PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(2 September 2025)

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Criminals to face football, travel, club and pub bans, published on 23 August 2025, what impact her Department estimates these measures will have on (a) rates of first offence and (b) rates of reoffence.

Asked by:
Ben Goldsborough (Labour)

Through the Sentencing Bill we will introduce new powers available to the courts when imposing a community or suspended sentence. This will provide courts with greater flexibility than ever before to tailor punishments to offenders and ensure sentences served in the community are not a “soft option” but represent a genuine punishment by restricting offenders’ freedoms.

The four new powers which this Bill includes are:

• Banning offenders from attending public events (including sports events);

• Banning offenders from attending drinking establishments (including pubs, clubs and bars);

• Prohibiting offenders from driving, and

• Requiring an offender to stay within a geographic location (restriction zones).

We believe that these new powers, for example banning criminals from football matches and pubs, will help to deter offending and hammer home that under this Government, crime no longer pays.

The Sentencing Bill seeks to increase the robustness of community sentencing. Evidence suggests that community orders and suspended sentences are more effective than short custodial sentences at reducing reoffending in certain circumstances.

Answered by:
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