Prominent backbench MP Sarah Champion launched a campaign against VPNs previously, saying: “My new clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within six months of the Bill’s passage, a report on the effect of VPN use on Ofcom’s ability to enforce the requirements under clause 112.
"If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.” And the Labour Party said there were “gaps” in the bill that needed to be amended.
VPNs are one of the core security measures of all large companies.
VPNs aren’t just a “hide your IP” tool, they’re a way of giving someone access to an organisation’s internal network. Sensitive servers such as databases, wikis, scheduling tools etc don’t have publicly exposed IPs, they only have connections that are accessible from inside that VPN. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_(computing)
Not only that, but they are crucial for network security. VPNs allow all network traffic (with a few necessary exceptions) to be routed through the company’s network and benefit from its security measures, mainly monitoring traffic for suspicious and malicious behaviour. Without it, finding compromised PCs is much harder and enforcing company policies regarding web use would be impossible outside the office.