Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Committee (3rd Day) (Continued)

Amendment 33

33: Clause 12, page 8, line 32, at end insert— “(3A) The Secretary of State must establish an advisory board for the Security Industry Authority, comprising experts from industry, local authorities, and civil society, to guide the implementation and enforcement of this Act.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment seeks to create an advisory board for the SIA with the intention of ensuring a more collaborative approach to regulation, promoting balanced and informed decision-making.

My Lords, Amendment 33, tabled by me and my noble friend Lord Sandhurst, seeks to create an advisory board for the Security Industry Authority comprising experts from industry, local authorities and civil society. The purpose of this board would be to guide the implementation and enforcement of the provisions in the Bill and ensure a more collaborative, transparent and effective approach to regulation.

The primary duty of this House is to scrutinise legislation to ensure that it is both effective and proportionate. In the case of this Bill, we are tasked with strengthening the security framework for public spaces and premises, without imposing unnecessary burdens on businesses or compromising civil liberties. An advisory board for the SIA would play a critical role in achieving that balance.

First, I wish to emphasise the importance of industry expertise. Those who operate within the security sector possess invaluable insights into the practical challenges of implementing counterterrorism measures. They understand better than anyone how regulatory changes will impact day-to-day operations and how innovations in technology can be leveraged to enhance security. Without their input, there is a risk that regulatory requirements may become detached from the realities of the sector, leading to inefficiencies and potential compliance issues.

Secondly, local authorities have a unique understanding of the communities they serve. They are on the front line when it comes to managing the relationship between security requirements and the public’s right to access and enjoy public spaces. Their inclusion on the advisory board would ensure that local concerns are heard and addressed, fostering a sense of public trust and co-operation.

Thirdly, civil society must have a voice in shaping the implementation of this Bill. The balance between security and civil liberties is delicate, and we must tread carefully to ensure that the measures we introduce do not erode the freedoms we seek to protect. Civil society organisations can provide a vital perspective on these matters, helping to ensure that security measures are proportionate and respectful of individual rights.

One of the key issues highlighted in the amendment is the relationship between the SIA and existing statutory licensing regimes. Local authorities already oversee a wide range of licensing and enforcement activities, including those related to public events and premises. Integrating security oversight into these existing frameworks could streamline processes, reduce duplication, and improve compliance.

A review would allow us to examine whether greater integration at the local level could enhance co-ordination and deliver better outcomes for both businesses and the public. In an era of fiscal constraint, we have a duty to ensure that public resources are used efficiently. This amendment’s requirement for a cost-benefit analysis is therefore particularly important. It would provide a clear and objective assessment of whether the current regulatory model delivers value for money, or whether a different approach could achieve the same or better results at a lower cost. Moreover, the review would enhance accountability by ensuring that Parliament was kept informed about the effectiveness of the SIA and the potential for reform.

Finally, the amendment rightly highlights the importance of guidance and awareness in ensuring compliance with public protection requirements. The provision of clear, practical guidance is essential to helping businesses and security providers understand and meet their obligations. A review would allow us to assess whether the SIA or local authorities are better placed to deliver this crucial function.

In conclusion, this amendment is about ensuring that our regulatory framework for public protection is as efficient, effective and co-ordinated as possible. It is about asking the right questions, gathering the necessary evidence and being open to reform where it is in the public interest. I therefore urge the Government to accept the amendment and commit to conducting a thorough review of the role of the SIA.

My Lords, I am very keen on Amendment 33 although I have not put my name to it—it is in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Sandhurst. It suggests an advisory board for the SIA with the intention of ensuring a collaborative approach to regulation.

I am keen on the amendment because one of my fears about the Bill is that it could be one of those laws that, in effect, means the state abdicating responsibility for public protection and outsourcing it to businesses and community organisations with very much a “You’re responsible for that” attitude, and it is then policed by the regulator. As I have mentioned on a number of occasions, I am worried about the damage that might do to civil society.

I really like the idea of addressing some of the issues raised earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about how we ensure that there is a more collaborative approach. I would like civil society not to feel that it is being done to, dumped on or put in charge of public protection on its own. This strikes me as a good way of approaching that.

I put my name down specifically on Amendment 34 because one of the important things about it is a review that considers all the implications of the Bill some way down the line. We need to be able to consider trade-offs all the time. It is wrong to suggest, as I think was suggested in a debate on an earlier group by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, that those of us who were trying to consider cost-benefit analysis and trade-offs were being somehow glib about the possibility of people being killed in a terrorist bomb and that we somehow have a “higher-risk appetite”—the phrase used—or a higher threshold for risk-taking, whereas the important and responsible thing to do would be to ensure that we always considered safety first.

I think the noble Baroness is misinterpreting what I said. I said that in making these judgments, you had to have a risk appetite and that you needed to do that explicitly. I was not saying that any particular risk appetite was right or wrong; I was saying it should be made explicit. I certainly was not suggesting that the noble Baroness was therefore glib about people being killed. I was merely saying that that is the trade-off, and anyone making those decisions has to be clear about the trade-off they are making.

