The Government has expressed support for a "universal" anti-SLAPP law — a single, across-the-board statutory shield against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, rather than the narrower, media-only protections currently on the books. That expression of support is, at this stage, the whole of the story. No bill has been published. No date has been set. No draft text exists in the public domain.

The position emerges from a government response reported by Lexology on the SLAPPs debate, in which ministers aligned themselves with campaigners who have long argued that protections should extend beyond journalists to all defendants — academics, whistleblowers, ordinary citizens — who face litigation designed to silence them rather than vindicate a genuine grievance.

What is a SLAPP, and why does 'universal' matter?

A SLAPP — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — is a claim, typically in defamation or privacy, whose real purpose is to exhaust a defendant's funds and resolve. The distinguishing feature is not the cause of action but the objective: suppression through cost.

English law currently offers a targeted remedy. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 inserted an early-dismissal mechanism for SLAPPs, but only where the subject matter is economic crime — money laundering, fraud, corruption. A campaigner investigating environmental abuses, or a private citizen criticising a developer, falls outside that gate.

A "universal" law would remove the subject-matter condition. Every speaker, on every topic, would gain access to an early strike-out where the claim meets the SLAPP definition. That is the campaigners' aim, and it now appears to be the Government's stated direction of travel.

The operative word is "appears".

What has the Government actually committed to?

An expression of support is not a legislative commitment. The reported position signals sympathy, nothing more. The Government has not announced:

• a bill, or a slot in the legislative programme;
• a timetable for consultation or drafting;
• a definition of "SLAPP" beyond the economic-crime context;
• any funding or procedural changes for the interim.

Ministers have, in the past, favoured these questions with warm words. The 2022 call for evidence on SLAPPs produced a government response; the 2023 Act produced a partial remedy. Each step fell short of the universal scheme that the Council of Europe recommended in April 2024, when its Committee of Ministers urged member states to adopt comprehensive anti-SLAPP frameworks covering all matters of public participation.

The latest statement moves the rhetorical position closer to that recommendation. It does not close the distance.

What would a universal law change for practitioners?

For claimant lawyers, a universal early-dismissal mechanism would raise the stakes at the pre-action stage. Claims touching public participation would face summary termination unless the claimant can show a realistic prospect of success and that the benefit of proceeding outweighs the harm to expression — the twin hurdles the 2023 Act already imposes in the economic-crime field. Weak claims would die early, and costs would follow.

For defendants — and this is the practical prize — the change would extend that protection beyond the press. NGOs, academics, bloggers and individual critics currently rely on the ordinary defamation regime, its costs and its delays. A universal mechanism would give them a procedural exit that today exists only for economic-crime reporting.

Caveat: none of this applies yet. Practitioners advising clients today must work within the law as enacted, not the law as endorsed in principle.

What is not said

The Government's statement, as reported, leaves three questions open, and each one matters more than the endorsement itself.

First, the definition. What counts as "public participation"? A narrow reading could exclude much environmental and consumer criticism; a broad one could swallow ordinary commercial disputes.

Second, the test. Will the strike-out threshold mirror the 2023 Act, or soften it under lobbying pressure from claimant firms?

Third, costs. An early-dismissal right without a costs shield — indemnity costs for the defendant, capped recoverables for the claimant — may deter few well-funded litigants. The Government has said nothing on any of the three.

The takeaway

Support for a universal anti-SLAPP law is a genuine shift in position, and campaigners will welcome it. Until a bill appears with a definition, a test and a costs regime, it remains a promise — and promises, in this field, have a record of arriving trimmed.