Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

20A: Clause 5, page 4, line 16, after first “or” insert “giving advice about”
Member’s explanatory statement
This probing amendment seeks to understand the Government’s expectations of organisations under the new duty to implement procedures “for preventing individuals entering or leaving the premises or event”.

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[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 21A, 22, 23A and 24A. Amendment 20A seeks to probe the Government’s expectations of organisations that will have the duty to put public protection procedures in place. The public protection procedures listed in Clause 5(3) include measures

“for preventing individuals entering or leaving the premises or event”.

We have no concerns about the prevention of entry to a premises or event, and we can conceive of circumstances where leaving a premises or event would not be the right thing for an individual to do in certain circumstances.

That said, there is a real question for organisations running premises and events. If they are required by the Act to put measures in place to prevent people leaving the premises, what will that look like in reality? Are we empowering people in, for example, a church hall to lock its doors with people inside in the case of a terror incident, or do we expect volunteers to stand in the way of people trying to leave to prevent them leaving? Can we really expect small community organisations to make these decisions for people? Would they not be at risk of prosecution if they got these decisions wrong? This is a specific query but one where clarity from Ministers is necessary.

As background to this amendment, I remind the House that there have been emergencies in the past where the official advice has been wrong, at great cost. After the tragic Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, we learned that the official advice had been wrong and that many of those who survived did so only by ignoring the official advice to stay in their rooms and close their front doors until the fire was over. So we look to the Minister to set out his expectations for how this duty will work in practice. Amendment 21A would add a second test to the Secretary of State’s powers to amend Clause 5. As drafted, the Bill permits the Secretary of State to amend Clause 5(3) if he is satisfied that further procedures will reduce the risk of terrorism.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, has already spoken about regulatory mission creep, and my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth has pointed out the risk that procedures may be overburdensome for small organisations such as community centres and church halls. Our amendment seeks to add a proportionality test that the Secretary of State will have to meet before he can amend subsection (3). I am quite sure that the Government can add procedure after procedure to reduce risks under this section of the Bill as introduced, but we need them to consider whether these further procedures are reasonably proportionate before they introduce them. I hope that the Government will take this on board and look at how the Bill can be improved here.

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[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, the hour is late, and I shall be as brief as I possibly can. This has been a useful debate, with most of these amendments seeking clarity from the Minister on the Government’s expectations for the practical implications of the Bill, as well as proposing a genuinely workable new mechanism to exempt premises or events where the Bill is not reasonably applicable, as under the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord De Mauley.

I thank my noble friends, particularly my noble friend Lord Sandhurst for speaking in support of the amendments and about assessment of risk and proportionality. My noble friend Lord De Mauley made a very good case in support of his amendment, which sought clarity as to the extent of searches. He is absolutely right that these small events are run on shoestrings in some cases, and they will be lost to rural communities if we are not careful about how we present the Bill. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her support for Amendment 23A.

I will just say to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, that we are not worked up on the Benches on this side of the House. We merely seek clarity, which of course he will of course understand and respect. It is our place to probe, which is exactly what we have been doing this evening.

In finishing, I just thank the Minister for his response on this group. He has had a very constructive attitude to the amendments that we have proposed to the Committee and I thank him for his continued engagement. We need to get this Bill right but, for the time being, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 20A withdrawn.