Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of The Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025 on the ability of (a) students and (b) academics to protest the use of animals in scientific research by universities.

On Thursday 27 November 2025, the Home Office laid an affirmative Statutory Instrument in Parliament to amend Section 7 and Section 8 of the Public Order Act 2023. This will amend the list of key national infrastructure within Section 7 of the Act, to add the Life Sciences sector and define the Life Sciences sector in Section 8 of the Act.

The definition of ‘Life Sciences sector’ for the purpose of this legislation to be added to Section 8 of the Act is: “infrastructure that primarily facilitates pharmaceutical research, or the development or manufacturing of pharmaceutical products; or which is used in connection to activities authorised under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986”.

Under Section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023, a person commits an offence if:

• They do an act which interferes with the use or operation of any key national infrastructure in England and Wales, and
• They intend that act to interfere with the use or operation of such infrastructure or are reckless as to whether it will do so.

The amendment is designed to address only certain behaviours impacting the Life Sciences sector. It does not ban protests. It specifically targets deliberate or reckless interference with infrastructure within the Life Sciences sector, that could undermine our sovereign capability to prepare for and respond to a pandemic.

Whether an activity meets the criminal threshold within Section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023 will be fact specific and is an operational matter for the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts, who are all operationally independent from the government.