Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, irrespective of the underlying moral and policy question, as many noble Lords have already identified, the Bill in its present form is seriously procedurally flawed. I am against it.

I am most concerned about the impact those flaws will have on vulnerable people. Given the time available, two points occur to me which demonstrate this problem. First, at no point in the mechanism under the Bill does anyone expressly ask the applicant the reason why they wish to die. Such a question would not be an intrusion on private autonomy; to the contrary: it would be a reasonable and compassionate inquiry. In its own way, it would be a significant guard to protect the most vulnerable.

Secondly, more technically, there are very significant failings in the panel stage of the process, as described in the Bill and embodied in Clause 17. In its current form, the panel stage of the process, as the noble Lord, Lord Grabiner, identified, is lawyer window dressing—I agree. Unlike him, though, I suggest that this stage could and should be used to reinforce the process and to protect the most vulnerable against abuse.

Clause 17 provides that the panel’s function in an application for a certificate of eligibility for assisted suicide is simply to determine whether the nine tick boxes set out in Clause 17(2) are met. To do so, the panel, who are described in Schedule 2 as comprising a lawyer, a psychiatrist and a social worker, must hear from the co-ordinating doctor, the applicant, and they may hear from anyone else. Subsection (7) then requires that the panel must grant a certificate if they have satisfied that the nine boxes in subsection (2) are met.

This is a quasi-tribunal process in which the tribunal is bereft of any appropriate powers. Frankly, even a parking adjudicator has more evidential power than these panels. In the past few months, this Government have given more enforceable rights to employees and tenants, to mention two Bills that have recently passed through your Lordships’ House—the Employment Rights Bill and the Renters’ Reform Bill—than to those who seek assistance to die under this Bill. How is that so? Because those other pieces of legislation—employment legislation and landlord and tenant legislation—go before a court or tribunal with evidential powers to look into the matter before them.

The panel in this Bill is toothless. It has no power to require evidence to protect vulnerable people, no power to summon witnesses or experts, no power to order the disclosure of documents and no powers of compulsion at all. Indeed, the panel would have no power even to see an applicant’s will or to summon witnesses to explain the relationships in the application before them. There is no logical reason why those applying for assistance to die should have their request for a certificate of eligibility scrutinised by a body with fewer powers to compel evidence and make decisions than a person would have had if they had brought an employment claim, a landlord and tenant claim or a road traffic matter. At the very least, this Bill should explicitly provide that part of the statutory role of the panel should be to investigate motivation and possible coercion. The panel should have the powers of any other tribunal in performing that task.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

158: Clause 48, page 45, line 11, at end insert—
“(1A) After subsection (4) insert—“(4A) A person is convicted by a final judgement of a particularly serious crime if—(a) the person is convicted of an offence under—(i) Part III of the Immigration Act 1971, or(ii) sections 13, 14, or 18 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, and(b) the person is not, by virtue of the conviction, a person falling within subsection (2).(4B) A person is convicted by a final judgement of a particularly serious crime if—(a) the person is convicted outside the United Kingdom of an offence,(b) the act constituting the offence would have constituted an offence under— (i) sections 24 or 24A of the Immigration Act 1971, or(ii) sections 13, 14, or 18 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, had it been done in any part of the United Kingdom, and(c) the person is not, by virtue of the conviction, a person falling within subsection (3).””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that illegal entrants and those who commit immigration crimes are included in the definition of particularly serious crime for the purposes of the interpretation of Article 33 of the Refugee Convention, meaning that they would be able to be removed from the United Kingdom.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a barrister, specialising in public law, including in immigration cases. I will speak to my Amendment 158—and I hope my amendment is not what has caused the Minister to vacate the Front Bench.

The amendment would expand the UK’s interpretation of Article 33(2) of the refugee convention and includes an offence under Part III of the Immigration Act 1971 as a “particularly serious crime”. As noble Lords who are present in the Committee this evening will be well aware, Article 33 of the refugee convention is the provision which prohibits the expulsion or return of refugees or, in the lex specialis of refugee law, the refoulement provision.

For the benefit of the record, Article 33(2) itself provides that:

“The benefit of the present provision”—


by that it means the provision of the benefits of the convention—

“may not, however, be claimed by a refugee whom there are reasonable grounds for regarding as a danger to the security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by a final judgement of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country”.

In that provision, the drafters of the refugee convention envisaged a situation where a refugee could, as it were, avoid the benefit of the refugee convention by their own criminal action.

What this amendment seeks to do is to insert the offences in Part III of the Immigration Act 1971 into the statutory definition of a “particularly serious crime”. The concept of a particularly serious crime is contained within Section 72 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which was legislation brought forward by the previous Labour Government. That Act defined what a serious criminal offence was, and Section 72(1) begins:

“This section applies for the purpose of the construction and application of Article 33(2) of the Refugee Convention (exclusion from prohibition of expulsion or return)”.


It then goes on to set out what those exclusions are.

This amendment seeks to amend subsequent legislation but ultimately impacts on the meaning of Section 72 of that Act. In so doing, it adopts the same model as the Government have provided in Clause 48 of the Bill, which provides that it amends Section 72 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 by including various categories of offences as “particularly serious crimes”. The Committee will see—those who have a copy to hand—that at line 15 on page 45 of the Bill, that includes a person convicted of an offence

“listed in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003”,

and so on.

My amendment is very much in the same vein, and would insert:

“A person is convicted by a final judgement of a particularly serious crime … if … convicted of an offence under … Part III of the Immigration Act 1971, or … sections 13, 14, or 18”


of this Bill once it is enacted.

Part III of the Immigration Act includes almost all immigration offences, including the offence of illegal entry into the United Kingdom. As the Committee will recall, that includes the offence, under Section 24, of being:

“A person who knowingly enters the United Kingdom in breach of a deportation order … A person who … requires leave to enter the United Kingdom … and … knowingly enters the United Kingdom without such leave … A person who … has … limited leave to enter … and knowingly remains beyond the time limited by the leave … A person who … requires entry clearance … and knowingly arrives in the United Kingdom without a valid entry clearance”.


It is a large list of offences, and would include illegal working, assisting unlawful immigration to a member state of the United Kingdom, helping an asylum seeker to enter the United Kingdom, assisting entry to the United Kingdom in breach of a deportation or exclusion order, facilitation offences, and general offences in connection with immigration including possession of a fraudulent registration card or immigration stamp.

The purpose of the amendment is therefore to ensure that a person who is convicted of those offences is to be treated as having committed a “particularly serious crime” for the purposes of the refugee convention, in that they would therefore constitute a danger to the community. They would therefore be able to be removed or returned in a convention-compliant way.

This amendment probes the Government’s intentions and the general approach they will adopt to perform a toughening up—as we have heard over recent days—of their immigration policy in as far as they are able in line with their international obligations. I have laid this amendment to explore what the Government suggest in this regard. It is clear, given the message we have heard in recent days about the willingness to adopt a fresh or tighter interpretation of Article 8 of the ECHR, that it may well be that the Government share my view on the proper interpretation of Article 33(2) of the refugee convention.

It is consistent with the amendment I laid on the previous day of Committee on the need to come directly and the approach that can be taken on a clean review of the obligations and commitments made when we signed the refugee convention, without the barnacles of subsequent decisions. The proposed change in this amendment would permit the United Kingdom to return and deport anyone who enters illegally, regardless of whether they are a refugee or not.

All this ties into a much overlooked provision of the refugee convention, one I am sure the Minister will be very interested to hear about: namely, the obligations in Article 2 of the refugee convention, which requires that every refugee has duties to the country in which he find himself, and that, in particular, he conform to its laws and regulations, as well as to measures taken for the maintenance of public order. One aspect of the refugee convention is that refugees are expected to conform to our law, and if they break our law then they cannot expect to have the protection of the convention. I beg to move Amendment 158.

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[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for a short but legally quite forensic debate. It was probably almost too forensic for gone 10 pm on a Monday night. I shall do my best to address their concerns.

I shall start by talking a bit about Clause 48 and then move on to the amendments. The Government are committed to complying with their international obligations, including those set out under the Refugee Convention. As noble Lords will be aware, a key principle of the Refugee Convention is the non-refoulement of refugees to a place or territory where there is a real risk they would be subject to persecution. The noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, clearly and ably set this out.

The convention recognises that there must be limited exceptions to this principle. Article 33(2) of the convention allows refugees to be refouled where they are a danger to the security of the UK or have committed a particularly serious crime and, as a result, constitute a danger to the community. Clause 48 goes further than the previous amendments made by the Nationality and Borders Act by redefining the term “particularly serious crime” for exclusion purposes to now include individuals who have received a conviction for a sexual offence included in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003. This is because this Government recognise the devastating impact of sexual violence on victims and our communities. We are fully committed to tackling sexual offences and halving violence against women and girls within a decade. Importantly, as it stands, Clause 48 allows the individual to rebut the presumptions both that they have committed a particularly serious crime and that, as a result, they constitute a danger to the community.

Amendment 159, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Davies, seeks to remove the particularly serious rebuttable presumption. This would mean that asylum seekers or refugees who receive convictions for Schedule 3 sex offences would be considered for exclusion from the Refugee Convention with no ability to rebut the presumption that they have committed a particularly serious crime.

Similarly, Amendment 160, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Davies, seeks to remove the same rebuttable presumption for sexual offences committed outside the United Kingdom, where that offence would have also constituted a Schedule 3 sexual offence had it been committed in the United Kingdom. Their Amendments 161A to 161E seek to make a number of changes to the provision, including removing the presumption that, where an individual is considered to have committed a particularly serious crime in relation to a Schedule 3 sex offence, they constitute a danger to the community of the United Kingdom as a result.

There is no definition of a particularly serious crime in the Refugee Convention and no direct uniformity in the interpretation adopted by other states parties. It is open to the UK to interpret the term in good faith, and that is what we are seeking to adjust with Clause 48. A good faith interpretation requires consideration of the ordinary meaning of the words and maintaining respect for the guarantees provided by the convention as a whole.

The rebuttable presumption mechanism provides a safeguard for individual offenders to rebut based on their individual circumstances. At the same time, it is important to note that Parliament has presumed that such offences will be considered particularly serious crimes for these purposes. Not only have those who receive convictions for Schedule 3 sex offences failed to respect the laws of the UK by committing these heinous acts, they have also undermined public confidence in the ability of the state to protect the public. This measure is limited by our obligations under the convention. Both the rebuttable presumptions must remain as a practical measure to ensure that we adopt a lawful approach.

