In an interesting development for the life sciences sector, and which could therefore also have significance for the health and education sectors, the government announced in late November 2025 that it was laying a statutory instrument to include Life Sciences infrastructure as key national infrastructure for the purposes of the Public Order Act 2023. That statutory instrument was approved in the House of Commons on 14 January 2026, and now passes to the House of Lords, where it should be approved and become law.
Section 7 of the Public Order Act makes it an offence for people to do anything which interferes with the use or operation of any key national infrastructure in England and Wales. People convicted of offences can be imprisoned or fined. Life sciences infrastructure will now be added to the list in the Act, which currently includes such things as road, rail or air transport infrastructure, utilities and so on.
The statutory instrument, which can be found here - The Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025 - defines life sciences infrastructure as infrastructure the primary purpose of which is facilitating pharmaceutical research, development or manufacturing, or which is used for or in connection with activities authorised by a licence under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. This will therefore include those who are licensed under ASPA, which will include contract research organisations and educational establishments who perform experiments on animals, as well as those who breed those animals for these purposes.
In recent years, animal rights protestors have been targeting various such organisations and their supply chains in ways which could well amount to offences under this legislation once it is in force. Our experience in helping such clients has shown the limitations of the civil law in policing the disruptive behaviour by means of injunctions, and so it is to be hoped that the new powers will enable police to deal with disruptive protest and other behaviour which “prevents the infrastructure from being used or operated to any extent for any of its intended purposes”.
The life sciences and pharmaceutical industries are ones in which the UK is a world leader and, as the letter from Sarah Jones MP to the Home Affairs Select Committee on 27 November made clear, it is to be hoped that this amended legislation will help bolster the UK’s national health resilience in the face of what can be hugely disruptive, and are often greatly ill-informed, protests.
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