Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for both outlining the statutory instrument and explaining my amendment to decline to approve it. I am going to structure my speech in an unconventional manner, starting with the points that I know the fewest people in this Chamber will agree with, moving backwards through the order in the amendment to the point that I believe that most people in this Chamber, particularly the Benches to my right, might be persuaded to agree with. I will finish not on points about animal testing or the right to protest, but on the basic constitutional understanding that statutory instruments are a way in which the law can be illegitimately extended well beyond the original intentions manifested when it was democratically debated, pored over and scrutinised, in both your Lordships’ House and the other place. This statutory instrument is a notable and dangerous piece of legislative overreach.

I start with animal testing, the phasing out of which, as the amendment says, is not going nearly quickly enough under the replacing animals in science strategy. Why do I argue that this is too slow? It is for morality and for efficacy. There is public revulsion, yes, which results in widespread peaceful protest about the treatment of more than 2.5 million animals a year used in medical research here. More than that, there is a recognition of the inadequacy of animal testing, the “valley of death” that sees drugs apparently showing promise in animals failing to work in humans. Animal Free Research UK reports that that is the case for over 92% of drugs, and that failure makes up 75% of the cost of drug development. As an entire edition of the journal Frontiers in Immunology published in 2024 points out, there are 90 million years of evolution between humans and rodents.

However, there are alternatives. Our Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Vallance of Balham, said last November:

“Now, new advances in technology—particularly AI and genomics, but also organoid and 3D cell systems—finally allow us to see a path to changing our reliance on animals in science”.


But this SI will be an active discouragement to the commercial companies to push on in this direction, the direction in which the Government say they want to head and for which public pressure—democratic forces—is clearly important.

My second argument, to quote the amendment, is that the SI reflects

“a further restriction on the democratic right to peaceful protest”.

That was the key concern in the debate on the SI in the other place of many of the 26 Labour MPs who voted against it. The Mother of the House, Diane Abbott, was among the 110 “no” tally. Among the Labour opponents were Stella Creasy and Kerry McCarthy, former Shadow Minister of State for Defra and a former Minister for Climate. As was suggested after the debate by Neil Duncan-Jordan, the Labour MP for Poole:

“This proposal treats private, often American-owned companies the same as airports, motorways and utilities. It shields private profits from fair criticism and puts them above our right to protest. That is not right”.


Protest is part of our political system, and it is a crucial part of delivering democracy. The Minister suggested that recent developments in protest had demanded that this SI be brought in. I can go back to the 19th century, when the UK was a leader in protest movements, such as anti-vivisection, through the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876.

I have circulated two briefings to noble Lords. One of those represents some 21 signatories, among them Protect the Wild, Camp Beagle, Medicine Without Cruelty and the Network for Police Monitoring, known as Netpol. It says that some 30,000 emails have been sent to noble Lords; I apologise to the many who have written to me personally, but I do not have the capacity to respond individually. Together with the other briefing written by Naturewatch Foundation, and supported by 26 other signatories, including Cruelty Free International, Wildlife and Countryside Link, Lush cosmetics and the Animal Law Foundation, this indicates that the SI in question represents a significant and unprecedented expansion of public order powers—already some of the most far-reaching protest-related restrictions in recent UK law—and would extend them to a broad and very loosely defined sector. When it comes to animal testing, the Government have failed to demonstrate why existing laws covering harassment, obstruction, criminal damage and public order are not already sufficient.

I turn to what I believe is my point of broadest appeal, and an appeal of considerable constitutional significance. I thank Jennifer Scotney, our staff member, for going through all the debates on the original Bill. In the Commons Public Bill Committee, the right honourable Kit Malthouse stated:

“The offence will cover major roads, railways, airports, harbours, and downstream oil and gas infrastructure”.


The Explanatory Notes to the Bill list transport and energy, and add newspaper printing infrastructure, but Parliament did not scrutinise life sciences as key national infrastructure. Its later inclusion relies solely on delegated powers and was not the original legislative intent. KNI was identified as specific, identifiable physical systems whose operation underpins daily life. Life sciences, by contrast, is a broad sector, operating largely on private land, consisting of thousands of sites of varying importance. To quote the right honourable Kit Malthouse again:

“Minor infrastructure such as undesignated roads and small-scale power stations will be out of scope”.—[Official Report, Commons, Public Order Bill Committee, 14/6/22; col. 134.]


