Amid all the noise about our 'two-tier' justice system, there is silence on class

As so often in such debates, the controversy over new guidelines for courts from the Sentencing Council for England and Wales has obscured as much as it has illuminated. Critics have condemned them as presaging a “two-tier” justice system, a jibe aimed for months at Labour and Keir Starmer, but which has now crossed the parliamentary aisle to be wielded by Labour ministers, too.

- Kenan Malik

The lord chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, wrote to the chair of the Sentencing Council, Lord Justice William Davis, to “make clear my displeasure” at the guidelines, insisting that access to justice “should not be determined by an offender's ethnicity, culture or religion”. The shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, claimed that “Christian and straight white men... will be treated differently to the rest of society”.

The spit and fury is both overdone and insufficient. The new guidelines are more nuanced than many critics allow, but more profound problems with them are ignored in much of the discussion. The controversial part of the proposals, due to come into effect on 1 April, lies with changes in the use of pre-sentence reports (PSRs). These provide courts with information about an offender's background and may lead to more lenient sentences.

Under the new guidelines, courts must consider a PSR when the defendant comes from certain cohorts, such as being a “young adult”, “female”, “from an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community”, “pregnant or postnatal”, or a “primary carer for dependent relatives”. PSRs should be considered, too, when the offender may be “transgender”, has “addiction issues”, or is at risk of “domestic abuse” or “modern slavery or trafficking”, and so on.

It's quite a list, comprising people from specific identity groups or facing certain circumstances. Much of the rage, though, has been directed at the inclusion of just one group - those “from an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community”.

The possibility of differential sentences based on race or ethnicity is certainly troubling. A burglary or a rape committed by a white person, a black person or an Asian person should, all else being equal, receive the same punishment. Nevertheless, the focus of critics on this category as opposed to any other suggests politicised hostility.