Keir Starmer is considering appointing former Tory justice secretary David Gauke to head a review into sentencing policy in a move that could signal a radical change in approach towards short prison sentences. Government sources confirmed on Saturday night that Gauke was a “strong contender”, despite being a member of the Conservative party, and that he was on a shortlist of names that also included former Labour home secretary David Blunkett. Insiders denied suggestions circulating in Whitehall that Gauke’s candidacy, which is understood to have the backing of current justice secretary Shabana Mahmood, and Starmer himself, was being blocked by Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray.
“The fact is that everything is being blamed on Sue Gray at the moment,” said an informed source. “I have not heard that she has had any involvement.” Gauke resigned from his cabinet post as soon as Boris Johnson became prime minister, mainly because he was vehemently opposed to Johnson’s support for a hard Brexit. He later left the Conservative party and stood at the 2019 general election as an independent candidate. In July this year he rejoined the Tories in order to have a vote in the party’s leadership contest. While it is not unusual for prime ministers to appoint leading figures from other parties to head policy reviews or commissions – Tony Blair, for example, appointed former Tory chairman Chris Patten to chair a commission on reforming the Northern Ireland police force in 1998 – Gauke’s appointment to such a sensitive high-profile role would inevitably be controversial. On sentencing policy, he is regarded as a staunch liberal, whose views would be opposed by those with more hardline, traditional approaches to law and order. In 2019, when lord chancellor and justice secretary, Gauke made a speech calling for what he described as “smart justice. Justice that works.” In the speech, he questioned the effectiveness of short sentences and said there was a strong case for those of six months or less to be scrapped altogether. Gauke said at the time: “In the last five years, just over a quarter of a million custodial sentences have been given to offenders for six months or less; over 300,000 sentences were for 12 months or less. “But nearly two-thirds of those offenders go on to commit a further crime within a year of being released. Twenty-seven per cent of all reoffending is committed by people who have served short sentences of 12 months or less.“For the offenders completing these short sentences whose lives are destabilised, and for society which incurs a heavy financial and social cost, prison simply isn’t working.” He added that there was a “strong case to abolish sentences of six months or less altogether, with some closely defined exceptions, and put in their place, a robust community order regime”.
Gauke’s more liberal views on sentencing stand in stark contrast to those of Lord Blunkett, the other main contender for the role. During his time as home secretary in the early 00s, he introduced longer sentences for a series of offences. After winning the election, Starmer, who entered Downing Street to be confronted by the massive issue of prison overcrowding before far-right riots broke out, appointed another liberal on sentencing policy, James Timpson, to be his prisons minister. Starmer said afterwards that rioters had been “gaming the system” because they knew the prison system was broken. As former chair of the Prisons Reform Trust, Lord Timpson argued consistently in favour of reducing imprisonment rates and improving conditions for inmates and their families. He thinks the UK is “addicted to” sentencing and punishment, and has previously said that a third of prisoners, particularly female offenders, inappropriately serve custodial sentences.A government source said the appointment to head the sentencing review would be announced in due course after the “proper processes” of evaluating the suitability of candidates on the shortlist had been completed.