If minor or diffused infrastructure was deliberately excluded, a whole commercial research sector cannot logically fit within the definition. The National Police Chiefs’ Council testified that it would have concern about an explicit duty being placed on policing to deal with an activity on private land.

Emergency services, health, and food services were explicitly rejected as not being suitable for inclusion in the Bill; Ministers said that they were not in scope. In Committee in the Commons, Sarah Jones MP proposed adding emergency services; this was rejected by the Minister. The response in the Commons to a proposal suggesting adding farms and food production was that this would

“significantly increase the scope of the Bill”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/22; col. 606.]

In our own House, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, the then Conservative Minister, said

“we do not believe it is necessary to add … into the list … at present”.—[Official Report, 16/11/22; col. 936.]

referring to other sectors. If ambulances, hospitals and food supply were excluded for being too expansive to be included in the Bill, life sciences represent a clear shift beyond Parliament’s stated limits for the Bill.

Ministers justified the secondary legislation power on the basis that new forms of infrastructure might emerge, or novel protest tactics might target previously unforeseen sites. Protests at animal testing and life science facilities, however, are long established—going back to the 19th century, as I said—well known and were explicitly referenced during the passage of the Bill. Martha Spurrier of Liberty, at the Commons Committee stage, said:

“If someone locks themselves to an animal testing centre … the police have to work out at what point that person’s right to”


protest

“becomes an infringement of other rights”.—[Official Report, Commons, Public Order Bill Committee, 09/06/2022; col. 72.]

Parliament was already aware of protests at animal testing facilities and discussed them as part of the existing protest landscape, managed under existing regulations and human rights law, not as a justification for redefining infrastructure.

I come to the broader position in which we are debating the SI. The Public Law Project website says that

“for as long as delegated legislation has existed there have been concerns about the way it is used. Sometimes the Government leaves difficult and controversial matters of policy to Statutory Instruments so that the Government can avoid the difficulties of having to pass a law”.

I posit that this is happening here.

I have been in your Lordships’ House for more than six years, so I have heard many debates along the lines of a 2014 report from the Hansard Society titled: The Devil is in the Detail: Parliament and Delegated Legislation. That report says, and this is the key part of my argument, that:

“The House of Lords should make greater, albeit judicious, use of its power of veto”


when referring to SIs. I put it to the House, and particularly to the Conservative Benches, who I know in general are extremely reluctant to vote for fatal Motions, that this would be a judicious—indeed, a critically important—use of their vote on this occasion, a vote for something we often hear championed from those Benches for free speech.

I state only the obvious when I say that politics is now in a great state of flux and the future is highly uncertain. The principle of far extending the original intentions of a Bill—which could be stopped through a mechanism that His Majesty’s loyal Opposition have in their hands but decline to use—could, in the future, be a far graver threat to the nation’s liberty than even what we have before us today. Does Parliament make the law, or have the Executive morphed into a monstrous Henry VIII hologram, saying that the law means whatever they say it means? In this age, particularly, that is a very dangerous precedent to set. I beg to move.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I did not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, about Just Stop Oil blocking motorways and I do not agree with her now about animal testing, which must be carefully controlled but is still essential, but I come to the same conclusion as she does for the constitutional reason that she gave as the last of her indictments.

I strongly agree with the Government about the importance of the life sciences sector. I was chairman of Imperial College; I know a bit about it. The point where I disagree with the Government, and strongly agree with the noble Baroness, is on whether a research laboratory can properly be designated as key national infrastructure under the 2023 Act.

Section 7 of the Act makes it an offence to interfere with the

“use or operation of any key national infrastructure”.

It defines key national infrastructure rather precisely, as the Minister read out. There are eight categories; seven are to do with transport and the eighth, rather oddly, is about the production of newspapers—presumably the connection is communication. Section 7(7) of the Act permits the Secretary of State to add further infrastructure. Hence this SI.

In all our debates, no one ever mentioned laboratories. When we were passing this Act, animal welfare did not come up. We thought we were dealing with oil, gas, rail, road and air, because that is what Ministers and the Bill said. If we were thinking of what extra—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord, but I think I will stick to my line of argument. I do not think we discussed laboratories. Hansard shows that we did not.