In speaking to his amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, spoke at length and in quite technical detail about the alignment of the language of the 2002 Act. Rather than trying to go into detail now, I will undertake to write to the noble Lord about the issues of language alignment that he raised, so that we can get a properly considered and more legally watertight response than I can give at this hour.

Amendment 158 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Murray and Lord Jackson of Peterborough, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, seeks to expand the definition of a “particularly serious crime” to immigration offences. We consider this amendment to be incompatible with the refugee convention. We understand the seriousness of individuals seeking to arrive in the UK through dangerous and unsafe means, which is why we are taking robust action to prevent it. That is what this Bill is all about. The noble Lord, Lord Murray, raised Article 2 of the refugee convention. Our view is that the Bill is utterly consistent with the principle that those coming here have responsibilities to obey the host nation’s laws. That is something that we feel runs through the Bill.

In terms of the actions that we are taking, Border Security Command is strengthening global partnerships to enhance our efforts to investigate, arrest and prosecute these criminals. We recruited an extra 100 specialist NCA investigators and intelligence officers, including staff stationed across Europe and in Europol, to drive closer working with international law enforcement partners to target smuggling gangs. This Bill will give the NCA new powers to tackle organised immigration crime and protect the UK’s border. As stated previously, it is open to the UK to interpret the convention in good faith, and it is considered that immigration offences that do not carry a custodial sentence of more than 12 months cannot in good faith be interpreted as a particularly serious crime. Given that explanation and the undertaking to write to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, on the technical point of language alignment, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the Minister for that considered reply, and I am glad to say that I agreed with at least part of what he said. There is much to welcome in Clause 48. I concur that it is appropriate for a person who is convicted of an offence listed in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act to fall within the definition, so the Minister and I agree on that point at least. He said that, in the view of the Government, our amendment is not consistent with the refugee convention, but I did not discern particularly clearly why. No doubt, the Minister and I can explore that in correspondence prior to Report. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 158 withdrawn.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I am very interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, says, because he did talk about common sense and looking at a person. That is what encouraged me to speak. When I met those two young men, I absolutely took the view that they were over 18, but I was disabused, not only by their age, which was identified, but by the fact that I had been thinking in European terms. That is the danger of what is being said by the Opposition.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I had better rise at this stage to introduce my Amendment 203H. As with my last amendment, the mysteries of grouping have left me slightly confused, because this amendment does not actually relate to the Illegal Migration Act. This is an amendment which I offer to the Home Office as a sensible amendment that will save public money. It will be a sensible and useful use of time, and I implore the Minister, who I know to be a sensible and reasonable person, to look at this carefully.

Amendment 203H refers to the National Age Assessment Board, which was set up under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, before I was in this House—I know there are some noble Lords here who remember the debates about that particular Bill. The Bill presently before the Committee does not repeal any provisions in the Nationality and Borders Act. The National Age Assessment Board was set up by the 2022 Act to bring into the Home Office the system whereby those who claimed to be minors would be assessed. Prior to these provisions coming into force, that was done by local authorities. What had routinely been the case was that a person who purported to be younger than 18 and who wished to challenge a decision would then seek a judicial review of the assessment made by the local authority. There is a whole run of cases in which the courts considered what the test should be, on judicial review, of a social worker’s evaluation of the person’s age. Across the country, different local authorities had different approaches.

In a case called A v Croydon, the Supreme Court, led by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, determined that age assessments would not be made on the usual basis of a judicial review. As noble Lords will be well aware—and I am sorry that I am teaching grandmothers to suck eggs, but in case there is anyone watching who does not know this—a decision on judicial review is not normally taken by means of a court looking at the decision afresh, considering the evidence and taking a decision for itself; instead, what the court does is to look at the decision to see whether it is lawful and not unreasonable in the public law sense, which is classically defined as being so unreasonable that no decision-maker could have reached that decision —the “Oh gosh” test, as it has been described previously.

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[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to both noble Lords, Lord Murray and Lord Jackson, for thinking that they absolutely know where I am coming from, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, at least, might be relieved to find that we are on slightly more common ground than he believes. I am going to start backwards; I am going to start with the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Murray. I happen to have with me the SI on age assessment of asylum-seeking minors, because a number of us did regret Motions for that on 27 November 2023. Initially, the Home Office, of which I think he was a Minister at that point, said that, as per the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee report from October 2022,

“the Home Office will not use the scientific methods to determine an age or age range, but rather use the science to establish whether the claimed age of the age-disputed person is possible”.

Possible is not scientific fact.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Forgive me for intervening. I should clarify that the National Age Assessment Board is not using scientific methods, so my amendment has nothing whatever to do with scientific methods. The National Age Assessment Board is using conventional social work methods to identify age.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s intervention. One of the problems is that social workers are using exactly those techniques—perhaps not in full, but they are. What is more, the NNAB social workers are paid through the NNAB by the Home Office. They are not independent, which is the other key point we wanted to make. I am very grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, said at the start. He said that the public had moved on. But, as a former trustee of UNICEF, I say that my priority has to be the protection of young people who are under 18, and an arrangement for those where it may not be possible to decide that exactly—and we have had many debates about all that.

The issue is not just one of public satisfaction. The public may be very irritated by the young men who are clearly over 18 who are doing this, and that is fine for the system. Those of us who are bringing back amendments, probably on Monday, want to make sure that it is not happening the other way round: that people under 18 are being deemed to be adult. We know that this has happened and I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me that we might finally see some data on this. Every time I have asked over the last three or four years, there has been no data about those who are deemed to be 18 and over who were under, and, indeed, the other way around. That is important for the Home Office, because it needs to understand about provision for those who are in this very small group, who need to be looked after in a slightly more special way.

By the way, not every young person who is under 18 who goes to a school is going to have special needs. They may need some language support, but not necessarily special needs. They may need emotional support if they have come from a war zone such as Sudan but, if we are saying that they are awaiting assessment as asylum seekers, that is something that this country really ought to be prepared to look at. So I am much more cynical about the NNAB being as truly independent and clear as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, was making out. Those of us who have amendments will go over this in detail next week.

I want to go back to Amendments 114 and 115. Young people having no right of appeal contravenes the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child. They absolutely must have support in complex issues, particularly in a country where they may not speak the language. When the official Opposition were in power, they also refused to let young people who were having age assessments carried over have any access to legal or advisory support during that process. They said it was not necessary. But I have to say that those European countries that use age assessments all have independent support for these young people from that Government’s own process. I particularly pray in aid the Netherlands, because it was cited by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, when he was at the Dispatch Box in the past.

These protections are built in because we have a formal duty to look after those under 18 and, yes, it may be difficult to work out if some are, but we will know about most of them. I really think that the first two amendments need to be reviewed, and I do not think we can support them. I can remember when I read the first full report: it is not as clear as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, said. There is always talk about ranges. I do not know about noble Lords, but I have a son of six foot four and he was certainly sprouting a beard by 16 or 17 and was already over six foot. We make mistakes, and I absolutely support what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, was saying. You cannot just assume that that is right and, if we get it wrong, you have a young man—they usually are young men—who is put into an adult centre. They then are at risk, and that is on us as a country.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

The problem is that Amendment 114 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, says there is no appeal—full stop, end. None. Therefore, that young person, who probably has English as a second language, whichever side they are and who will be arguing that they are under 18, does not even have the right that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, was talking about, and that worries me. I have argued this for some time, as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, knows, to his cost. I agree that the public are concerned. I have no doubt about that. However, are we only concerned with what the public are concerned about? Do we not need to focus on children who are seeking asylum in this country and can get some help? If we go by, “Well, actually the public don’t want it”, it will all start going the wrong way.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am sure the noble Baroness will agree that she is balancing two things here. First, a problem arises if a young person is put into adult accommodation, as she identifies. However, a bigger problem arises if you put an adult who is fraudulently claiming to be a child into facilities for young people. At that point, there is a very significant risk to those young people.

As a House, we have a significant responsibility in this area to ensure that we do not gullibly take people’s claims to be young people, which can put other young people in those homes and facilities at risk. It is very important that the Home Office has a coherent system, which it does, and that the system is capable of review, which of course it is by judicial review. The noble Baroness will agree that there is a balancing act to be performed here.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. I have argued before to him, and I say it again, that there is a very straightforward answer. You have smaller group homes for those who are around the borderline, because the protection we need is for the younger ones. The noble Lord is absolutely right that, if we put a load of people in who are over 18, those younger children are at risk. But we do not have to, given the number of children that there are.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I concur with the noble Baroness’s point about proceedings lasting for ever, but one must not take that point too far. It takes one into authoritarian territory where we really should not be going.

All the points I wanted to make were made much better by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I vividly remember our 2023 debates. Indeed, we are in a time warp with this whole debate. We have been here several times and there are no new points to be made. I remember the ethical, moral and practical arguments about scientific methods being debated.

Although I am sure we did, I cannot remember whether we discussed the equity of the point made in Amendment 115, which says that if the young person refuses to subject himself to a scientific test, because he is scared or whatever, the law will say that he is an adult and a liar. In equity, that seems to me to be a strange thing to put into a statute book. The process of going to law takes a long time, but it is our tradition. To cut it all short by saying, “If you don’t agree to be tested in this particular way then you’re an adult and a liar” seems quite extreme. I cannot remember if the point was debated before. I think the noble Lord, Lord Murray, is going to tell me that he answered it in lapidary terms in 2023.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is of course right to remember those happy exchanges. I draw his attention to the fact that, obviously, there are many examples in the law of presumptions being made if people do not do things: for example, the breath test, as the noble Viscount sitting next to me has just observed. If you say “no comment” in a police interview, inferences will be drawn. It is the same presumption system. There is nothing unusual in terms of the drafting.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

There was discussion about consent, because a child cannot consent. I do not know whether the noble Lord recalls it, but we talked about that fairly extensively.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful—again—for the amendments which have elicited this discussion. I want to put a central premise before the Committee: that age assessments, as has been proved by the contributions of noble Lords today, are a difficult area and no single or combination assessment technique is able to determine age with precision. But as the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, said, there are serious safeguarding issues if adults are treated as children and placed in settings with children. Similarly, there are serious safeguarding risks in treating children as adults. We have to try to improve the performance on age assessment and get it right. The Government treat this issue with real seriousness and with the importance it demands, and we will continue to explore with partners how we can improve the robustness of age-assessment processes by increasing the reliability of the methods used.

