Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Committee (1st Day)

Amendment 1

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause— “Purpose: protection of premises from terrorism(1) The purpose of this Act is to protect premises from terrorism.(2) The Secretary of State must, in taking any actions under the provisions of this Act, have regard to this purpose.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment would place a duty on the Secretary of State to have regard to the purpose of the Act, namely to protect premises from terrorism.

My Lords, this amendment seeks to insert a new clause before Clause 1 that aims to clearly establish the purpose of this important Bill: namely, the protection of premises from terrorism. Before I begin, I was very sorry to hear that there has been a stabbing and subsequent death at a school in Sheffield this afternoon. I know I speak for the whole House when I say our hearts go out to the victim, their family and the people of Sheffield at this difficult time.

The events of recent years have made it tragically clear that terrorism remains one of the gravest threats facing our nation. The horrifying attacks at the Manchester Arena, London Bridge and Borough Market are seared into our national consciousness. These atrocities were targeted not just at individuals but at our entire way of life. They were aimed at places where people come together to live, work and celebrate life. It is the duty of government to protect our citizens and public spaces from such evil, and that is precisely what this Bill seeks to achieve.

I again pay tribute to Figen Murray. Without her work in campaigning for this Bill, it is unlikely that it would have come before your Lordships’ House. We owe a duty to the victims, survivors and families to get this Bill right. Legislation must always be crafted with clarity of purpose. A Bill without a clearly articulated objective risks confusion during implementation and unintended consequences.

That is why this amendment is so essential. It explicitly states:

“The purpose of this Act is to protect premises from terrorism”,

and requires the Secretary of State to have regard to that purpose when

“taking any actions under the … Act”.

The Bill is of the highest importance, and the Official Opposition will take a constructive approach to scrutinising it to ensure that we can deliver these urgently needed security measures in the best way possible. We have already tabled a number of priority amendments to the Bill.

There are a number of other areas in the Bill we would like to look at more closely. We will table additional amendments in the coming days to give the Committee the opportunity to scrutinise it fully. This is an extremely important Bill, and we are determined to work with the Government to ensure we get this right.

Protecting the public must always be the priority, and we must also be mindful of the burdens we place on businesses and other stakeholders. As Conservatives, we understand that regulation can stifle enterprise, dampen innovation and undermine the vibrant public spaces that are so central to British life. We are proud of our high streets, entertainment venues and bustling public spaces; they are part of what makes Britain great. There is an important balance to be struck.

Amendment 1 would play a crucial role in striking that balance. Anchoring the Bill to a clear and focused purpose will ensure that the decision-making remains guided by the primary objective of enhancing security. That would ensure that Ministers remain unequivocally focused on that goal. That said, we are open to discussions with the Government on the wording of this proposed new clause to reflect the Government’s objectives.

My amendment also provides much-needed reassurance to businesses, local authorities and stakeholders affected by the Bill’s measures. They need to know that the Government’s actions will be guided by a clear and consistent objective—protecting them and the public from terrorism.

It is worth highlighting the scale of the financial impact. According to the Home Office’s own impact assessment, the cost to businesses is expected to be £207.5 million per year. That is by no means a small sum for businesses, and it underscores the importance of ensuring that this legislation is in the best possible shape before it is implemented. We owe it to businesses and to the British public to get this right.

We must also acknowledge that there are currently no mandatory requirements for premises to consider terrorist threats and to take forward proportionate mitigations. Despite numerous inquests and inquiry findings highlighting the risk, there remain inconsistent security outcomes at UK public locations. As noble Lords will know, the UK has experienced 15 terrorist attacks since March 2017 and disrupted 39 late-stage terrorist plots. Those statistics are a stark reminder of the ongoing threat we face. It is clear that voluntary measures are no longer sufficient. The Government must legislate to mandate the protective security and preparedness outcomes to be achieved.

We must also ensure this legislation is future-proofed. The threat landscape is constantly evolving and we must be prepared to adapt our security measures accordingly. This amendment, by focusing on the purpose of protecting premises from terrorism, provides a strong foundation for that adaptability.

In closing, I urge noble Lords to support this amendment. It will strengthen the Bill, provide clarity to those implementing it, and reinforce our collective resolve to protect the public of this great country. This is a cause we can all unite behind—the cause of national security, public safety and the defence of the freedoms that make this nation great. Let us seize this moment to get it right. I beg to move.