It is important to remember that the demonstrator outside the factory or laboratory is already covered by the Act because he is obstructing the road. He is probably already covered by the Public Order Act 1986, but he is certainly covered by the 2023 Act. Road transport infrastructure is right at the top of the list of “key national infrastructure”. This statutory instrument will add the laboratory or the factory itself, not access to it, and deem it national infrastructure that is key to the nation. That is quite a stretch. If the pharmaceutical industry is key national infrastructure, what about food production or distribution, the NHS or radio and television transmitters? All three cases seem more plausible than a life sciences factory or laboratory.

I agree with the noble Baroness that this statutory instrument would set a dangerous precedent. It is in the spirit of Igor Judge, whom we miss so much, that I register my unease. Unlike Igor, I cannot add an apposite reference to Thomas Cromwell, but he always warned that the temptation for the Executive is always to push the legislative boundaries. I have worked in the Executive; I know that he was right. This instrument pushes the boundaries too far, and we should push back.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as having been in this House a little longer than the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I have great respect for many of the things that she has said, and we have worked together on other Bills. Over 50 years, I have continued to do animal research and held a licence under the Home Office. My laboratory, where I still have some work going on, uses animals and will have to continue to do so for the research it is doing. We have to consider that.

It is important that animal research is seen as a respectable endeavour and is properly policed, which, on the whole, the Home Office does exceptionally well. I am grateful to the Minister, who has given a very good speech explaining how this has been done in this House and that the Government need to try to reduce the number of animals in research, as we are doing and with which I totally agree.

With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I have some problem with his comment, because it would not protect me. I have had, in the years I have been doing research, until quite recently, repeated death threats. I have had Special Branch at my house, with my 94-year-old mother hiding in the kitchen because we thought there was a bomb on the doorstep. We have had a whole range of issues. My friends who worked in the same laboratories have had fires in their houses. We have to understand that this is a very real threat to research. Some people give up research because they get so concerned, not necessarily about the value of the research they are doing but about the reputational risk they run due to the understanding of the work they are doing. We need to make it much clearer why such work is necessary. I suggest to the noble Baroness, with respect, that she is not entirely correct in the reason she gives for it being given up.

There are numerous examples I might suggest to some noble Lords in the Chamber. I have counted that, in the House of Lords and the House of Commons, over my time, there must have been at least 100 families who have benefited from the technique of in vitro fertilisation. That was made possible only by experimenting on animals, to make sure that we were not producing embryos in the human that would be abnormal, distorted or deformed, or that would die after birth or later on. That is one example. Equally, in perinatology, there has been clear evidence that animal research was definitely necessary for understanding the breathing of an animal to learn how we can actually prevent damage to infants. Indeed, years ago, I did some of that research, in a very small way, with mice, along with a man called Jonathan Wigglesworth, who was a very famous scientist —much more famous and a much better scientist than I was. There are numerous examples.

The idea that we can use tissues or embryoids is far from the mark. One of the issues is that, in culture, in any kind of artificial situation which is not an intact animal, there are changes to the cells that we cannot control. That is a really important issue in science, and we have to understand that that is a critical question. It is true, too, in DNA technology—we still sometimes have to have the testing of that. Think of the number of people in this House who have had treatments for cancer that used animal research. Of course it needs to be reduced, but we must understand that the cells we are modifying and then putting back into a man or a woman still need extremal validation.

To some extent, the noble Baroness is, with respect, being a little inconsistent. Some three years ago, she and I worked on the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill, which looked at the risks of modifying animals and modifying plants. There was a huge amount of misinformation around that, but eventually it did go through. I never saw then the noble Baroness make the points she now makes about animal research. The moral issues of animal research that she is talking about now certainly did not come up in that Bill. It was much more about making sure that, if we did produce animals in this way, we would not produce abnormal animals that would be poisonous or dangerous or deformed in some way. That is something that we have to consider. This is certainly an issue where she has been, in a sense, on the other side.

That Bill went to Third Reading and got Royal Assent without anybody really complaining about it. If the noble Baroness has complained about it, I certainly have not heard about it. Of course, at this very moment, the Government are considering, as they should, whether it should be implemented. If we do try to modify and improve animal farming and so on in the way that has been proposed, that would affect animal breeding. It is a Bill that I found difficult, but it certainly does not suggest we should not use animals carefully and with great moral care. Therefore, I have to say to the noble Baroness that her amendment is, in my view, unquestionably wrong, and I will certainly want to vote against it.