Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2024, published 113rd ILC session (2025)

Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105) - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Ratification: 1957)

Article 1(a) of the Convention. Penalties involving compulsory labour as a punishment for expressing views ideologically opposed to the established political, social or economic system. The Committee notes the adoption of the new Public Order Act of 2023, which introduces additional public order offences and amends certain provisions of the Public Order Act of 1998. In particular, the Committee notes the following offences, the violation of which is punishable by imprisonment, involving compulsory labour under Rule 31(1) of the Prison Rules 1999, which provides that a convicted prisoner shall be required to perform useful work:

• Section 1 (locking on) under which persons who attach themselves to another person, to an object or to land; attach a person to another person, to an object or to land; attach an object to another object or to land, and that act causes or is capable of causing serious disruption, shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term for summary offences.
• Section 7: (Interfering with use or operation of key national infrastructure) under which any person who does an act which interferes with the use or operation of any key national infrastructure and intends that act to interfere with the use or operation of such infrastructure shall be liable to imprisonment or to a fine or to both.

The Committee notes that both the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in their concluding observations of 2024 expressed concern about recent legislation, including the Public Order Act 2023, that imposes serious and undue restriction on the right of peaceful assembly, criminalizing various forms of protest, and also about the allegations of excessive use of the Act to restrict civic space. (CCPR/C/GBR/CO/8 and CERD/C/GBR/CO/24-26).

The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the application in practice of sections 1 and 7 of the Public Order Act of 2023, in particular regarding situations in which no violence has been used, including information on court decisions and specific penalties imposed in such cases, with a description of the facts leading to the convictions.