Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord De Mauley Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord De Mauley]

5: Clause 2, page 2, line 18, leave out “800” and insert “1000”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would raise the minimum threshold for a premises to be an “enhanced duty premises” from 800 to 1000.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I prevail upon the patience of your Lordships, if I may, in speaking to my Amendments 5 and 5A. These seek to increase the threshold for enhanced duty premises for qualifying events from 800 people to 1,000 people. The matter of thresholds was discussed at some length in Committee, but discussion focused, as it did a moment ago, on the lower threshold for qualifying premises in Clause 2—that is, 200 people.

My concern, which is similar to that which was expressed in Committee and earlier today by those proposing the relevant amendments, is analogous. However, the consequences for those organising small, ticketed, charitable events, with attendees exceeding 800 people, are considerably greater, because the costs of implementing the necessary measures to comply with the Bill’s requirements are that much larger. The Minister gave a suggestion as to what those would be in the debate earlier.

It became clear from the Minister’s response to amendments in Committee proposing to increase the lower threshold that there was little science behind the Government’s choice of 800 for the upper threshold. In fact, he admitted that the numbers are arbitrary, saying:

“Ultimately, we have to land on a figure, and the Government have determined that that figure should be 200”.—[Official Report, 3/2/25; col. 545.]


This is, of course, in the case of the lower threshold, but it seems reasonable to assume that the Government’s approach to the higher threshold is the same, and I have heard nothing today to change that view.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I will respond very briefly to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. With due respect, it is not because I say so; it is because we have had a consultation. We had consultations in 2021 and 2023, when his party was in government, we have had discussions with the Home Affairs Select Committee and public discussions on this issue generally, and a revised figure was part of the consultation to determine the lower figure. So the 800 figure is not because I say so: it was determined by the previous Government—his Government—and endorsed by this Government coming in. Your Lordships’ House should remember that that figure came out of discussion we had following the Manchester inquiry and inquiries into other similar recent events.

I do not want to test the patience of the House. We had a long discussion in Committee and on the amendments we discussed earlier. Following engagement with stakeholders, the security industry and the public at large, and with the recommendations of several sets of officials dealing with several sets of Ministers, we have come to the conclusion that there is no right number —I accept that—but that the number of 800 will ensure that we bring into scope a large number of premises that have a higher level of security but should be doing those things on the basis of good practice and as part of normal training and induction for members of staff.

The 800 figure applies to the Wembley Stadiums—large football stadiums and the larger venues. I believe they can accommodate the restrictions and requirements in the Bill. The cost that we have estimated for the higher tier is only just over £5,000 per establishment. A £5,000 opportunity cost that might not even be a physical cost is not a burden on that establishment, but it may help to save a life. In the event of a terrorist attack, which we will try to prevent downstream, the measures in this Bill may help to save a life. Had they been in place at the Manchester Arena when the attack took place, lives may have been saved. That is an important consideration. I commend the 800 figure to the House and I hope it will reject the noble Lord’s amendment if he presses it.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for what he said, but I respectfully point out that a threshold of 1,000 would catch events at the Wembley arena. His position on 800 will catch the event we discussed in Committee and that I talked to him about, which cannot possibly afford a figure of £5,000. It does not make £5,000.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Again, the figure of £5,000 is an opportunity cost. It may well be that it is in time given by volunteers. There is no cash payment up front by any organisation to any outside organisation to provide that level of assurance.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

It is impossible to know the answer. I think the Minister knows that and I do. Let us not waste any more time. I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope that, in this case, the Government have listened to the arguments made in Committee calling for further constraints on the powers in Clauses 5, 6 and 32. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, for pressing the Government in Committee on these matters. This issue was also raised by a number of other noble Lords, and I have certainly reflected upon it. As we know—particularly on this Bill—collaboration and cross-party consensus have underpinned much of the Bill’s development and progress, for which I have been grateful. In this spirit, having reflected on the points raised in Committee, the Government have tabled amendments to further strengthen the safeguards on the use of certain Henry VIII powers in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, has done me the great honour of signing the amendments, post my tabling those. He cannot be with us today for other reasons, but I know that the House will note that he has added his name to these amendments and has taken a constructive approach accordingly.

