The Sentencing Council is expected to suspend guidelines which advise judges to consider the lives of offenders from ethnic minority and other backgrounds before deciding on punishment, government sources have told the BBC.
It comes after the government said it would pass an emergency law to override the guidance, which prompted claims of “two-tier justice”.
The guidelines were due to come into effect in England and Wales on Tuesday, after the Sentencing Council refused to reconsider them.
The prime minister said he was “very disappointed” and had “no other option” but to pass a law overruling the body.
But government sources said it would be all but impossible to pass such legislation before Easter.
The guidelines advise that magistrates and judges get a pre-sentence report – giving further details of an offender’s background – before handing out punishment for someone of an ethnic or faith minority, alongside other groups such as young adults, abuse survivors and pregnant women.
The Sentencing Council, made up of some of the most senior legal figures in England and Wales, said the guidance would address disparities in the punishments meted out by judges.
Official figures show that offenders from ethnic minorities consistently get longer sentences than white offenders for indictable offences.
Speaking to GB News on Monday, the prime minister said the government would bring forward legislation to reverse the new guidelines.
“There’s no other option, so we will do that. We will fast-track it,” he said.
But a government source said it would be all but impossible to pass the law overturning the guidelines before Parliament’s Easter recess.
The House of Lords breaks for Easter on Thursday and does not sit again until 22 April. MPs break up on 8 April.
Some in government believed the law could and should have been rushed through before then.
Others are understood to have raised concerns that it would be obstructed in the House of Lords, especially by eminent lawyers, if the government were seen to be moving with excessive speed.
Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick first raised concerns about the guidelines earlier this month, saying they were biased “against straight white men” and amounted to “two-tier justice”.
In response, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she also opposed a “two-tier sentencing approach” and that she “did not stand for any differential treatment before the law”.
The Sentencing Council was established in 2010 to try to ensure consistency in sentencing. Sir Keir, at the time Director of Public Prosecutions, was one of its founding members.