Sentencing Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 7

What happened: The House of Commons voted on 20 January 2026 to reject Lords Amendment 7 to the Sentencing Bill, passing the motion to disagree by 319 votes to 127. The amendment, proposed by the House of Lords, had sought to place a statutory duty on the judiciary to approve the release of Crown Court sentencing transcripts. In place of the Lords amendment, the government tabled its own alternative provisions (amendments (a) and (b) in lieu), which instead require sentencing remarks to be provided free of charge to victims who request them, without imposing the broader judicial approval duty the Lords had proposed.

Why it matters: The practical effect of the Commons decision is that victims of crime will receive free transcripts of Crown Court sentencing remarks on request, a change from the previous position in which transcripts could cost thousands of pounds. One case highlighted in the debate involved a constituent who was charged £7,000 for the transcript of the trial in which her rapist was convicted. The government argued that the Lords amendment as drafted would have added significant workload to the judiciary and risked worsening the existing Crown Court backlog, which currently stands at around 77,000 to 78,000 outstanding cases. The government's alternative formulation was designed to deliver transparency for victims while avoiding that administrative burden.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along government-versus-opposition lines. All 315 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted did so in favour of rejecting the Lords amendment, while all 100 voting Conservatives opposed the government, joining Reform UK, the DUP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and several independents in the No lobby. The Liberal Democrats, though not listed in the party breakdown as a bloc, indicated support for the government's amendment in lieu through their spokesperson, who welcomed it as a meaningful step for victims. The Sentencing Bill was at the final stage of its parliamentary passage, with the Minister confirming that, subject to agreement in both Houses, the Bill would shortly become law. The vote sits within a broader pattern of the government using its Commons majority to resist Lords amendments across criminal justice legislation, as seen in related divisions on the Victims and Courts Bill in March 2026.