Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Udny-Lister

Report stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I can give the noble Lord the figure, if he allows me a moment to find it. I have the figure in this pile somewhere and I will await some dissection of the file to arrive shortly to give him a definitive figure on that, if he will allow me. If not, I will come back to that in a moment. From my perspective, the figures of 800 and 200 are correct. I have that figure to hand somewhere—here we go. See: I knew at the end of the day, with a little bit of diligence, no ambush and advance notice, I could find the figure. Raising the threshold to 300 would mean that only 92,288 premises—or 10%, down from 17%, of eligible premises—would be captured. The figure that we have currently is significantly higher than that.

Again, 92,288 is a significant number of premises covered by the Bill, but if I go back to Clause 5(3), those requirements are not what I would term onerous. They are good practice. There are things that a good employer should do. They are things that good volunteers should do. There are things that are applicable not to stopping terrorism but to providing security in the event of a terrorist attack being undertaken. Again, if this House were a premises covered by the legislation, which it is not, and an attack were happening now, the responsible person here would have to decide which exit we went from, whether we stayed under the table, whether we shut the door and who should we contact. Those are the requirements in Schedule 5 to the Bill. They are not onerous, and I think that, on balance, as wide a group of premises as can be included is the desired amount, but I see that the noble Lord, Lord Udny- Lister, wishes to intervene.

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

Does the Minister accept that the percentage of premises is not the same as the percentage of audiences, and it is the audiences that we should really be concerned about?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Again, I say to the noble Lord that the Government have made a judgment on the 800 figure, which we have estimated is just over £5,000 in cost, but this figure of 800, which the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, would change to 1,000, is a figure that probably impacts the Wembley Stadiums, the big theatres, the big venues. A £5,000 cost for that, which is what we have estimated in the impact assessment, would be a reasonable cost and would probably be consumed in normal training for staff, because most of those arenas hold full-time staffed events. For the 200 to 800 threshold, again, we have been looking at the whole question of what is reasonable. I think that 200 is a reasonable figure to assess on that.

However, we are going to disagree and, if we disagree and if the noble Lord wants to move his amendment, we will test the will of the House. That is what this place is about. I will see him in the Lobbies—reluctantly —if need be but I hope that he will understand why we have settled on the 200 figure to date.

Before I sit down, I must speak to government amendments 6 to 11, which make small technical amendments to the Bill and which follow reflection we have had at official level and ministerial level. The amendments further clarify how the Bill is intended to apply to premises and events. They do not change anything in the scope of the Bill but simply increase certainty about the premises in scope of the Bill. For example, private events such as weddings attended by relations and friends, or office parties attended by employees or customers, are deemed private events that are not attended by the public. The amendments make it clear, even more so than they did previously, that they should be out of scope.

I hope the noble Lord will not test the will of the House. But if he does, I urge my noble friends and anybody else who wishes to join us to vote him down.