The government amendments are very clear. First, they consolidate in Clause 32 the powers previously found in Clauses 5 and 6, which would allow the Secretary of State to add, omit or amend public protection measures or procedures in the Bill. Secondly, and more significantly, the amendments place conditions on these powers that the Secretary of State must satisfy, as well as the powers in Clause 32 to change the qualifying thresholds for the standard and enhanced tiers. These government amendments limit the use of the powers to lower the thresholds, or to add new procedures or measures, to where the Secretary of State considers it necessary to do so for public protection—I put that phraseology before the House.

Conversely, the thresholds can be raised—or procedures or measures omitted, or have their descriptions amended —only if the Secretary of State considers that their retention is not “necessary for public protection”. Necessity sets a higher bar than the previous drafting did, and how the regime is functioning and the nature of the threat from terrorism at the time will be among the factors most relevant to the Secretary of State’s consideration, as will the availability of other means of public protection.

The House will know that the nature of terrorism is very often unpredictable, and methodologies may change over time. In tandem, so will the ways in which society can effectively respond. How certain businesses operate may also evolve over time, such as in the way that customers engage with them. The Government consider that this approach now strikes the right balance between ensuring that the Bill can be kept up to date, and providing in the Bill an important set of further safeguards to ensure that these powers, if used, are used appropriately and with proper consideration.

Furthermore, government Amendment 28 will require the Secretary of State to formally consult such persons as they consider appropriate before exercising any of the powers specified in Clause 32. This includes the powers previously contained in Clauses 5 and 6, which are now consolidated under Clause 32. One of the main demands of a number of colleagues in the House was that we undertook further consultation. Consulting relevant stakeholders is now integral to the development of the Bill, and it has been the Government’s clear intention that this will continue. In the light of the points made in Committee when we debated these clauses, the Government are content to put that wider consultation in the Bill, which I hope assists noble Lords in their deliberation on these issues.

So the Government have listened, and I hope that helps. I hope to have the support of the House for the amendments we have tabled. I will obviously respond later, if the House will allow me, to any points made by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, in respect of their amendments. In the meantime, I beg to move government Amendment 12.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 13 and 25 in this group. Amendment 13 seeks to introduce a provision for exemptions to public protection procedures under the Bill. While I fully support the legislation’s intent to enhance security and preparedness in the face of the ongoing terrorist threat, I believe that a blanket one-size-fits-all approach is neither practical nor proportionate. This amendment introduces flexibility to ensure that obligations under the Bill are applied where they are truly necessary, without imposing undue burdens on venues where the risk is demonstrably low.

We must remember that security measures come at a cost, not only in financial terms but in administrative burden, operational complexity and resource allocation. Many smaller premises, community organisations and low-risk venues will struggle to comply with requirements that may be disproportionate to their actual risk profile. For example, a village hall hosting occasional gatherings, a small charity-run space or a low-footfall museum in a rural area does not face the same level of threat as a major city-centre venue yet, as the Bill stands, they may all be subject to the same requirements.

This amendment does not seek to weaken security; rather, it ensures that security measures are appropriately targeted. It would allow exemptions to be granted where a venue could clearly demonstrate that it does not meet a reasonable threshold of risk; that could be assessed based on factors such as size, location, historical risk data and the nature of the events that it hosts. The Government must consider whether it is justifiable to place the same regulatory demands on all premises, regardless of their individual circumstances.

The Bill must be robust, but it also must be fair. An exemption mechanism would ensure that security resources, both financial and operational, are directed where they will have the greatest impact rather than being spread thinly across venues that pose little to no realistic security concern. I urge the Government to consider the practical implications of this legislation and accept this amendment in the spirit of ensuring a proportionate, risk-based approach to public protection.

In Committee, the Minister helpfully said on 5 February that the responsible person would

“consider the appropriate procedures in the light of the cost and resources … Accordingly, no procedure is required to be put in place at unreasonable cost to the responsible person”.

His assurance is welcome, but the problem is that the Bill does not appear to allow the responsible person to consider appropriate procedures in the light of their cost. The Minister also said:

“What we are asking for in the Bill … is that he thinks … about the consequences and about whether there is a threat”.—[Official Report, 5/2/25; col. 794.]