That leads me to the amendments before the Committee today. Amendment 114 seeks to incorporate Section 57 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which is subject to repeal, into the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The fact that we are already repealing that means that we are revisiting again, as we are on a number of amendments, things that the Government are seeking to repeal. The provision—the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, referred to this—concerns decisions relating to a person’s age and would bring into effect measures to disapply the statutory rights of appeal in the Nationality and Borders Act, which, if commenced, enable a person to bring an appeal challenging a decision on their age. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred to the difficulties of that. The provision applies only to individuals subject to the Section 2 duty to remove in the IMA, which itself is under repeal in the Bill.

I know what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr has said, and I feel that I am going around in a number of circles, but the impact is the same. We are repealing these sections; the official Opposition are trying to put them back in. We cannot put them back in because we are repealing these sections. At the end of the day we are still trying to improve the performance on age assessment for the public and the immigration system. We are committed to focusing on delivering long-term, credible policies and will try to ensure that we do that by retaining only measures of the IMA which we have assessed as offering operational benefit. As I have said, we are repealing most of the measures, including Section 2, the duty to remove. Therefore, Sections 57 and 58, relating to age assessments, which this amendment seeks to reinstate, are both unworkable and indeed irrelevant without the duty to remove. The circular movement continues.

There are robust processes in place to verify and assess an individual’s age where there is doubt. It is important that we do so, and I again emphasise to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, the Opposition Front Bench, the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, that these are important matters to get right. Where an individual claims to be a child without any credible documentary evidence and where there is reason to doubt the claimed age, immigration officers will currently conduct an initial decision on age to determine whether the individual should be treated as a child or an adult. Where doubt remains following the initial decision, which occasionally it does, individuals will be treated as a child and transferred to a local authority for further consideration of their age, in the form of the acknowledged Merton-compliant age assessment.

The Government are committed to improving age-assessment practices to enable all individuals to be safeguarded and treated appropriately, for the very reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Murray has mentioned. We have retained—as again the noble Lord, Lord Murray, has referred to—the National Age Assessment Board, which was launched on 31 March 2023 by the previous Government. It is now being rolled out nationally, continues to offer significant improvements, and has the support now of over 55 expert social workers whose task it is to support local authorities by conducting comprehensive age assessments, increasing capacity, and putting expertise in the system. Since its launch, 77 local authorities have signed up to the work of the NAAB. Greater consistency in age-assessment practice is now the case; improved quality of decision-making is there. Well over 1,137 individuals, predominantly social workers from local councils, are responsible for conducting age assessments, and the training has received positive feedback from local authorities.

Those are all positive things, and I again pay tribute to the hands that laid on those regulations and efforts previously. It is all very good, positive stuff. The Home Office, with the support of the Department for Education, has also commissioned user research into age assessment processes, with participation from Home Office members of staff, non-governmental organisations, local councils, accommodation providers and others. It has already started to implement positive change following the research that we have undertaken, and we are currently reviewing initial decisions on age training that have been received by Home Office staff at, for example, the Western Jet Foil premises in Kent.

Amendment 203H, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, would, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and others have said, restrict the jurisdiction of the court to determine applications for judicial review brought against a decision on age made by the National Age Assessment Board on conventional public law grounds such as rationality, reasonableness and procedural fairness. The court would be unable to grant relief because it considers that the board’s decision on a claimant’s age is wrong as a matter of fact. It would also prevent the court from substituting its own decision on age. This is an important point, as it is contrary to the decision of the Supreme Court which held that the court is required to determine for itself the age of the claimant as an issue of fact.

In addition, this amendment would result in a court treating challenges brought against decisions on age made by the board differently from challenges brought against decisions on age made by a local authority.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for his thoughts on that. That is the whole point. The thrust of my submission was that the Supreme Court got the law wrong in that instance. The creation of the National Age Assessment Board as an expert body means that the situation is different from that which pertained when the Supreme Court made that earlier decision. That is why the Home Office should trust its own expert social workers and grasp this opportunity to accelerate the pace and change the test that the court is using.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I think we are going to have an honest disagreement on this amendment. I am grateful for the thought that the noble Lord has put into this, but I again put it to him that the amendment would result in a court treating challenges brought against decisions on age made by the board differently from challenges brought against decisions on age made by a local authority. We are going to have to part company on that, for the moment at least.

Amendments 115 and 200, tabled by His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, concern scientific methods of age assessment. Repealing Section 58 of the Illegal Migration Act, which the Bill seeks to do, will not affect the provisions related to scientific methods of age assessment set out in the NABA and the Immigration (Age Assessments) Regulations 2024, such as the power to use X-rays and MRI scans and to take a negative inference on the credibility of a person who refuses consent where there are no reasonable grounds to do so.

Amendment 200 looks to have the Secretary of State lay regulations under Section 52 within six months. Regulations have already been made under this power. It would also place a duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations under Section 58 of the IMA. Again, the Bill will repeal that section, although Amendment 115 would reintroduce it as a clause in this Bill. We are going round again in the circle of life on the amendments to this Bill.

In any case, the Secretary of State would not make regulations to the effect that these amendments seek to achieve unless and until satisfied that the scientific methods in question are sufficiently accurate to mean that applying the automatic assumption in cases of refusal to consent would be compatible with the ECHR. The specified methods do not currently meet this threshold. Again, we can have a debate about the ECHR, but that is where the Government currently are.

The Government will continue to explore the latest developments in things such as artificial intelligence and age assessment technologies to ensure that we have the most accurate information available. Facial age estimation is promising and potentially cost effective, allowing early assessments, and it could produce useful results far more quickly than potential methods of scientific age assessments such as the bone X-rays mentioned by noble Lords and MRI scans. It requires only a facial image, and we will look at how that develops.

Again, the IMA was part of the previous Government’s initiative. We are repealing the IMA but will not compromise on border security. We remain fully focused on long-term credible policies. For that reason, I invite the noble Lords, Lord Davies, Lord Cameron and Lord Murray, not to push these amendments at this time.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 203E, to which the noble Lord has just referred. I certainly do not seek to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Browne.

I appreciate that we are in very topical territory, and I confess that I found it quite difficult to know how to approach this Bill following the Statement on Monday, because there is a lot to come—and I know that the Minister will tell us that we will have the opportunity to debate it, but of course we do not have that much detail and we are being asked to consider a Bill written before that Statement. We will have opportunities to consider the Home Office’s proposals, and today’s debates will give the Minister a flavour—if he needs it, because I do not think that he will be surprised by very much that is said today—of what is to come by way of our responses.

I, too, am grateful to the various organisations that have briefed us on Section 59. They have clearly spelled out the distinction between asylum and human rights claims and, as they say, human rights claims in many cases have nothing to do with a country’s general safety, or perceived safety. They are about someone’s connections to this country and their dependency and family ties here—as I said, this is topical—and are made by people seeking lawfully to enter or remain with their UK-based family. Among other things, this means that there is no right of appeal, because claims are not refused, they are just not considered. Of course—and it is “of course” to me, as the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, said—a country may be safe generally, but not to particular groups or sections of the community. The Supreme Court has recognised that a serious risk of persecution can exist as a general feature of life that applies to a recognisable section of the community.

This amendment takes us back to the 2002 Act, which Section 59 amends. That Act allows for exceptional circumstances, and what they may include is a subject of my amendment, in what would be the proposed new Section 80A(5A), which would provide that they include where

“the claimant is at substantial risk of significant personal harm, either as a member of a minority group or as an individual”.

The amendment would also omit Albania, Georgia and India from the list of countries that are automatically “safe” for everyone.

Noah has been mentioned—and, in fact, he was my example for Georgia, where there is a lack of effective state protection for LBGTQI+ people in the face of considerable violence. To add to what has been said, he said:

“No one can know you are gay. If you are gay, your two options are either hospital or exorcism”.


This man was attacked by his own family, forced to stay in a hospital for people with mental illnesses and subjected to exorcism.

The Home Office country note for India refers to gender-based violence, with women and girls in rural areas or from certain castes and tribes especially vulnerable. Institutional prejudices—violence against Muslims, Christians and certain castes and tribes—go unpunished. Indeed, the country note describes the active involvement of the police. In Albania, trafficking is rife. It is one of the top three nationalities—whether you regard that as the top three or the bottom three—of people referred to the national referral mechanism and recognised to be victims of trafficking. It is internationally recognised that domestic and international trafficking, including trafficking to the UK, is rife, and the families of victims themselves are threatened.

I have been involved with the case of a young man —he was young when he came; his application has not been determined yet—where the threat to his family has been a major factor in his response to what has affected his life. Sexual and domestic violence is widespread in Albania. Wherever we are going in legislative terms with this, we have to recognise the situation that noble Lords have already described.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I will address Amendment 203J. I declare my interest as a barrister practising in public law and in the immigration space.

As noble Lords will have noticed, Amendment 203J does not sit happily with the other amendments in this group. It is not directly about the inadmissibility of an asylum claim, but it is on a very important point. The refugee convention of 1951 says that, if an asylum seeker has entered the country illegally, he is not to be punished or penalised for doing so, provided he came directly from a territory where his life or freedom was threatened by persecution. Specifically, it says:

“The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened, in the sense of Article 1”—


the persecution provision in the convention—

“enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence”.

As Professor John Finnis, professor emeritus of law and legal philosophy at Oxford, and I pointed out in our paper published in 2021 by Policy Exchange entitled Immigration, Strasbourg, and Judicial Overreach, the drafting and proper meaning of Article 31(1) of the refugee convention were compellingly expanded by Lord Rodger of Earlsferry and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, dissenting in the case of the Crown v Asfaw 2008, UK House of Lords 31. In doing so, they demonstrated the error of the living instrument interpretation advanced by the majority in that case and by the Divisional Court in the case of the Crown v Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court, ex parte Adimi, 2001 Queen’s Bench 667. The erroneous but reigning interpretation in Adimi is predicated on the notion, plainly rejected by the draftsmen of Article 31 of the refugee convention, that refugees passing through safe country A en route to safe country B and/or C and/or D and/or E should have the option to choose to seek asylum in B, C, D or E.

