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

Lord Trees Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I just want to throw in a bit of a spanner—which is to say that I am completely torn between the two sides. It might be helpful to explain my dilemma. First, I would like to give real credit to the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for the work that he has done scientifically and the need to use animals in experiments, which he explained. I was partly moved to speak because I was a great admirer of, and friend of, neuroscientist Professor Colin Blakemore, who died a few years ago. I just wanted to note that he had to heroically stand his ground against intimidation, harassment, threats of violence and actual terror, which was deployed—not just against him—by animal rights activists.

He and other less well-known scientists, medical researchers, and staff in academia and in private companies were confronted by abuse and accused of conducting a holocaust—a completely inappropriate use of the term—on animals that was worse than the Nazis. I witnessed some of that.

This was long before organisations such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action arrived on the scene, which blur the line between the democratic right to protest and the anti-democratic bullying of the public and institutions to do as the activists demand. That presents us with a genuine dilemma. I support the right to protest, but I sometimes worry that that right is used to justify people who are not interested in protesting but are interested in effecting the stoppage of a particular activity physically and through bullying people.

Having said all of that, I want to ask the Minister why this sector has come into scope only now and not before. I genuinely do not understand. Why has it been introduced as a statutory instrument, with no possibility of opposition, apart from via a fatal amendment? I was one of those people who was very worried about the Public Order Act and the powers handed over to the Secretary of State, precisely because I was worried that the Secretary of State could redefine what national infrastructure projects were—and here we have it. That has been very well explained.

I also feel rather squeamish about our emphasis on life sciences as an industry and national infrastructure without it being defended as scientific research for its own sake. I wish I had heard so much defence of the importance of animal research by politicians on all sides when those scientists were being attacked. I think of animal research in terms of epilepsy drugs, Parkinson’s disease, anti-cancer drugs and therapies such as Herceptin and tamoxifen. I find it disappointing that we stand up to defend it only when it is an industry that makes money. There is more to scientific research and animal research than that, surely.

However, I was also disappointed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and, particularly, by the briefings —goodness knows I received many of those emails. On the one hand, I agree with the right to protest and the concerns about constitutional overreach; I actually thought the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made some really excellent points—it is not often we agree—as to why this is slightly nerve-wracking. On the other hand, in all the emails I received—in fact, this was reproduced here by the noble Baroness—I have been lectured on the dangers of animal research, and I end up feeling that what I am being asked to vote on is whether I think animal research is important for medical science. I understand the three Rs, including replacement, and that it is not where we are going, but it is so important to emphasise that this animal research is going to carry on for some time—we cannot be dishonest about that. Therefore, if I am being asked to vote on this fatal amendment—and if it has been turned into a way of demonising researchers who work with animals—then I will either not vote for it or abstain.

I ask the Minister: why now? Why did he, or anybody else, not raise this before? I say to the noble Baroness: can I risk siding with people who are going to lecture us and make hectoring demonisations of the perfectly legitimate—and, in my view, heroic—scientists who do animal research? It is necessary for humanity, whatever its relationships with the economy.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare, a former president of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and, more pertinent to this debate, a former named veterinarian—more than 30 years ago, I stress—to a university animal unit.

I realise that this issue is contentious and emotive, and I understand people’s concerns. However, with respect, I note that this is not the place to debate the provision and use of animals in research; it is about balancing free speech and the right to protest with the lawful pursuit of highly regulated legal activities of great benefit to humans and animals. Therefore, I speak in support of these regulations and to oppose the fatal amendment.

The fatal amendment speaks of “legislative overreach” and suggests that it extends “critical national infra- structure” beyond its meaning. I will challenge that. The Public Order Act allows the Secretary of State to make different provision for different purposes—that was agreed by Parliament in the passing of that Act. Our biosecurity is more vulnerable than ever. We are threatened by potential epidemic or pandemic outbreaks of infectious disease in either humans or animals; I point out that foot and mouth disease, for example, is on the National Risk Register. Whether a disease outbreak occurs spontaneously or by bioterrorism—let us not forget that risk—it presents a huge threat to our food security, our animal health, our human health and the economy. I am satisfied, and indeed heartened, to see that life science establishments—which help us detect, manage or prevent those very serious events that I have mentioned—are regarded as critical national infrastructure.

The fatal amendment asserts that there is a lack of justification for the regulations and that they will facilitate

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

However, this SI does not change or extend any sanctions or restrictions already included in the Public Order Act 2023; it simply adds another type of infrastructure. I also note that the police believe that the current powers under the Public Order Act 1986 and the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 are insufficient in this case.

I cannot see that peaceful protest is in any way prevented but I am aware that protest actions in several sites have included things like spike devices being hurled into facilities to damage vehicles and puncture tyres, spray painting the homes of animal care staff, other harassments, and personal threats and criminal damage, often by masked individuals, which go way beyond peaceful protest and are clearly designed to close down facilities. As someone who has known first-hand the exemplary skill and care with which animal technicians treat the animals they look after in research establishments, I am appalled that staff are treated by some demonstrators so nastily that they are frightened to go to work. In the UK, labs that might use animals, whether for life science, medical or veterinary research, and the facilities that support those labs, are highly regulated and carry out legal activities of incredible value to human and animal health and welfare.