I thank the noble Lord for that clarification and I am relieved to hear it. I think it was the bit where somebody asked, “How would you answer the situation where 199 people were killed if the limit was 200?” All I am saying is there is often a conversation like this when we talk about safety, risk and responsibility.

I like this amendment because it introduces into the debate about the Bill the opportunity—some months down the line—to have a cost-benefit analysis of whether it has worked. I first came into this House at the height of the lockdown period. On a number of occasions—rather tentatively at the time, because I was new—I, along with others, called for a cost-benefit analysis. I kept asking, with lockdown and all those measures in the name of safety, whether we could just assess whether they were the only way that we should proceed. I was told that we had to be very careful because old people were going to die, and so on and so forth—you are familiar with the arguments.

The reason I mention that is that we can now look back and say that many of those old people were locked up in care homes and greatly suffered. We can say about young people—when some of us argued that we should conduct a cost-benefit analysis of closing schools—that we now have a crisis of worrying about pupils and the impact that lockdown had on them. There is a discussion that the Government are initiating about the cost and impact of lockdown on employment people’s habits as we speak.

It is sensible with a Bill such as this to introduce a review that will give us the opportunity to do a cost-benefit analysis. This is particularly important because a regulator is introduced. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, explained that we need to be able to see whether the regulator is the appropriate way of getting what we would like, which is more public protection, or whether, in fact, it undermines some of the important aspects of local regulatory interventions.

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 44 in my name, and I can probably be quite brief, as it covers similar ground to Amendments 33, 34 and 36, which have been spoken to by my noble friend Lord Davies. However, my amendment is complementary to the amendments already on the table. It does not replace them; it is consistent with them, but it looks at the problem slightly differently.

I think it is fair to say that those who have engaged with the SIA over the years have mixed views about its effectiveness even now, and that is when it has focused entirely on one fairly discrete industry. Now we are proposing a huge expansion of its role to cover all kinds of premises and organisations of all kinds of sizes, including voluntary and commercial organisations and so on; it is a huge expansion of the authority’s role. All these amendments really speak to the fact that there is some uncertainty about how that is going to be carried out in this very complicated and publicly sensitive area.

My Amendment 44 looks at this in a slightly different way and proposes an independent review panel. Of course, that could sit alongside the various advisory bodies that have already been spoken about, but, for two reasons, there is some value in having an independent panel when looking at these problems. First, it establishes a degree of distance. Its reports to Parliament will have a degree of independence of commentary, of not needing to ingratiate itself necessarily with the regulator and the industry. That is what is needed in this situation of a new area of work for the authority.

More important is the point that is in proposed new subsection (3) in my amendment, which is the specific risk of overreach—I have spoken about this on one or two occasions before as we have considered this Bill—and that, once you establish a bureaucracy, everybody has to pay attention to that bureaucracy; once something is in law, that has to be the priority for those who are operating it. There is a temptation for the legal authority to overreach and to lay down rules for its own convenience, rather than for the genuine good functioning of those that it is regulating; and to maybe not look sensitively at the different sizes and natures of organisations but simply to lay down one set of rules. History suggests that with these regulators the effect is that the regulatory burden goes up and is insensitive to the people being regulated. That is why there is particular value in looking at the issues of overreach and how bureaucracies work in practice and why there is particular value therefore in it being an independent body. So, to conclude, I hope the Government will be able to give serious consideration to this idea, along with others in this group.

On 16 September 2016—I think I have the date correct—the noble Lord made a very strong statement in which he condemned the layers of bureaucracy and regulation in the European Union. Does he not think it is weird and even bizarre for a serious Conservative to be recommending a regulator of a regulator when just a regulator might do very well?

There is a big difference between organisations set up in the framework of the European Union and us deciding how we work our own bureaucracy. There is a lot of value in an independent panel to examine the work of a regulator that is taking over a new and very large area of work. So, no, I would not agree with the parallel; regulation and independent review are appropriate when we are creating a new regulator with a new set of work—that is the issue that is here today.

My Lords, I had written against the first and last of these, “Does this not have the danger of adding to the bureaucracy?” Perhaps more importantly, these amendments raise the issue of just how the governance of the SIA will operate—I certainly have not yet got a handle on that.

If the SIA itself wants to establish an advisory board, I think that is up to the SIA, but I do not think we are yet clear—and we should be clear very soon. The two years will go by fast and the SIA needs to be operating during the period. As to how it will operate, the amendments also raise the question of just what the responsibility of the Secretary of State is, as against the SIA—although not against it, I hope—in this eco-landscape, as some might say. With regard to a report to Parliament, I am sure that the Minister will say that the Government will keep the operation of the Act under review, although I am not sure the timescales are entirely sensible: things seem to come a bit too soon.