This is plainly wrong and not what was intended by the state parties when they signed the refugee convention in 1951. It is time that we corrected the law in this regard. Amendment 203J, together with Amendment 203I in my name, which is to be debated in a later group, restores the proper meaning of “coming directly”. In doing so, it provides a solution to the nightmare of the dangerous channel crossings and uncontrolled entry. I suggest that the refugee convention purposefully distinguishes between those who enter directly from a country where they are in danger and those who do not. There is no immunity from immigration law for those not coming directly; this was entirely intentional.

This amendment aims to vindicate the distinction and seeks to bring an end to the practice of widening the refugee convention beyond the terms that the United Kingdom and the other states agreed. Let us look at the terms of Amendment 203J. The Secretary of State would have a duty to refuse a claim for asylum if a person meets the conditions set out. The first condition, in proposed new subsection (2), is that they require leave to enter the United Kingdom and they have done so without such leave, whether illegally or otherwise. The second condition, in proposed new subsection (3), is that

“in entering or arriving as mentioned in subsection (2), the person did not come directly to the United Kingdom from a country in which the person’s life and liberty were threatened by reason of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”.

Those words are taken from the convention. Proposed new subsection (4), for clarity, specifies:

“For the purposes of subsection (3) a person is not to be taken to have come directly to the United Kingdom from a country in which their life and liberty were threatened as mentioned in that subsection if, in coming from such a country, they passed through or stopped in another country outside the United Kingdom where their life and liberty were not so threatened”.


To make it absolutely crystal clear, proposed new subsection (5) says:

“For the removal of doubt but without limitation, for the purposes of subsection (3), a person has passed through or stopped in another country outside the United Kingdom if they depart in a boat, vessel or aircraft from France or any other European coastal state”.


If this provision were enforced, would you risk your life in the channel in a small boat if you knew that your asylum claim would be bound to be refused? You would not.

This amendment—to use the slogan so favoured by the Prime Minister—would smash the gangs by destroying the business model, and do so while we remain a member of the refugee convention. Unlike the timid tinkering around the edges we see in almost all of this rather performative Bill as presently proposed, this amendment proposes a real, beneficial solution and the Home Office should grab it with both hands.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 203E tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and declare my interests as vice-president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and chair of human rights at Liberal International.

I want to mention briefly something that happened in Georgia this afternoon. Nika Katsia, who was imprisoned by Georgian Dream on trumped-up drug charges, has finally been freed after the regime, astonishingly, admitted in court to planting drugs on him at a protest. This is the third such case in recent weeks. Many thousands of others remain in prison. Over the last four months, leaders and senior activists have been told by the regime they had to go into the Parliament and kowtow to the new regime. They were immediately imprisoned; it became a contempt of Parliament and some have sentences of seven to 15 years. These are the high-profile people, but some of the hundreds of thousands of protesters on the streets every night are finding that, like Nika Katsia, they are ending up in prison for absolutely no reason. Georgia is not a safe place; I support my noble friend’s amendment for this reason.

During the passage of the safety of Rwanda Act, we on these Benches repeatedly said that Rwanda was not safe, and that continues to this day. The Rwandan Government have again imprisoned Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, leader of the Development and Liberty for All Party. She has been nominated for the Sakharov prize and was the winner of the Liberal International prize for freedom last year. She has spent most of the last 20 years in prison, as have members of her party. Many have tried to escape and seek asylum elsewhere for their safety.

Rwanda was not safe then and it is not safe now, so I am really pleased to see that we are at least now discussing that. These amendments are important, and when we come on to another group later today, I will raise the issue of how appropriate it is to have a list in a Bill or a regulation when things can move as fast as they have happened in Georgia recently. That is worth exploring, but I will leave that until we get to that group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am happy to examine that. We have said publicly that Article 8 is the focus for our examination, discussion and wider review. However, that does not mean—and this is the key, important point—that we will ditch the ECHR. Although it is 75 to 80 years old and was established in 1950, as a number of noble Lords, including Lord Kerr, have mentioned, it establishes a number of basic rights, which are important to me and to the people we represent and the people in our communities. They set a basic framework, but that does not mean that we cannot look at how those interpretations are made. That is why we are trying to do that.

To come back to Amendment 203J from the noble Lord, Lord Murray, this would impose a legal obligation to refuse all asylum claims made by illegal or other irregular migrants who travel from safe countries. The stated intention of the measure is to deter such people from using dangerous and illegal methods to enter the UK. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on this: the amendment would not achieve that aim. Refusing a person’s asylum claim and proposing removal to their country of origin without consideration of the merits of their claim would put the UK in breach of its obligations under the refugee convention. We may not want to be in the refugee convention, but we are in it and we cannot in my view unilaterally breach those obligations accordingly. Even if a person’s asylum claim could be refused on account of this measure, the humanitarian protection claim would still need to be properly considered on its merits.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister and I appreciate the difficulty of the position from which he speaks, and the difficulty of the position of the Home Office in this regard. The point of my amendment was not to breach international law. As I hope I made clear, the wording of the convention in Article 31.1 is clear: one has to come directly. This is an opportunity for the Government to comply with their stated intention of not breaching international law but still deliver a policy that has a deterrent. This is a vital opportunity and I implore the Minister not to miss it just because it is coming from me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for proposing the clause stand part notice. At the outset, I place on record for the House that 35,052 people were returned from 5 July 2024 to 4 July 2025, the first year of this Government. Of those returns, 9,115 were enforced returns of people with no legal right to remain in the UK, a 24% increase over the period of the previous year.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Of the total returns, 5,179 enforced and voluntary returns were of—

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Noble Lords]

Order.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

In a moment. I will always give way, if the noble Lord will let me finish the sentence. Of the total returns, 5,179 were of foreign national offenders, an increase of 14% over the same period in the 12 months prior. Therefore, before the noble Lord puts the premise that we cannot remove people and that this Government are not trying to, those figures put the record straight.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Of the 9,000 that he refers to, how many came across on a small boat?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

There were a number. I have not got the figure to hand.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

It is the low-hanging fruit.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

If the 9,115 were low-hanging fruit, why was this figure 24% higher than the previous year, when—let me just remind myself —who was the Minister in charge of this system? Would it be, by any chance, the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Because of the provision we brought in.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Right. I think we will just settle at that: that it is 24% higher than in the previous year because of the actions this Government have taken. That is the context in which Amendments 105 and 109 seek to reintroduce the duty to remove measures in the Illegal Migration Act that we are repealing. Therefore, it will not come as a surprise to him to know that we are not going to accept his clause stand part notice today.

Having a duty to remove people who are unlawfully in the UK is easy to say but very difficult to deliver in practice, as evidenced by the previous Government’s failure to implement this part of the INA. Such a legal obligation means taking away all discretion, and defining exceptions to that duty is not always straightforward. There remains a risk of legal challenge, of acting unreasonably in individual cases. For a duty to remove to be effective, there needs to be a destination where it is safe to remove people to when their own country is not safe for them.

We have taken a judgment on the Rwanda scheme for that effect, where there are practical difficulties in proceeding with the removal, and where a host country needs to agree to accept those people. If a third country is not willing to accept foreign national offenders or unaccompanied children, that can incentivise perverse behaviour for migrants seeking to remain in the UK.

We already have well-established powers to remove people who are unlawfully in the UK and have in fact, as I have just mentioned, seen an increase of more than 20% in failed asylum seekers being removed since the election of July last year, along with a 14% increase in foreign national offenders being removed. The Government’s aim is to deliver long-term credible policies to ensure a properly functioning immigration system. Having a duty to remove will not add anything useful to that aim. We are repealing the legislation that the noble Lord brought in; he is trying to reinsert it. There is an honest disagreement between us, but I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the stand part notice.

Employment Rights Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 8th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lord Sharpe and Lord Hunt. I notice that Clause 9(3) inserts a subsection into the Employment Rights Act which allows for the refusal of a flexible working application in conditional circumstances under two criteria:

“only if … the employer considers that the application should be refused on a ground or grounds listed in subsection (1ZA), and … it is reasonable for the employer to refuse the application on that ground or those grounds”.

A double test is being applied for the decision to refuse an application for flexible working.

Then, the list that the Government have provided in the Bill, at subsection (1ZA) lists grounds from (a) to (i). One might think that this list had been prepared by the unions, because it sets out perhaps a very one-sided view of what the flexible working application might apply. It is indeed pretty abstruse in its expression. It sets out that the grounds mentioned are

“the burden of additional costs”,

the

“detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand; … inability to re-organise work among … staff; … inability to recruit additional staff”.

All of this is going to be the subject of considerable debate, one would anticipate, in any future employment tribunal claim, and has an air of unreality about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, this debate has been more interesting than I expected. In looking at Amendment 65, we should acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, with his former ministerial responsibilities, had considerable interaction with the services that he described, so we should take him seriously.

In Amendment 65A, he sets out certain sectors. However, in seeking to deliver unambiguity, I think he has introduced new ambiguity. Sector-specific exemptions are bringing their own problems. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Murray, what a journalist is. Is it a card-carrying member of the NUJ or is it someone who blogs and calls themselves a journalist, or a group of people? That is just one example of the ambiguity that a sector system brings in. So I am drawn to the idea that we have something like subsection (1ZA) in Clause 9(3).

If noble Lords are worried about the wooliness of it—I am not sure that was the word that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, used—we can work to firm that language up. But to describe the job, rather than try to think of every single job title we want to include in primary legislation, is a better way of going about it. If the description is too difficult to nail, I am sure it is not beyond the wit of us all to find a better way of describing it.

