Sentencing Bill Committee: Amendment 46

Parliament voted on Amendment 46 to the Sentencing Bill on 21 October 2025, moved by Conservative MP Esther McVey. The amendment proposed changing the threshold for the bill's presumption in favour of suspended sentences from sentences of "not more than" 12 months to sentences of "less than" 12 months, effectively excluding those receiving exactly a 12-month sentence. It was defeated by 381 votes to 105, Division 319. The practical significance of the amendment centred on how guilty plea discounts interact with the bill's suspended sentence presumption. McVey argued that an offender who would normally receive 18 months could have that reduced to 12 months through the standard guilty plea credit, thereby qualifying for a suspended sentence under the bill as drafted. By changing the threshold to "less than" 12 months, the amendment would have closed that route. The bill creates a statutory presumption that courts suspend custodial sentences of 12 months or less, with exceptions for breach of court orders, significant risk of harm to an individual, or exceptional circumstances. The vote divided along sharply partisan lines. All 90 voting Conservative MPs backed the amendment, joined by 5 Reform UK MPs, 5 Democratic Unionist Party MPs, 4 Independents, and 1 each from the Ulster Unionist Party and Traditional Unionist Voice. Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Labour and Co-operative Party, and the Greens voted unanimously against. The vote sits within a broader pattern of Conservative opposition to the Sentencing Bill, with further defeats at report stage on 29 October 2025 on new clauses raising related concerns about which offences should be excluded from the suspended sentence presumption.