Sentencing Bill – in the House of Commons at 6:08 pm on 29 October 2025.
Votes in this debate
“(1) A person (‘relevant offender’) is subject to the notification requirements of subsections (2) and (3) for the period set out in subsection (4) if the relevant offender is convicted of an offence listed in subsection (6).
(2) A relevant offender must notify to the police within the three days of the time of their conviction or their release from custody, and annually thereafter, providing—
(a) the relevant offender’s date of birth;
(b) their national insurance number;
(c) their name on the notification date and, where using one or more other names on that date, each of those names;
(d) their place of residence on the date of notification;
(e) the address of any other premises in the United Kingdom at which, at the time the notification is given, they regularly reside or stay; and
(f) any information that may be prescribed in regulations by the Secretary of State.
(3) A relevant offender must notify to the police, within the period of three days beginning with the event occurring, about—
(a) their use of a name which has not been notified to the police under subsection (2);
(b) a change to their place or residence; and
(c) any other prescribed change of circumstances as defined in regulations made under this section.
(4) The dates of discharge from notification requirements under this section are the same as those set out in Section 88B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
(5) The information required by subsections (2) and (3), once received, must be—
(a) monitored regularly by the police and probation service; and
(b) retained for the purposes of offender management.
(6) The relevant offences are—
(a) causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult, or allowing them to suffer serious harm (section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004);
(b) child cruelty, neglect and violence (section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933);
(c) infanticide (section 1 of the Infanticide Act 1938);
(d) exposing children whereby life is endangered (section 27 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861);
(e) an offence under sections 4, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 or 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1860, if the victim is under the age of 16;
(f) an offence under any of the following provisions of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003—
(i) female genital mutilation (section 1);
(ii) assisting a girl to mutilate her own genitalia (section 2);
(iii) assisting a non-UK person to mutilate overseas a girl's genitalia (section 3); and
(g) cruelty to children (section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933).”—(Dr Mullan.)
This new clause would create notification requirements for people convicted of child cruelty, analogous to the Sex Offenders Register. Their information and personal details would be kept on record by the police for the purposes of offender management, with the aim of reducing the risk to children from future offences.
Brought up.
Question put, That the clause be added to the Bill.
Division number 335
Sentencing Bill Report Stage: New Clause 20
Tessa Munt
Liberal Democrat, Wells and Mendip Hills
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to put it on the record that there has unfortunately been a blip on today’s version of the Sentencing Bill’s Amendment paper. While I did put my name to several new clauses, I did not put my name to amendments 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34 or 35.
Nusrat Ghani
Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Ways and Means, Chair, Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission, Chair, Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission, Chair, Norwich Livestock Market Bill [HL] Committee, Chair, Norwich Livestock Market Bill [HL] Committee, Chair, General Cemetery Bill [HL] Committee, Chair, General Cemetery Bill [HL] Committee
I thank the hon. Member for giving me notice of her point of order. I know that House staff would wish to apologise for the error. She has put the facts on the record, so it will now be clear which measures she actually supported, and those to which her name was added in error.
Third Reading
Jake Richards
Assistant Whip, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice
6:45,
29 October 2025
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
It is a pleasure to speak at the Third Reading of this landmark legislation. I begin by expressing my gratitude to all those who have worked tirelessly to deliver this important change to our criminal justice system.
It is difficult to exaggerate the scale of the crisis that landed on the desk of the previous Lord Chancellor—now the Home Secretary—and my predecessor, my hon. Friend Sir Nicholas Dakin, when they entered Government on
I pay tribute to David Gauke, the former Conservative Justice Secretary, for his work in leading the independent sentencing review. It is a rigorous and serious piece of work, and while the Government did not accept all the recommendations, it is the basis of many of the provisions before the House today. We thank David Gauke for his work, and perhaps look somewhat regretfully back at what a serious Conservative Justice spokesperson looked like.
