Senior judges serving on the Sentencing Council for England and Wales may resign if the government presses ahead with proposals to give ministers the power to block or amend sentencing guidelines, the Lady Chief Justice has warned.

Baroness Sue Carr, who as Lady Chief Justice is also president of the Sentencing Council, said judicial members could step down “as a matter of conscience” if the measures in the Sentencing Bill 2025 are enacted, according to comments reported by *The Times* on Wednesday.

The warning raises the prospect of a constitutional confrontation between the judiciary and the executive over the future of the council, an independent statutory body set up to produce evidence-based guidelines aimed at improving consistency in sentencing across courts in England and Wales.

Under government proposals published alongside the bill, new sentencing guidelines would require explicit approval from both the Lord Chancellor and justice secretary and the Lady Chief Justice before they could be issued. The bill would also require the council’s annual business plan to be approved by the Lord Chancellor, embedding the controls in statute through amendments to existing legislation.

Ministers have argued the changes would introduce a “democratic lock” and address what they describe as a democratic deficit, while insisting they would not interfere in individual cases decided by judges.

However, Carr’s intervention signals deep concern within the senior judiciary that formal ministerial control over guidelines would undermine judicial independence and risk politicising sentencing policy. A large-scale resignation of judges from the council would also raise practical questions about whether it could continue to function.

The Sentencing Council has 14 seats when fully staffed, but it is currently operating with nine members, according to the figures cited in the report. Eight of those currently serving are judicial appointees selected by the Lady Chief Justice. Carr warned that, if those judges felt unable to serve under the proposed arrangements, the council could be left unable to operate as intended.

The proposals follow a high-profile dispute earlier this year about draft guidance encouraging courts to obtain pre-sentence reports for certain cohorts of offenders, including people from ethnic or faith minorities, aimed at reducing bias and cutting reoffending. Ministers condemned the approach as creating differential treatment and it drew criticism from politicians and parts of the media under the banner of “two-tier justice”.

In response, the government moved to block the guidance before it came into force and later set out plans for permanent reforms through the Sentencing Bill 2025.

The bill has attracted criticism in the House of Lords, where peers have warned the veto power would amount to an unwarranted executive intrusion into an area that has traditionally been treated as a matter for independent judicial decision-making. In a Lords debate earlier this month, critics argued the proposals risked weakening long-standing safeguards designed to protect the courts from political pressure.

The government’s plans come at a time of acute strain in the justice system, with a crown court backlog of about 80,000 cases cited in the report, alongside ongoing concerns about prison capacity and public confidence in the criminal justice process. Against that backdrop, any disruption to the operation of sentencing guidelines could have wider implications for consistency in outcomes across the courts.

The row also has political ramifications. Labour ministers, led by Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, have framed the reform as a way of ensuring sentencing policy commands democratic legitimacy. Conservative figures, including shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, have argued for more sweeping changes, with calls in recent months to abolish the Sentencing Council entirely under a future government.

Carr’s comments place the spotlight on the constitutional balance between Parliament and the courts. While sentencing guidelines do not determine the outcome of individual cases, they carry significant weight in day-to-day judicial decision-making, shaping ranges and starting points for offences and helping to reduce disparities between courts.

The Sentencing Bill 2025 is expected to continue its passage through Parliament in the new year. Its progress is likely to be closely watched by legal bodies and constitutional experts, given the risk that a formal ministerial role in approving guidelines could be seen as setting a precedent for further political involvement in the administration of justice.