Had the noble Lord, Lord Murray, been here a little earlier, he would have heard the shortcomings of the tribunal system being well exercised, and some comments from the noble Lord to the effect that the MoJ is looking at it. To return to that point, in my speech on the last group I asked for a meeting, so perhaps the Ministers could facilitate a meeting with interested parties on the Bill and the MoJ to find out how it is moving forward on tribunals; we need some line of sight on that. It is something of a capitulation if we say, “The tribunals are no good, so we’re not going to make the right legislation because they won’t be there to uphold it”. We have a duty to make the right legislation, to put it in place and to make sure that the tribunals can deliver.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I share much of what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, says. But the point I was making was that the answer from the Government is, “We’re going to provide imprecision in this legislation, and we’re going to let the employment tribunal sort it out and tell us what it means”. My point was twofold. First, that will take far too long because of the chaos in the tribunal system, and secondly, structurally, the employment tribunal cannot give an answer to that at first instance because it is not a court of record.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

Those are good points. Again, had the noble Lord seen an earlier episode of the soap opera of this Committee, he would have heard noble Lords from all around talk about firming up imprecision, which is why I talked about firming up the imprecision of that list of attributes rather than trying to produce a list of businesses and activities that somehow should come into this—an impossible job, frankly. Of course we should have a war on imprecision but, in the end, there are going to be some things that tribunals rule on that will be important, and we need to have the tribunals active and quick to do so.

To some extent, there is an element of creativity around the fungibility of some of these criteria—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, made that point. If we have some flexibility of interpretation, schools and other organisations that want to hang on to valued colleagues will find a way of using it in order to do that. If we start to rule out professions or rule in very hard and fast rules, we lose the opportunity to retain and attract certain groups of people. I understand the point made, that the more of that fungibility there is, the more so-called imprecision, and there is a balance between the two. That is why I still think that if we have ideas around new subsection (1ZA), that is the way forward on this rather than a list of jobs.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, the discussions we have had both in this Chamber and beyond have been deeply thoughtful and constructive, motivated by a shared desire to protect the public while ensuring that the measures we introduce are both proportionate and workable.

However, I remain very concerned about the potential impact of this legislation on volunteers and volunteer-run organisations and on their enthusiasm to take up the mantle to run those vital village halls and community centres that we heard so much about during the passage of the Bill.

I am very grateful to the Minister for his assurance that the Government will keep the matter under review. I think it is incumbent on us all to ensure that the burdens imposed by this legislation on very small businesses and community enterprises are closely monitored and that, in the event that it has the adverse impact I fear, the matter can come back before the House for examination.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the comments from noble Lords. The Bill now goes to the House of Commons with government amendments and amendments the Government have supported, and I look forward to a speedy passage to Royal Assent.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

My Lords, my amendment seeks to raise the qualifying premises threshold in this Bill from 200 to 500. This is a necessary and proportionate adjustment to ensure that the legislation is both effective and enforceable. At its core, this Bill is about ensuring that public venues take reasonable steps to protect the public from the ever-present threat of terrorism. This is a goal that we all share, but it is also our duty as legislators to ensure that any obligations that we impose are realistic, achievable and properly targeted. The current threshold of 200 is, in my view, too low. It captures far too many small businesses, community venues and organisations that simply do not have the resources to comply effectively with the security measures required under this legislation.

We must therefore ask ourselves what we are truly trying to achieve. If the Bill is about protecting high footfall venues that are most likely to be targeted, a threshold of 500 is much more appropriate. A venue that regularly accommodates 500 people is a significantly different proposition from one with just over 200. The former will have the infrastructure, resources and operational capacity to manage the enhanced security obligations that the Bill requires, whereas the latter will often struggle under the weight of compliance, detracting from the effectiveness of the legislation as a whole.

Moreover, this is a question of enforcement. By setting the threshold too low, we risk overburdening the enforcement agencies tasked with ensuring compliance. We should be concentrating our efforts where they will make the most difference: on larger, more high-risk venues, where the potential impact of an attack would be greatest. A threshold of 500 strikes that balance.

I also want to address the issue of fairness. Many small and medium-sized businesses are still recovering from the financial strain of recent years. The hospitality, entertainment and cultural sectors in particular have been hit hard. If we impose overly stringent requirements on smaller venues, we risk pushing them into further difficulties, leading to unintended consequences such as venue closures or reduced community engagement. This is not, therefore, about opposing security measures—far from it. It is about ensuring that these measures are appropriate for the size and nature of the premises they apply to.

I do not bring this amendment forward lightly. I support the principles of the Bill and I recognise the importance of making public spaces safer. However, legislation must be both proportionate and practical. The Government have not, in my view, provided sufficient justification for the 200-person threshold, and nor have they demonstrated that raising it to 500 would compromise security in any way.

On the contrary, I believe this amendment enhances the Bill by making it much more targeted and therefore effective. For these reasons, unless I hear a clear commitment from the Government today that they will reconsider their position, I will be dividing the House on this amendment. I urge noble Lords to join me in supporting a measured, proportionate and practical approach to this issue.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 3 in my name, which seeks to raise the threshold for a qualifying premises from 200 to 300, with an exception to allow the Secretary of State to set a lower threshold if any particular premises are at a heightened risk of terrorist threat.

While I agree with many of the arguments advanced by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister in relation to 500, it is important that the House has the option to consider other variable thresholds. I suggest that this amendment, in setting the threshold at 300 with the flexibility to include other venues between 200 and 300, is a pragmatic, measured and proportionate adjustment that balances the need for public safety with the realities of implementation of this expensive and burdensome set of regulations on small businesses and community venues.

While we should do as much as possible to reduce the impact of an attack, should one occur, we must ensure that pubs, village halls, community spaces and other, similar venues are not subject to undue regulatory burdens where the risk does not justify them. By raising the threshold to 300, we are ensuring that those venues most at risk are prioritised. Almost all venues under 300 will now be excluded by reason of this amendment, while providing a degree of flexibility for exceptional cases where a lower threshold may be warranted.

The logic behind this adjustment is clear: a threshold of 200 captures too wide a range of premises, including many small business and community venues that may not have the capacity or resources to implement the complex security measures required by the Bill. Many of these venues operate on tight budgets and rely on volunteer or part-time staff. I worry greatly that one of the unintended consequences of the Bill will be to drive such small business and community facilities—which are presently just about managing and just about balancing their books—out of business, with the consequent massive impact on our communities and high streets. If this happens, the terrorists will have won.

I do not need to remind the House that the Home Office’s own impact assessment estimates that the costs to business of the measures in the Bill, at present values, are likely to be between £4.871 billion and £563.4 million, with the Government’s best estimate at £1.785 billion. This additional burden will land just at the time when small businesses and community ventures are reeling from additional regulatory burdens and rising taxes.

Increasing the threshold to 300 would ensure that the primary focus remained on larger venues with higher footfall and, therefore, greater potential risk. As I observed in Committee when debating these amendments, one need look only at the Home Office’s own impact assessment to see the considerable level of concern about the viability of small businesses and community ventures. At page 9, the authors note:

“Among respondents to the survey of premises with a capacity of 100 to 299”—


the respondents being the owners of smaller premises, places of worship, village halls and community centres—only

“four in ten … agreed that those responsible for premises within the standard tier should have a legal obligation to be prepared for a terrorist attack … Around half ... reported that the revised requirements would be difficult to take forwards ... Six in ten ... were at least somewhat concerned that the cost of meeting the standard tier requirements will affect their organisation’s financial ability to continue operating”.

However, in my amendment I recognise that security concerns are not always dictated by capacity alone. This is why it would allow for the Secretary of State to include particular premises that are at heightened risk of terrorist attack. This provides flexibility.

Commendably, prior to the introduction of the Bill, the Government raised the proposed threshold from 100 to 200 following the outcome of the consultation. I agree with my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister that there has been nothing in the debates on the Bill which really justifies the figure of 200, when set against the potential impact on the large number of premises now caught by the present threshold. The proposal in the amendment is a cautious—and, I suggest, proportionate and sensible—step, and I invite noble Lords to support it.

--- Later in debate ---

The figure of 300 would have a similar effect. The noble Lord raises a sceptical eyebrow at me. We have hit on a figure. His Government wanted 100; the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, and others have argued for 500; we are arguing for 200. That is a reasonable balance, I think, between the two. I have given him assurances in Committee and at other stages that that is an appropriate figure.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Can he give us the percentage figure? If it is 4% for the 500 threshold, what is the figure for 300?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

3: Clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert—
“(ca) the premises have a capacity of more than 300 people or, if smaller, the Secretary of State determines that the premises are at heightened risk of a terrorist threat, and”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment aims to protect small businesses from disproportionately burdensome security requirements while maintaining adequate protection against terrorism threats.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

In the light of the opinion expressed in the Division, I will not be moving Amendment 3.

Amendments 3 not moved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister. I will make a connected but slightly separate point. After Committee, the Minister very kindly wrote to me on the reviews, particularly the post-implementation reviews. A copy of the letter is in the House of Lords Library. For the benefit of noble Lords, he said:

“I would like to reassure you that a post-implementation review will be undertaken”—


which is what we sought—

“and this will assess whether the legislation delivers the Government’s policy objectives … this will include analysis of the costs and impacts on qualifying premises and events … this will naturally include smaller businesses and community-run premises where they fall in scope. The Government’s intention is that the review will be conducted, at most, within five years of commencement … This will incorporate … microbusinesses and small community premises”.

I am very grateful to the Minister for the indication in his letter. Can he let us know, from the Dispatch Box, whether the Government intend to publish the outcome of those reviews?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 19, which is tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst, I will speak also to Amendments 20 and 23, in the name of my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower. Amendment 19 would require the tribunal to consider whether a notice should be ordered to be of no effect in circumstances where the tribunal has been unable to determine the appeal within a reasonable time. That is the context for the amendment.

The fundamental background behind this amendment is that the SIA will issue notices; we do not know how many, at this stage, but there is a strong likelihood that they will be appealed in significant numbers. This will likely be a major additional burden on the First-tier Tribunal, raising questions on capacity and speed of response. It is also right to say that many of the regulated persons are responsible for events with a hard deadline, which carries with it financial and operational consequences. How will events deal with a situation where their appeal is lodged with a tribunal but no determination has been made in a reasonable time?

Amendment 19 seeks to prevent people being left in limbo. It would follow Clause 16(7), which allows the tribunal to decide that an order is of no effect until the appeal concludes, and it should be read in that context. In that sense, Amendment 19 is simply an additional protection for those organising events if, for whatever reason, the tribunal has simply not been able to determine the appeal within a reasonable timeframe. I hope the Minister understands the reasons behind this amendment, and I am keen to hear his response.

