Weekly Round-Up: Sentencing Bill, refugee family reunions, Graham Linehan, Bashar al-Assad, and Palestine Action
8 September 2025
In UK News
The Sentencing Bill 2025 was introduced by the government. The Bill follows a major review into sentencing by former Justice Secretary David Gauke, and accepts the majority of its recommendations. It aims to follow the prison overcrowding crisis through measures including:
- Creating a presumption that custodial sentences of less than 12 months will be suspended (subject to a number of exceptions);
- Empowering courts to give a greater range of community orders, including bans from certain venues and events and ‘restriction orders’ limiting movement;
- Extending suspended sentences to max. three years (up from two years);
- Allowing courts to defer sentencing for up to 12 months (up from six months), so that offenders can demonstrate good behaviour;
- Setting a minimum release point of 33% for standard determinate sentences (down from 40%);
- Allowing foreign prisoners to be removed from UK prisons without first serving a minimum period of custody.
Controversially, the Bill also imposes an obligation on the Sentencing Council to obtain permission from the Lord Chancellor and Lady Chief Justice before issuing sentencing guidelines. This follows a furore in early 2025 over draft guidelines which included wording about an offender’s ethnicity.
The refugee family reunion scheme has been temporarily suspended. Yvette Cooper (who was Home Secretary before a Cabinet reshuffle on Friday) announced that migrants granted asylum will be temporarily unable to bringing partners and children to the UK. The suspension will continue until the government has imposed further conditions on the scheme through legal changes.
Comedy writer Graham Linehan was arrested over tweets about transgenderism, including one which referenced punching trans women ‘in the balls’. The arrest has been criticised by Prime Minister Keir Starmer as well as members of the shadow cabinet. Mr Linehan is currently also being tried for harassment in relation to an altercation with a transgender activist.
In International News
France has issued arrest warrants for Syrian ex-president Bashar al-Assad, his brother, and five other officials regime officials. Al-Assad has been living in Russia since being deposed in December 2024. These warrants relate to the 2012 bombing of a press centre in Homs; French photographer Rémi Ochlik and American journalist Marie Colvin were killed. The bombing is being investigated by the French judiciary as a war crime and crime against humanity.
In the Courts
The Home Office has received permission to challenge a High Court ruling allowing Palestine Action to appeal its proscription under terror legislation. Palestine Action, a group founded by Ms Huda Ammori, was banned as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000. In a judgment dated 30 July 2025, Ms Ammori was granted permission by the High Court to appeal this proscription. Now, the Home Office has won the right to challenge the 30 July ruling. In an unpublished order seen by the press, the Court described the government’s appeal has having ‘a real prospect of success’; it is due to be heard on 25 September.
