Of course, the new law doesn't explicitly ban sex. But it says "no person may participate in a gathering indoors" with two or more people. This is a big change to the previous wording, which focused on gatherings "in a public place".
The law defines a gathering as "when two or more people are present together in the same place in order to engage in any form of social interaction with each other, or to undertake any other activity with each other."
What are the exceptions?
There are of course exceptions to the indoor gatherings rule - but they are a strictly limited list.
That list is:
- All the persons in the gathering are members of the same household;
- The person is attending a funeral, as a member of the deceased person’s household, close family or a friend in some cases;
- The person concerned is an elite athlete, the coach of an elite athlete, or (in the case of an elite athlete under the age of 18), the parent of an elite athlete, and the gathering is necessary for training or competition;
- The gathering is reasonably necessary for work purposes, or for the provision of voluntary or charitable services; to facilitate a house move; to provide care or assistance to a vulnerable person; to provide emergency assistance;
- The gathering is reasonably necessary for the purposes of early years childcare provided by a person registered on the Early Years Register under Part 3 of the Childcare Act 2006;
- The gathering is reasonably necessary to enable one or more persons in the gathering to avoid injury or illness or to escape a risk of harm;
- The gathering is reasonably necessary to continue existing arrangements for access to, and contact between, parents and children where the children do not live in the same household as their parents, or one of their parents;
- The person concerned is fulfilling a legal obligation or participating in legal proceedings;
- The gathering takes place at an educational facility and is reasonably necessary for the purposes of education.
Elsewhere, the new law also says "no person may, without reasonable excuse, stay overnight at any place other than the place where they are living".
This wording is different from the previous law - which stopped you leaving your home at all without reasonable excuse.
Anyone contravening the regulations can be subject to a £100 Fixed Penalty Notice, halved to £50 if paid within 14 days. For serial offenders this can double on each subsequent offence up to a cap of £3,200.
However, there is not a hard definition of "overnight" or "the place where you are living", suggesting
there is a lot of wriggle room in the law.
It seems unlikely that police would fine or prosecute two people having sex in a private home.