My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord in the desires that he expressed, but in my view those desires are not assisted by this amendment. It is otiose and tautological compared with the rest of the Bill. Sir John Saunders, in his recommendations in volume 1 of his three reports on his excellent inquiry into the Manchester Arena events, emphasised that it was necessary to place the duties on individuals—to make sure that individuals took their responsibilities properly—and that indeed has been the objective of the campaign led so well by Mrs Murray.

In my view, if one reads Amendment 1 and then the Long Title of the Bill, one sees that the Long Title covers everything included in Amendment 1 and an awful lot more. My view is that we should not enter into a discussion about what in the abstract is required of premises; that is not what the Bill is about. It is about placing on individuals enforceable responsibilities, the failure of which would provide serious consequences for those individuals. That is why we are here, and that is why we should stick to the Long Title without this amendment.

My Lords, I am minded to support the amendment, but maybe that is because I am a little uncertain about how we are going to ensure that what we all want, which is to protect the public, is guaranteed by the Bill. I worry about a certain mission creep. At Second Reading, a lot of people quoted Sir John Saunders saying:

“Doing nothing is, in my view, not an option”,

but I also quoted Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, who quoted him as saying:

“Equally, the Protect Duty must not be so prescriptive as to prevent people enjoying a normal life”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/10/24; col. 625.]

As I understand the aim of the amendment, it is simply to ensure that we do not forget what the point of the Bill is. Whether we like it or not, regulatory powers have a tendency of leaving their original aim and growing or going elsewhere. In that sense, I want to ensure that we do not forget what the Bill is about, and that means this amendment. It might seem silly to say that, and tempting to say, “We won’t forget what this Bill is about”, but a lot of the evidence in relation to the Bill does not indicate that the specific measures in it will actually keep people safe from terrorism. I do not doubt that it puts a huge amount of responsibility on individuals, but I do not know that the end result is going to be what we intend it to be. I was of a mind to think that the amendment might help to keep focus; that is one of the things that I was attracted to.

One of the things that is nagging me—and I am going to raise it here because it seems an appropriate place—is that, if we are going to say that the aim is to protect people from terrorism, we also need to know what we mean by terrorism. I am not being glib. The Government themselves have noted that the Bill is partly in response to the changing nature of terrorism—we now have lone-wolf terrorists; it is not straightforward, so we cannot just rely on the secret services and so on—so the changing nature of those terror threats requires this regulation. However, I do not know that we are closer to knowing what that definition of terrorism is. We can all say, as we all will, that we want to pass a piece of legislation that will keep people safe from terrorism, yet we have decided that we do not know how to define terrorism.

My Lords, I of course approve of the Government’s overall intention behind the Bill. However, I have serious concerns about how it will be implemented and whether it is necessary to have this wide range of powers on quite small organisations, events and places that will have events coming within the scope of the Act—when it is an Act—only once or twice a year. We could have real problems there.

My concerns are similar to those of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, from whom we just heard. There is a real need for focus, and for the Secretary of State, when making regulations, to get them sharply on the point. This is especially so in relation to the likely impact on smaller businesses as well as voluntary and community-run organisations in the standard tier premises. There is a lack of evidence that the Bill will adequately reduce the threat of terrorism to smaller organisations, if indeed they are likely to be at risk.

There will be problems too for one-off and occasional events, which may attract quite large numbers, but in informal surroundings. There will be a big burden on them. How will it really work? So, the purpose is necessary. Just because there are going to be 850 people at an event, do we really need the whole panoply of this Bill?

In 2023, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee produced a report, which, for those who have not looked at it recently, is well worth looking at. It was a careful and well-evidenced report that addressed the then draft Bill. I know that things have moved on since then, but the conclusions reached by that committee on the evidence to which the report referred highlight areas that need to be addressed in the approach to be adopted today.

The committee pointed out that in the 2010s—a slightly different period from the one that my noble friend Lord Davies opened on—there were 14 terror attacks. A lot of those involved knives; there were also vehicle attacks, bombs and one firearm. This was in the 2010s. The majority were out of scope of what is in the Bill: they were on the streets, on Crown premises such as barracks, or on transport. Those would not be covered by the Bill, yet they were the bulk of the attacks. This Bill is irrelevant to them.