I will speak more briefly on Amendments 20 and 23, in the name of my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower. Amendment 20 seeks to extend the grace period from 28 to 42 days. This is a practical adjustment: compliance with new regulations takes time and, while security must remain a priority, we must recognise the operational realities faced by businesses, charities and community groups. A slightly longer grace period provides a fairer timeframe for implementing necessary measures without imposing undue pressure. An additional 14 days is a reasonable and fair addition of extra time.

Finally, Amendment 23, again tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower, calls for local authorities to be consulted. Local authorities are on the front line of implementing security measures under the Bill, and their insight and expertise should be taken into account. Consultation will ensure that security policies are practical, properly resourced and, critically, aligned with local needs. Effective counter- terrorism measures require co-operation at all levels and this amendment strengthens that collaborative approach. I look forward to hearing the Minister in reply.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 21, 22, 24 and 26. I am sure we all know how important volunteers are in the way our society works. Across the country, many vital community venues are run on our behalf by volunteers who give up hours and hours of their time to help run community enterprises—for example, village halls and community centres. I am also sure that noble Lords will have found that it is getting more and more difficult to persuade people to take on voluntary roles and responsibilities. It is very much harder to persuade people into senior voluntary roles, particularly if those roles carry with them personal risk to that volunteer, either of financial liability or criminal liability.

As I have made clear in previous debates on this legislation, I am very concerned that this Bill will unintentionally have a significant negative impact on members of our community volunteering. By Amendments 21, 22, 24 and 26, I seek to ensure that voluntary unpaid officeholders and unpaid trustees are exempt from the personal and criminal liability under Clauses 24, 25 and 26 of the Bill, provided, of course, that they have acted without wilful misconduct or gross negligence.

As I observed in Committee, when this Bill was considered in draft by the Home Affairs Select Committee, it heard evidence about the impact of these proposed measures on community volunteering. The committee, under the then chairmanship of Dame Diana Johnson, reported in July 2023 and said this in paragraph 39:

“However, we are concerned that the capacity figure of 100 for standard tier premises, which will capture some small and micro-sized businesses, and community-run and voluntary groups, could be disproportionate and burdensome. This category is particularly troubling because it would include many smaller venues that may not have sufficient resources to cover costs of what is proposed. It would also cover village halls, places of worship and similar amenities that provide vital community support, often on low budgets. If such places are forced to close down, this represents a win for terrorism, rather than an effective means of combatting it”.


I could not have put it better myself.

In light of this and other representations, the present Government increased the threshold from 100 to 200, and I commend them for doing that, but that increase is no sufficient answer to the problems that have been raised. I remain concerned that, with the effect of the measures in the Bill—on top of the other measures facing volunteers across our community, which we heard so ably outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, in an earlier group—there is a risk that we will have fewer volunteers and volunteer leaders, which may mean wide- scale closures of village halls and community centres up and down our country.

It is clear to me that the effect of the measures in the Bill as it presently stands runs the serious risk that the new liabilities in the Bill will reduce the appetite for members of the public to step forward and volunteer. This is, in any event, in an era when public involvement in these sorts of institutions is waning. It is important that the Government do not make it harder and harder to be a volunteer or a trustee of these institutions.

The amendments that I propose here are directed to removing the worst of the disincentives for people to volunteer. The way Amendment 21 works, as the House will have seen, is to remove the risk that a volunteer or unpaid trustee would be held personally liable for financial penalties imposed under Clause 17, provided that they were acting at all times in good faith and within the scope of their duties.

Amendment 22 would exclude a voluntary unpaid officeholder or unpaid trustee from the daily penalties, described in the Bill as being up to £500 a day. I suggest that that sort of measure is a powerful disincentive to people to volunteer, due to the risk of their own personal liability for these sums.

Amendment 24 would exempt volunteers, unpaid officeholders and unpaid trustees from criminal liability, provided again that they have acted without wilful misconduct or gross negligence. I hope the House will agree that it is a significant disincentive to volunteering to think that you face, on a cursory reading of the Bill, the risk of up to two years in prison for failing to adhere to the strictures of the regulations made under the Bill.

I appreciate that, as the Minister will no doubt tell the House, these criminal powers will be used only rarely and are a maxima, and I am sure all that is right. However, the fact is, if it is in the statute, it will act as a disincentive to volunteers. People will not want to be the responsible person, because they will not want to take the risk of going to prison.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

21: Clause 17, page 13, line 16, at end insert—
“(7A) A voluntary unpaid office holder or unpaid trustee must not be held personally liable for financial penalties imposed under this section, provided that they acted in good faith and within the scope of their duties.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies that financial penalties do not apply to volunteers serving in good faith.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Although I am disappointed by the Minister’s response, I at least take some heart from the fact that a review will be conducted and I am very grateful for the support expressed for these amendments by the right reverend Prelate. I have also been, frankly, disappointed by the approach from those on the Liberal Democrat Benches, who could have chosen this moment to make a real mark on this legislation to help volunteering. But with that, and the fact that there would appear to be little prospect of this amendment succeeding, I will not move Amendment 21.

Amendment 21 not moved.

County Lines Drug Trafficking

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to tackle ‘county lines’ drug trafficking.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

The Government’s county lines programme is targeting exploitative drug-dealing gangs while breaking the organised crime groups behind this trade. The programme has closed more than 400 drug-dealing lines since July 2024 alone. The Government are committed to halving knife crime in the next decade and to tackling the violent gangs who lure children into crime. We will be introducing a new offence of criminal exploitation of children in the crime and policing Bill, which will be published very shortly.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I admire the Minister’s indefatigability in addressing three of noble Lords’ Oral Questions today and I thank him for his Answer. An estimated 14,000 children are at risk of child criminal exploitation as a result of county lines drug trafficking. In 2022, it was reported that there had been 8,000 arrests since the introduction of the county lines programme in 2019; that is an average of 2,600 per year. In the last nine months, Home Office statistics appear to show that there have been around only 500 arrests. Why is this, and what are the Minister and his department planning to do about it?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord will know that I can answer only for the period from July 2024 to September 2024, which are the latest figures. These figures show that 400 deal lines were closed, more than 200 dealers were arrested and charged, 500 further arrests were made, and there were 800 safeguarding referrals for children and vulnerable people. He asked what we can do in particular—yes, roughly 14,500 children have been impacted by county lines, and first and foremost we are looking at how we can support those children.

Very shortly—in fact, tomorrow—the new offence of criminal exploitation of children will be introduced in the police and crime Bill. I look forward to the noble Lord’s support on that. It will mean that we can go after the gangs who are luring young people into violence and crime, and we will have an additional penalty for individuals who exploit and damage children as a result. So there are short-term interventions to be made, but there are long-term measures too.

I would also say to the noble Lord that the additional 13,000 neighbourhood police officers will be an extremely important way of gathering intelligence, putting police boots on the ground and putting the fear of God into those people who are undertaking county lines activity.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

37B: After Clause 31, insert the following new Clause—
“Right to protest(1) Nothing in this Act is to be construed as infringing upon the right to protest, as protected under Schedule 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998.(2) The provisions of this Act shall not apply to protests or demonstrations, provided that such protests or demonstrations do not directly incite violence, threaten public safety, or disrupt essential services, and are conducted peacefully and lawfully in accordance with existing legal frameworks governing public gatherings.(3) This Act shall not be used to impede, restrict, or unlawfully interfere with the right of individuals to express dissent through peaceful means, whether in public or private spaces, so long as such activities are in compliance with the principles of non-violence, respect for others’ rights, and public order. (4) Any action taken under this Act that affects an individual or group’s ability to protest or assemble shall be subject to review to ensure that it does not unduly restrict fundamental freedoms.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment probes the compatibility of the Bill with provisions on protest under the Human Rights Act 1998.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, in an earlier day of Committee, the Committee heard an exchange between my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower and the Minister. It was pointed out that political gatherings of more than 200 people quite frequently happen in Members of Parliament’s constituencies. Quite often there is a local issue, or indeed a national issue, that encourages public engagement. One of the features of this Bill is that it is striking that there has been no discussion about the impact of the measures in the Bill on the right to protest. That is an ancient right under common law but it is now found also, in part, in Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention, as scheduled to the Human Rights Act.

One of the Bill documents produced by the Home Office—quite rightly—when this Bill was produced was the human rights memorandum prepared for the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member. That document does not appear to engage with the question of whether this Bill will infringe or curtail any person’s Article 10 or 11 rights to protest. It is noticeable, given that omission from the human rights memorandum, that the Minister and his equivalent in the Commons certified on the front of the Bill that, in their view, it was compliant with the convention. I am afraid that I beg to differ with that analysis—at least to the extent of the amendment proposed on the Marshalled List today.

We will look at what the amendment does in a second. By way of background, it is important to point out that on 6 February this year, the Court of Appeal, presided over by the Lady Chief Justice, produced a judgment in the case of Sarti, Hall and Plummer against the Crown: 2025 EWCA Crim 61. The Court of Appeal considered, as part of the Just Stop Oil protests, appeals brought by individuals who had been protesting by closing Earl’s Court Road. The Court of Appeal, reversing or revising earlier decisions of the courts, determined that it was not necessary for a criminal court hearing a charge of this type to go through the elaborate proportionality tests required in the earlier Shvidler case, and therefore it was for the court to implement Section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023.

Noble Lords will be asking, “Why is all this relevant?” It is relevant for this reason: Section 11 in Part 2 of the Public Order Act 1986 imposes an obligation to notify the police in advance of the date, time and proposed route of any public procession or protest which is intended

“to demonstrate support for or opposition to the views or actions of any person or body of persons”,

or to

“publicise a cause or campaign”.

That obligation to notify the police is not addressed in any way in the provisions of Clause 3 of our Bill, which defines “qualifying events”, and it is not inconceivable to see that there may well be a situation where a public protest falls within the definition of Clause 3.

The Bill is silent about who may be considered the responsible person and who may be liable to regulation by the SIA. In fact, the whole thing is simply inapposite. But it is not inconceivable that, unless an amendment of the type that I propose in the Marshalled List is inserted, there is a risk—albeit, as I am sure the Minister will tell me, it is a small risk—that these measures might be used to curtail protest, or have the unintentional consequence of curtailing the democratic right to protest.