Yet the Bill makes no allowance for the responsible person to think about the consequences and whether there is a threat—that is, assess the risk—as the Minister suggests. Instead it demands that, without consideration of the risks, the responsible person puts in place the costly rules that I am concerned about.

I am deeply concerned that, if we allow these rules to stop harmless, peaceful community events around our country like the ones that I referred to in Committee, as my noble friend Lord Murray so aptly said earlier, the terrorists will have won. The Minister’s encouragement to rely on the

“so far as is reasonably practicable”

wording is helpful—but the problem is that the term is subjective. Those enforcing the law are not the same people as those who make it, so phrases such as this are open to variations in interpretation.

Furthermore, one of the really important problems that the Bill creates is that it is, as Bills often are, very broad-brush in its drafting, especially in the public protection procedures and measures. It leaves the detailed requirements to be fleshed out in guidance and advice, so at this stage we have no way of knowing how difficult they are going to be to comply with.

On Amendment 25 and returning to the subject of thresholds, which we debated a moment or two ago, when the subject was raised in Committee there was much discussion of the level of the lower threshold—that at which premises became qualifying premises or an event becomes a qualifying event, as the case may be. This amendment approaches thresholds in another way, still seeking to address the concern that the selection of the level of the thresholds is based on very little science and, once the Bill is passed, they are set in stone effectively for ever—and they certainly cannot go up. The Bill would benefit from having an understandable framework under which the Secretary of State could vary thresholds upwards or downwards from time to time, which would also remove an element of doubt from the Bill as its stands, in that there is currently no clarity over how and when the Secretary of State may exercise his or her power to reduce thresholds.

The thing that is missing from the Government’s approach is a lack of any science to the question as to how the level of risk—for example, of a terrorist attack—changes from time to time. In Committee, the Minister mentioned the fact that the national threat level was then, as it is now, at substantial. As he knows, there are four other national threat levels—low, moderate, severe and critical. The setting of the national threat level is based on the assessment of risk by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre. This amendment therefore seeks to allow the Secretary of State to vary the thresholds with the national threat level.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

First, it is really gratifying to hear from the Minister at the start that the Government are listening, have listened and have acted accordingly. I really do welcome the reining in of Henry VIII powers and the remarks that the Minister made. On listening, do feel free to carry on.

Some of the arguments that have already been made and which will be made in this group and others are about whether the Government are still considering the points about ensuring that the Bill does not have the unintended consequences that some of us dread. Throughout Committee, I was struck that the Government stressed that the Bill was not a one-size-fits-all measure, and they did not feel that that was appropriate. Earlier, the Minister made the point that there are exemptions for this Bill and that this House itself is not under the same requirements as other venues—and I have referenced again that there is a different approach to places of worship. That is appropriate, because we do not want it to be one size fits all.

I have put my name to Amendments 13 and 25, which respond positively to the ministerial commitment to flexibility and agility. As we have already heard, there is a constant theme and genuine worry about the unintended consequences of the Bill harming civil society and the social fabric of communities by taking an unnecessary regulatory toll on events. As I have said, it can feel as though the discussions we have here are far removed from the material threats that society faces from terrorism. I appreciate what was said earlier: if the Bill passes, nobody is claiming that it will stop terrorism. None the less, we are constantly told that lives will be saved if we pass the Bill so there is a moral onus on us to pass it. However, we need to take a broader approach.

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Moved by

[Lord De Mauley]

13: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Exemption from public protection procedures(1) The person responsible for qualifying premises or events may apply to the Secretary of State, or the Security Industry Authority, for exemption from one or all of the public protection procedures.(2) Exemption from the public protection procedures must be granted if the Secretary of State, or the Security Industry Authority, is satisfied that the applicant has demonstrated that the public protection procedures in question would not materially reduce the threat of terrorism or the risk of harm in the case of a terrorist attack.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would oblige the Secretary of State or the Security Industry Authority to alleviate rules if the applicant can prove that the implementation of such procedures would not materially reduce the threat of terrorism or the risk of harm in the case of a terrorist attack.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. I am grateful to the Minister for his patience, but I go back to what I said earlier, which is to quote him, actually. He exhorted us to rely on the

“so far as is reasonably practicable”

wording. The problem with that is that the wording is subjective. Those enforcing the law are not the same people as those who make it, so there are wide variations in the possible interpretation of it. Therefore, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.