Miscellaneous amendments to sentencing guidelines 2025

Overview

What is this consultation about?

The Sentencing Council has built up a large body of sentencing guidelines and accompanying materials that are in use in courts throughout England and Wales. Over time guidelines require updating because users have pointed out issues (often using the feedback function on all guidelines) or case law or new legislation may render aspects of guidelines out of date. The Council therefore holds an annual consultation on miscellaneous amendments to guidelines and the materials that accompany them. This is the fifth of these annual consultations in which the Council seeks the views of guideline users on proposals to make amendments to existing guidelines and to add some guidelines for motoring offences.

The proposed changes relate to magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court.

What is the Sentencing Council?

The Sentencing Council is the independent body responsible for developing sentencing guidelines which courts in England and Wales must follow when passing a sentence. The Council consults on its proposed guidelines before they come into force and on any proposed changes to existing guidelines.

Summary of the proposed changes

Matters relevant primarily to magistrates’ courts:

• Motoring offences appropriate for imposition of fine or discharge:
  • presenting these as individual guidelines rather than in a table
  • making changes to the following guidelines: No excise licence, Using a mobile telephone while driving, Fail to comply with traffic sign, Fail to give information of driver’s identity and Weight, position or distribution of load or manner in which load secured involving danger of injury
  • Adding guidelines for: Using an untaxed vehicle with a SORN on a public road, Failed payment of vehicle excise duty, Keeping a vehicle without valid insurance, Drive a vehicle when the registration mark fails to conform with regulations, Drive a vehicle other than on the carriageway of a motorway, Use of mobile telephone while driving – goods vehicle (over 3.5 tonnes) and Driving after refusal of licence (revocation)
•  New guideline for the offence of driving after refusal of licence (revocation)

Matters relevant to magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court:

• Fraud: adding a reference to gain made or intended by the offender as part of the harm assessment
• Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: clarifying that disqualification from driving is not subject to a guilty plea reduction
• Strangulation or suffocation: clarifying the wording of the high harm factor

Additional information and response paper

Following the conclusion of this consultation exercise, a response will be published at: www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk

We will treat all responses as public documents in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and we may attribute comments and include a list of all respondents’ names in any final report we publish. If you wish to submit a confidential response, you should contact us before sending the response. PLEASE NOTE – We will disregard automatic confidentiality statements generated by an IT system.

In addition, responses may be shared with the Justice Committee of the House of Commons.

Our privacy notice sets out the standards that you can expect from the Sentencing Council when we request or hold personal information (personal data) about you; how you can get access to a copy of your personal data; and what you can do if you think the standards are not being met.