For those reasons, I draw the attention of the Committee to the provisions of my amendment. Clearly, the first proposed new subsection simply ensures, as a matter of construction, that nothing in the Bill should be viewed as curtailing those Article 10 and 11 rights. Similarly, it makes clear, in proposed new subsections (2) and (3):

“The provisions of this Act shall not apply to protests or demonstrations, provided that such protests or demonstrations do not directly incite violence, threaten public safety”,


et cetera. The third provision is:

“This Act shall not be used to impede, restrict, or unlawfully interfere with the right of individuals to express dissent”


or to protest. So, in that way, this measure will simply ensure that the Bill could not be misread by any future Government, or indeed by anyone. I can see no reason why His Majesty’s Government would not accept this amendment or something similar. I look forward to hearing some good news from the Minister. I beg to move.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 37B, tabled by my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth. The amendment seeks to insert a new clause after Clause 31 to safeguard the right to protest, as protected under Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998. The amendment makes it clear that nothing in the Bill should be construed as infringing on the right to protest, provided that such protests are conducted peacefully and lawfully, do not incite violence and do not threaten public safety or disrupt essential services. Furthermore, it proposes that any action taken under the Bill that impacts the ability to protest or assemble should be subject to review to ensure that fundamental freedoms are not unduly restricted.

The right to protest is a cornerstone of any democratic society and one of the primary means through which individuals and groups can express their views, voice grievances and influence public discourse. Throughout history, peaceful protests have played a transformative role in shaping our society, strengthening democratic governance and securing fundamental rights and freedoms. From the suffragette movement, which fought for women’s right to vote, to more recent demonstrations calling for climate action and social justice, the ability to gather, express dissent and campaign for change has been essential to our democratic values. Indeed, the richness and resilience of British democracy have often been reinforced by the willingness of citizens to stand up and speak out when they see injustice or seek reform.

However, the context in which we now consider this amendment is one of heightened security concerns. The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill rightly seeks to enhance public safety by imposing new security obligations on certain premises to protect against the ever-evolving threat of terrorism. As noble Lords will agree, this is a pressing and legitimate concern, and our duty to protect citizens from harm is paramount.

Yet, as we pursue this noble objective, we must be vigilant in ensuring that necessary security measures do not inadvertently erode the civil liberties that define us as a free and democratic society. The fight against terrorism must never become an excuse to undermine the very freedoms we seek to protect. Ensuring compatibility with human rights principles is not merely a legal obligation—it is a moral imperative.

This amendment provides much-needed clarity. It recognises that, although security is of the utmost importance, it must be balanced with the protection of democratic rights. The conditions it outlines are both reasonable and proportionate. They would ensure that protests remain peaceful, lawful and respectful of public order while preventing unnecessary or heavy-handed restrictions that could stifle legitimate dissent. The provision for review is particularly important. It would ensure accountability and create a safeguard against potential overreach by authorities. This is essential in preserving public trust, especially in the sensitive area of counterterrorism measures. If people perceive that security measures are being used to suppress dissent rather than to protect them, we risk undermining the very co-operation and solidarity needed to combat threats effectively.

Critics may argue that the amendment is unnecessary because existing legal frameworks already protect the right to protest. However, clarity within the legislation is crucial to avoid legal ambiguities or unintended consequences. By explicitly affirming the compatibility of this Bill with the right to protest, we would send a strong message that we value security and civil liberties equally and make it clear that security and freedom are not mutually exclusive but must coexist in a healthy democracy.

In practical terms, this amendment would also support public co-operation with counterterrorism efforts. When people see that their rights are respected and protected, they are more likely to trust and engage with security measures. Public trust is a critical component of effective counterterrorism strategies. A society that respects the right to peaceful assembly is one where people are more inclined to work with, rather than against, the authorities.

To be clear, this amendment would not weaken the Bill’s security provisions, or shield unlawful, violent or disruptive activities. Rather, it reinforces the principle that peaceful and lawful protest should not be treated as a threat to public safety or security. It provides assurance that this important legislation will not inadvertently target the exercise of democratic freedoms.

Moreover, we must consider the international dimension. The United Kingdom has long been regarded as a bastion of democracy and human rights. By enshrining protections for the right to protest in this Bill, we would reaffirm our commitment to those values on the global stage and demonstrate that it is possible to confront terrorism without compromising the fundamental freedoms that are the hallmark of a democratic society.

This amendment would strengthen the Bill by ensuring that it aligns with the fundamental principles of democracy and human rights. It would send a clear and important message that we can protect our citizens from terrorism without sacrificing the freedoms that define our society. Security measures that respect civil liberties are not only more just but more effective in fostering a cohesive and resilient society. I therefore urge the Government and noble Lords to support it. Let us demonstrate that we are committed to both safeguarding our citizens and upholding the principles that make this nation great. By doing so, we can ensure that our response to terrorism remains not only strong but principled, just and democratic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and other contributors to this debate that I have been on a few demos myself. I have quite enjoyed them; they are part of the democratic right to oppose certain things. Although my demo days have gone for the moment, because, as a Government Minister, I support government policy, there may be occasions in the future when I want to go on further demonstrations. I do not anticipate this Bill or any other legislation—apart, perhaps, from the legislation put in place by the previous Government—curtailing that democratic right to protest.

I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness and the noble Lord that none of the Bill’s provisions are intended to interfere with people’s rights, which are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, as set out in Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act, including the right to protest. To be clear, the Bill aims to protect the public, not to infringe their rights. The noble Lord will note that something that I never expected to happen to me again happened with this Bill. On the front of it are the words:

“Lord Hanson of Flint has made the following statement under section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998”,


and, for the benefit of the House, I will repeat what it says:

“In my view the provisions of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights”,


of which the right to protest is at the heart.

The noble Lord referred to a number of points around the undergrowth of the legislation and some of the clauses and schedules that he has concerns about. However, the front of the Bill says—and I put my name to it—that it is compatible with the convention of human rights. In my view, the measures are carefully developed to ensure it appropriately and proportionately captures the places and requirements of qualifying premises and events. In the development of the Bill, we have been mindful of its application to protests and demonstrations.

The expectation is that most demonstrations and protests will not fall within the Bill’s scope at all. They will not constitute “qualifying premises” under Clause 2, as they are not qualifying activities under Schedule 1. Even if they were, it would be unlikely that the premises would be wholly or mainly used for those purposes.

Some large demonstrations and protests may be qualifying events. However, many will not have to put in place the specific measure to check entry and, as a result, will not satisfy the criteria to be a qualifying event under Clause 3. An open access event, which is how I would term some of the demonstrations that I have been on, might have more than 800 attendees at a time—that number would be a good demonstration—and will not be within the scope of the Bill. Where demonstrations or events are within the scope of the Bill, it is right that the relevant provisions will apply. In some cases, large numbers of people will be gathered in a location where the organiser must have adequate control to consider and take forward appropriate security measures and procedures, so far as is reasonably practical.

I hope to reassure the noble Lord, His Majesty’s Opposition Front Bench and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, that, within the Bill’s scope, we are required to act compatibly with the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. I can say from this Dispatch Box that nothing in the legislation interferes with that.

I am grateful to the noble Lord for teasing out the discussion. I look forward to perhaps joining him on a demonstration, if we ever find shared common ground. But, for the moment, his pressing is valuable as it gives me the opportunity to say that he can undertake protests without worry about the Bill’s provisions—unless, of course, his protest falls within the scope of the Bill, in which case it is treated no differently from any other aspect of life that falls within the scope. I hope he will reflect on that and withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Davies, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the Minister. Obviously, the Section 19 declaration on the front of the Bill is a statement that, in the Minister’s view, it is compatible with the Act. As one of the very small number of Ministers who has signed a Section 19(1)(b) statement, which is to be signed in different circumstances, where you are not so confident, I can assure the Minister that such a statement of opinion is not conclusive. The courts regularly find that measures in Acts of Parliament—for example, in the recent litigation about the Northern Ireland legacy Act—are in fact incompatible, notwithstanding statements or declarations of compatibility on the front of the Bill.

Be that as it may, I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said, and I obviously agree with much of it, but I still wonder whether he might go back to the department and consider whether it is appropriate to put in just a short clause along the lines I suggested, to make crystal clear that the right to protest is not to be interfered with indirectly and unintentionally by the measures in the Bill. For now, of course, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 37B withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

40: After Clause 34, insert the following new Clause—
“Tax relief incentives for security investments(1) The Secretary of State, in consultation with HM Treasury, must establish a tax relief scheme for qualifying investments made by businesses to reduce the vulnerability of premises to acts of terrorism at premises covered by this Act.(2) Qualifying investments include but are not limited to—(a) surveillance and monitoring equipment,(b) physical barriers and access control systems,(c) staff training on counter-terrorism measures, and(d) cyber-security infrastructure for venue security.(3) The scheme may provide tax deductions of up to twenty-five per cent for eligible security expenditures.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment incentivises businesses to voluntarily strengthen their security infrastructure to reduce the vulnerability of premises to acts of terrorism by offsetting the financial burden through tax deductions. It encourages innovation and investment in counter-terrorism technologies while reducing reliance on public funding.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, with some trepidation, I find myself leading the next group as well; I hope not to try the patience of the Committee. The Committee discussed similar suites of amendments in earlier groups. Amendment 40 is designed to seek to defray some of the costs of implementing measures made necessary by the effect of the Bill. As the Committee will have noted, it requires the Secretary of State to set up a tax relief scheme for qualifying investments. Those investments are set out at subsection (2), including

“surveillance … equipment … physical barriers and access control systems … staff training on counter-terrorism measures”,

and

“cyber-security infrastructure for venue security”.

We know that the costs of the measures in the Bill are estimated in the impact assessment at somewhere between £4.8 billion and £500 million, with the best estimate being £1.7 billion. If a measure similar to this were brought in, it would make cost-neutral to businesses the implementation of the measures in the Bill. Of course, there would be a cost to the Government, but this is, after all, a government policy.

