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

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Lords Chamber

I agree with other speakers who have said that the Government should withdraw this SI, hold a proper consultation and bring a Bill to this House so that we can have an opportunity to amend it.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I have listened to a fascinating debate—some of it moral, some of it technical and latterly some of it even economic. But the amendment to the Motion asks us to make a simple decision: is it a case of overreach to define animal testing as national infrastructure? If it is overreach, we should support the amendment; if it is not, we should resist it. We each need to come to our own conclusion. I hope that we will have an opportunity to do so relatively soon.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, every noble Lord has said that they will be brief but then quite a lot are not. I will do my best to be brief.

First, I agree with every word that my noble friend Lady Bennett said. She summed up the problems we in this Chamber face.

Secondly, I have said many times in this Chamber, on many Bills, that this Government are putting in more and more repressive legislation. They are getting worse than the previous Government and are just adding to their oppressive agenda. The Labour Party is failing the nation when it keeps adding crime after crime into anti-protest legislation.

I am sure the Minister knows that the six Palestine Action activists who were imprisoned and went to court came away without having any charges against them corroborated. They are free. It seems that this legislation will make things even more complicated for the police. Again and again, the police say that all the legislation relating to protest is too complicated at the moment, needs streamlining and needs to make more sense. Like it or not, this Government are losing the public. If a jury cannot find against six people who broke into a factory and smashed things up, they are losing the public. The public are saying to them, “We just don’t believe you any more. You are pushing things to far”. If the Government could not even get that case through the courts, they have wasted police time and court time, and have made the lives of those six people unpleasant and nasty for some time. This is overreach; the Government know it is, and they should not do it.