusiastically embraced chainsawism, brandishing one at a Republican conference last month with Milei looking on approvingly.

But President Trump himself may be less enthusiastic. Last week he told his cabinet that he wanted departmental cuts to be carried out with a scalpel, not a hatchet.

“The truth is that the PM should prevail in PMQs,” Boris Johnson wrote in his memoirs. “You are the one driving the agenda. You have the initiative and the policies.”

Unlike many other things he said in that book, that particular comment happens to be accurate, and it is always worth remembering when trying to assess PMQs. It is not a level playing field. The leader of the opposition is kicking uphill.

Today was a particularly good example. There is a lot of proper news around at the moment and, in his responses to questions, Keir Starmer was more interesting and newsy than usual. We got a clear threat of retaliatory tariffs against the US (see 12.20pm) – although you would be unwise to expect them to happen any time soon (for reasons the former chancellor Jeremy Hunt explained in a Guardian inteview last month). We got to hear Starmer describe the current benefits system as “indefensible”, after reading on Monday that that was what he was telling Labour MPs behind closed doors. There were also interesting replies on Ukraine, Gaza, wealth taxes and the poor couple who got fined for reporting a stowaway migrant in their motorhome.

By comparison, the exchanges with Kemi Badenoch were not that interesting, and easily forgettable. It was not so much a clear Starmer win; it was more a case of Badenoch not really showing up in the first place.

To be fair to the Conservative, she had identified the right pitch. There is little or nothing that matters more to voters than the cost of living and the economy, and she focused all her questions on that. She is also right to say that business confidence is low, and that part of this is because last year’s budget hammered employers more than they were expecting.

But, given the economic record of her own party in office, it is quite hard to get past the obvious whataboutery that Starmer will be deploying for years to come and none of her questions today properly landed. She came closest when she asked about the spring statement taking place two weeks today, and argued that it will end up looking like the sort of emergency budget that at one point Rachel Reeves was ruling out. She is probably right. But she could not convert that into a hostile question. She would have done better asking Starmer to rule something out (like extending the freeze in taz allowances). Starmer would probably have refused to answer, but at least she would have got a headline in papers prepared to put a negative interpretation on his evasion.

Zara Sultana (Ind) asks if Starmer still thinks Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza, even though it has cut off aid supplies to Gaza for the past 11 days, and cut of electricity supplies affecting water production.

Starmer says he is “really appalled by Israel blocking aid when it is needed at greater volume and speed than it ever been needed”.

John Whittingdale (Con) asks about his constituents who were fined £1,500 for reporting an asylum seekers who entered the country illegally after hiding in the bike rack on their motorhome. He says they should have been thanked for reporting this, not punished. If people are fined, they will have no incentive to alert the police, he says.

Starmer says he has seen some of the details of this, and is “concerned” about the story. He says the Home Office will look into this. He will update Whittingdale on what they conclude, he says.

Richard Burgon (Lab) says when politicians talk about tough choices, that normally means they are going to do something to penalise the poor. He says the government should introduce a wealth tax instead of cutting disability benefits.

Disabled people in my constituency are frightened. And they are frightened because they are again hearing the language of: ‘tough choices.’

And they know from bitter experience that when politicians talk about tough choices, it means the easy option of making the poor and vulnerable pay.

“So instead of cutting benefits for disabled people, wouldn’t the moral thing to do, the courageous thing to do, be to make a real tough choice and introduce a wealth tax on the very wealthiest people in our society.

Starmer says getting people back into work is a “moral imperative”.

On the subject of a wealth tax, he says the government has put a windfall tax on energy companies, taxed non-doms and put a new tax on private jets.

But there is no “bottomless pit”, he says.

We must kick start growth to get the economic stability that we need.

Davey uses his second question to ask about President Trump, and he says Starmer should fly to Canada as soon as possible to show solidarity with the new PM, Mark Carney, in his dispute with the US.

Starmer says Canada is an important ally.

On tariffs, he says:

I am disappointed to see global tariffs in relation to steel and aluminium, but we will take a pragmatic approach.

We are, as he knows, negotiating an economic deal which covers and will include tariffs if we succeed.

But we will keep all options on the table.

That means he is not ruling out retaliatory tariffs – even though the UK has not announced them now.