Ken Clarke, the Justice Minister, announced on the 26th October that the government will introduce amendments to make squatting of empty residential property illegal.
The amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill 2010-11 will be presented to Parliament next week, only a month after the end of the consultation on changing the law on squatting. Some commentators have criticised the government for acting before fully assessing the approximately 2,200 responses to the consultation. 90% of the responses were hostile to changing the law.
The announcement and press release do not provide the textual detail of the amendments, which are buried somewhere in the amendment documents to be found on the Parliament website.