Sentencing Bill Report Stage: New Clause 12

New Clause 12 to the Sentencing Bill was defeated at Report Stage on 29 October 2025, by 314 votes to 82. The clause had been tabled as an amendment during the Bill's passage through the Commons, which made wide-ranging changes to sentencing, prisoner release, and offender management. The precise content of New Clause 12 cannot be confirmed from the available parliamentary record, as the Hansard extract is cut off before the Minister finishes describing it. The Sentencing Bill itself makes substantial changes to how courts sentence offenders and how prisoners are managed and released. Among its provisions are a presumption to suspend short custodial sentences, revised release points for standard determinate sentences, new income reduction orders, and reforms to the early removal of foreign national prisoners. Without confirmation of what New Clause 12 specifically proposed, its practical effects cannot be reliably described. The vote divided sharply along party lines. Almost all Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs voted against, providing the bulk of the 314 Noes. Support for the clause came predominantly from the Liberal Democrats, who contributed 65 of the 82 Ayes, with smaller contributions from Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, Reform UK, and Your Party. Only one Labour MP voted Aye. The Conservatives had 115 members with no vote recorded. The defeat came on the same day as New Clause 1 was also rejected, by a larger margin of 328 to 170.