I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their careful scrutiny of the Bill, and particularly my hon. Friends the Members for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes), for South Shields (Emma Lewell), for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) and for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop), and the hon. Members for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) and for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant)—and a particular shout-out for my hon. Friend Amanda Martin, for her tireless campaigning on tool theft. Through their personal experience, or the experience of their constituents, hon. Members have powerfully raised issues that the Government will continue to look at and address as this legislation progresses.
The debates we have had on this legislation neatly sum up the dividing lines in British politics. The Conservative party is in complete denial, with not a single word of apology. It is their mess that this legislation begins to clean up. The Bill goes further than simply stabilising the system; it confronts reoffending—the cycle of crime that blights so many of our communities—and learns from the Texan earned-progression model to encourage rehabilitation. Confronting reoffending and improving rehabilitation used to be policies that the Conservatives supported, but today they have provided nothing but Opposition.
Meanwhile, Reform’s Justice spokesperson, Sarah Pochin, has not bothered to attend this debate at all, and inexplicably said over the weekend that she gets angry when she sees Asian and black people on her TV. She should concentrate on coming up with workable policies; we cannot build portacabin prisons for hardened criminals and keep our communities safe. Reform UK is simply not credible.
This Government, on the other hand, are getting on with the job and making difficult decisions to ensure that we can keep our promise to the British people: we will never let our prison system collapse like the last Government did, when even the most serious offenders might have avoided prison altogether. This Bill will ensure that our prison system is sustainable, while reducing reoffending and crime, and it will keep our communities safe. I commend this Bill to the House.
Kieran Mullan
Shadow Minister (Justice)
6:49,
29 October 2025
With the leave of the House, I will finish by explaining again that whatever good this Bill may do, the consequences for victims and their families’ sense of justice in this country are grave—the very same victims who want to see prosecution rates improve, who want to see court waiting times reduced, and who want to have a criminal justice system that works better for them in so many ways, but who never agreed to a swap. Victims of crime will welcome the changes and improvements that the Labour party says it can deliver, but they should not have to accept that something is taken away just because something else is given.
I say to Back Benchers that the Government can agree spending settlements and come up with plans, but they cannot create the changes in legislation that are needed for this Bill; Back Benchers do that. When the Government need MPs to change legislation, they can say no, such as the Labour Back Benchers who recently said no to welfare reform.
I remind Members what this Bill will do. This Bill will mean that more than 80% of paedophiles who are sent to prison will get out earlier. This Bill will mean that more than 60% of rapists who are sent to prison will get out earlier. It will mean that, in total, more than 6,000 serious violent and sexual offenders will get out of prison earlier.
I ask Labour Members to imagine that, in a couple of years from now, they have secured all the achievements that they want in relation to the criminal justice system. Perhaps a victim of sexual assault comes to see them—perhaps somebody who feels that their experience was improved as a result of the changes that the Government say they are going to make and who, like many victims of sexual assault, has seen their perpetrator sent to prison for three years. That victim will come and see Labour Members, and say that the perpetrator is getting out of prison after just one year—a third of their sentence.
That will be the reality for two thirds of the people sentenced to prison for sexual assault in this country, because the Bill’s measures will mean that they get out of prison after a year. What will Members say to victims? Will they say what they say to me: “It was the Tories,” “I didn’t know,” or “We had no choice”? How hollow will those words sound to victims and their families? Whatever this Bill might do, the price that victims will pay is simply too high—much too high. The Government have no right to tell victims and their families that they must accept a trade-off: if they want things to improve in one direction, they must accept a betrayal in another.
I ask Labour Members to reflect again on the figures I have given them. They are the correct figures and they are the facts, no matter what those on the Government front bench have muttered as I have been speaking. I ask Labour Members to force this Government to make different choices. Do not support this betrayal of victims. [Interruption.] Hon. Members can mutter. It will come back to haunt every single one of you when victims ask you, “Why did you vote for something that lets thousands of serious violent and sexual offenders out of prison earlier?”
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Division number 336
Sentencing Bill: Third Reading
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violence occurring within the family
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
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