Sentencing Bill: Reasoned Amendment on Second Reading

What happened: On 16 September 2025, MPs voted on a reasoned amendment (a procedural motion to reject a bill outright at its first major debate) to block the Sentencing Bill from proceeding any further in Parliament. The amendment was defeated by 292 votes to 78, meaning the bill was allowed to continue to the next stage of parliamentary scrutiny.

Why it matters: The defeat of this amendment cleared the way for the government's Sentencing Bill to advance through Parliament. The bill represents a significant reform of how courts sentence offenders in England and Wales, and blocking it at this stage would have ended the legislation entirely before any detailed examination of its contents. By voting it down, the Commons signalled sufficient support for the bill to at least be examined in detail at committee stage, where amendments can be proposed and debated line by line.

The politics: The vote divided largely along party lines. All 73 Conservative MPs who voted backed the amendment to block the bill, joined by four Reform UK members and one Democratic Unionist Party MP. Labour, Labour and Co-operative, Green, and independent MPs voted overwhelmingly against the amendment, allowing the bill to proceed. There were no Conservative votes in favour of the bill's progress and no Labour votes to block it, making this a clean government-versus-opposition division. Subsequent divisions on 29 October 2025 show the bill passed its Third Reading by 321 votes to 103, confirming that the government's majority held throughout the bill's Commons passage.