Newly announced laws imposing tougher sentences on jealous ex-partners who kill their victims and a wider review of homicide laws and the sentencing framework for murder are expected to dominate justice questions in the House of Commons today.

What steps lord chancellor Shabana Mahmood’s department is taking through the criminal justice system to help tackle violence against women and girls is one of the questions listed to be asked this morning.

Last Friday, Mahmood announced plans for new laws that would require judges to consider tougher jail sentences for murders involving strangulation or when the killing is connected to the end of the relationship. The move would implement two outstanding recommendations from Clare Wade KC’s domestic homicide sentencing review. The Ministry of Justice said the new laws were the 'latest step in the government’s mission to keep our streets safe and halve violence against women and girls'.

Nearly two decades after the Law Commission looked at the law relating to homicide, Mahmood has also asked the commission to look again.

Many of the commission’s recommendations in 2006 for reform of partial defences to murder were implemented in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. However, the government opted not to implement recommendations for the reform of murder, manslaughter and infanticide.

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The commission said: ‘As society and the law has moved on, new problems and possible limitations with the existing law have emerged. These include the operation of the law of joint enterprise, how diminished responsibility should be reflected in any new classification of homicide offences, and the extent to which the law reflects a modern understanding of the effects of domestic abuse.’

The commission has also been asked to review the sentencing framework for murder. Murder is the only offence that carries a mandatory life sentence and a sentencing framework set in legislation under the remit of parliament, not in sentencing guidelines under the remit of the Sentencing Council.

The Ministry of Justice said ‘piecemeal changes’ to the current murder sentencing framework since it was introduced in 2003 had led to inconsistencies.

For instance, the starting point for murders where a knife has been taken to the scene with intent is 25 years. The starting point normally applied if a knife already at the scene is used is 15 years. ‘This has resulted in domestic murders committed in the home with a weapon often receiving a lower sentence than those committed with a weapon in public places,’ the ministry said.