Member

Amendment 382D goes further by removing the “reasonable excuse” defence altogether from a range of public order offences, including those introduced in the Public Order Act 2023. This is not radical; it is consistent. Parliament has already decided that conduct such as locking on, tunnelling and obstructing key infrastructure is inherently harmful. To then allow a broad, open-ended reasonable excuse defence is to invite precisely the kind of litigation and uncertainty that Ziegler has produced.