My Amendment 45 seeks to do the same sort of thing but without the creation of a tax incentive. It would require the Secretary of State to provide grants or funding schemes for voluntary and community organisations. This amendment goes to my earlier group of amendments, seeking to mitigate the impact on voluntary and community organisations. This is quite similar to the debate about general funding that the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Suttie, spoke to on the last day of Committee. I will not expound at length on that now, but I would be grateful if the Minister could outline what consideration was given to providing financial support to voluntary and community organisations, whether the Home Office considered the Bill’s impact on volunteering and people wanting voluntarily to run village halls and community centres, the Home Office’s estimate of any impact on recruitment—or whether the issue was not considered at all. If the Minister does not have the answer to hand in his bundle, I would be very grateful if he wrote to me. I would also like the Minister to outline what discussions have been had, if any, with the Treasury on creating a tax scheme of the type I advocate in Amendment 40. I beg to move.

[Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise in advance. The Minister will tick me off for this being a Second Reading intervention, and I should have been here on Monday to say it, but I would like briefly to give a small plug for an organisation that has not been mentioned at all at this stage: the National Protective Security Authority. This is an arm of MI5 which gives free advice on personnel security, physical security and other forms of security. It is informed by a knowledge of terrorist and state threats. It is based not only on the understanding of those threats but on commissioned research from universities. It will give advice for free—paid for by the taxpayer—to all sizes and shapes of organisation. When we are talking about the costs of this, and in the earlier stages about the so-called cowboys giving advice, I recommend that whoever is affected by this legislation looks at this website and seeks this free advice as their first step. I am sorry for the commercial plug and apologise for intervening at this stage.

--- Later in debate ---

That covers, I hope, the financial support for businesses and community organisations. Both, I think, are answered by the fact that, even now, we assess that only 13% of the community and village halls that the noble Lord is concerned about will fall into the scope of the Bill. Raising the threshold from 100 to 200 has taken out a significant number of lower-usage village halls, et cetera. We have had to make that determination in response to consultations and Home Affairs Select Committee scrutiny, picking up the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and others before me did a considerable amount of work on in the Home Office. We are coming to the point where simple, low-cost, cost-estimated primarily to time is where I would leave the noble Lord. The tax relief and financial grants are not really a direction of travel that the Government are going to go down.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who spoke, and particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for reminding us of the existence of that part of the security service. It could provide very useful assistance to the SIA, which, as we know from other groups in this Committee, is not really ready for the role that this legislation is going to thrust upon it. I have no doubt that that body at MI5 will be very helpful.

I am also grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for supporting these amendments, and I share his sentiment that a large number of faith-based institutions that operate on a shoestring budget are going to struggle to implement the measures in the Bill. On the same theme, I wholly endorse the amendments from my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister, particularly in respect of small arts venues and theatres and, more generally, in terms of meeting the additional expenditure to be imposed on local authorities. As ever, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower, who always speaks great sense.

The Minister makes many fair points. The Bill did pass through the Home Office when I was there, but I was the Minister for Migration and Borders. I know the Bill was the subject of considerable comment and constructive criticism by the Home Affairs Select Committee. The Home Office responded to the consultation and the Bill was reconsidered. There was a consultation paper and the decision taken to increase the threshold was done in light of the consultation that was launched by the last Government. I suspect that, had we been there, we would have made that sensible decision too. As I said in my earlier speech, I commend the Government for raising that threshold to 200.

That having been said, I do think the Government should ensure some sort of short-order post-legislative scrutiny to ensure that the burdens imposed by this legislation are not very damaging to our micro-businesses and small communities. I know there is always a measure of post-legislative scrutiny, but I would be very grateful if the Minister could write to me just to confirm what arrangements are in place in relation to this Bill—and, ideally, before Report, so we can consider how best to see whether there is an impact, as I fear there may be and, if there is, what measures we can take to ameliorate it. With that, I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 40 withdrawn.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

28: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Private sector engagement in counter-terrorism measures(1) The responsible person for any qualifying premises may fulfil their duties under sections 5 or 6 by contracting with an accredited private security provider to conduct risk assessments and provide ongoing security services.(2) The Secretary of State must maintain a list of certified private security firms authorised to provide such services.(3) Security providers must comply with the national guidelines for counter-terrorism risk assessments and be subject to regular audits by the Security Industry Authority.”Member's explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment which seeks to explore reducing the burden on public sector resources by encouraging the engagement of qualified private security companies. It leverages private expertise to enhance the resilience of high-risk premises against terrorism threats while maintaining government oversight to ensure quality and compliance.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I turn to the amendment in my name, the sole amendment in this group, which concerns private sector engagement in counterterrorism measures. The Committee will be aware that this amendment, as part of my approach in other amendments proposed to the Bill, seeks to soften the effect of the measures in the Bill on small businesses and community ventures.

As the Committee is aware, on page 2 of the Government’s impact assessment prepared by the Home Office, in the “Summary: Analysis & Evidence” section of the policy options signed off by the Minister, is a box giving the range of costs to business of implementing Martyn’s law. The high estimate is £4.87 billion; the low estimate is £563 million, and the Home Office’s best estimate is £1.785 billion. These figures, which are to be carefully borne in mind by the Committee and House in considering the Bill, are the subject of considerable concern on these Benches, particularly given how they must chime with the other problems presently faced by businesses and in light of the Government’s growth agenda.

That disquiet is amplified, particularly in light of the debate we have just had, by the detailed analysis provided by officials on how they reached those figures. On page 27 of the impact assessment, at paragraph 119, we are told that, in drawing up these figures:

“The cost of training is assumed to not be financial, there is no prescribed format requiring the use of particular resource and some training material will be provided for free”.


Then we are told:

“It is assumed that all sites will take up the offer of free training material. This means the only applicable cost”,


taken into account in reaching those startling appraisals of the cost,

“is the loss of employee time when doing the training”.

We are further told:

“Some large businesses may use a commercial provider, which would increase the costs to business. This has not been estimated within the impact assessment due to the absence of specific data on the number of sites who will use a commercial provider for training and a lack of understanding of the costs charged by commercial providers for this training”.


This amendment attempts to address, in some part, the problems that arise from having an imposition on small businesses. It seems most unlikely that small businesses will take up solely free training offerings. Given the level of penalties imposed by the Bill and the criminal liability, they will look to private contractors to advise them on the implementation of measures to meet their new duties under the scheme. As my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, pointed out, some of these may be snake-oil salesmen or racketeers.

The amendment is designed to allow a business faced with an obligation to take steps under the Bill to contract out, to a degree, their duties under Clauses 5 or 6 by using an accredited private security provider to conduct risk assessments and to provide ongoing security services to the firm. This would have two effects. The first would be to allow businesses to use the private security sector to help them meet their security objectives. This would result in a better set of security plans. Through the operation of the free market in the provision of such advice, it would also allow a company or community venture seeking such assistance to choose a package that they could afford.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by re-emphasising the purpose of this legislation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said that she is unconvinced of the need for it. This legislation will save lives. There are people who died because people did not know what to do when a terrorist attack occurred, and there are people whose lives were saved and who are walking the streets today because people took action when a terrorist attack occurred. The purpose of this legislation is to put in place a framework so that individuals know, if a terrorist attack occurs, what their responsibilities are in that moment; it is not to stop terrorism per se, or to worry about what happens afterwards to the perpetrators, but to stop terrorist activity damaging individuals’ lives in that moment. That is the purpose of this legislation.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, has brought this amendment forward constructively, but I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Elliott, that it will dilute responsibility, because there is a named person and that named person is a named person whether or not they subcontract to a security consultant. It will increase the very cost that the noble Lord has been seeking to reduce during the passage of the Bill to date. It will add potential burdens, on small organisations in particular. It will create a market for the very snake-oil salesmen that this Committee is trying to avoid engaging with. It will set standards which are unrealistic when compared to the standards being set by the Home Office and/or the Security Industry Association. It will sow confusion, and it will put burdens on the very people who the noble Lord, deep down, wants to make sure do not have such burdens.

The Home Office’s whole approach is to try to make sure that the provisions in Clause 5 for the smaller tier, and the provisions in Clause 6 for the enhanced tier, are in place and can be simply understood and embedded in good practice. That is certainly true for the enhanced tier, because, by and large, it is made up of professional organisations that will embed the requirements in their day-to-day activity. For smaller organisations, it is about a simple level of guidance and support, which has a legislative component in that someone is responsible. Someone needs to make sure that measures are in place, such as simple evacuation, invacuation, shutting windows or hiding under a desk—whatever is appropriate for that local provision—without the need to have expensive tailored security provision on top. The cost estimate we have put in the Bill is around £330 for the standard tier, and that is in time, not necessarily in cash.

The noble Lord’s proposal would create confusion. Someone would undoubtedly say, “I have to have a consultant”, and someone would undoubtedly pay a consultant, and then the next village would say, “They’ve paid a consultant. We have to do the same”. The next village would say the same, and the costs and the burden would rise on those businesses, when the requirements of the Bill are actually simple and straightforward.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Does the Minister not think that, for example, a village hall that has developed a terrorism action plan along the lines of that required by Clause 5 will want to test that to ascertain whether it meets the requirement before the Security Industry Authority comes to inspect it? In the event that it is inspected and its plan is found wanting, it becomes liable for the heavy penalties that we see later in the Bill. It is surely a natural human reaction to want to test that, and they will do it by going to the private market. Is it not sensible to build into the Bill a measure that allows them to do that? It is simply going to happen. People are going to want to test their plans. Surely he must understand that.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I would argue that the way to test those plans is to test them against the Home Office guidance and the security industry guidance. It is not potentially to go out and say to Mr or Mrs security consultant, “Please come in at an exorbitant cost to check that the five exits that we’ve got in this village hall and the plan I’ve put down to work on them meet the requirements of the Act”. The Bill has been determined in such a way that the Home Office does not believe that the requirements are onerous for the standard tier organisations, and even for the enhanced tier the anticipated cost is around £5,000. That will be standard practice for a large arena or large organisation, without the requirement to have those further security consultants test it accordingly. In my view, though the House will determine this in due course, the amendment would dilute the responsibility on the responsible person for bringing forward those plans in the first place.

I say to the noble Lord that I know why he has done this. All the way through the Bill, he has argued to reduce the burdens on small organisations, but this amendment would simply increase those burdens. It would create uncertainty, jealousy and cost, and it would not achieve the objectives that he said. I hope that he will not at any stage, either now or on Report, bring this amendment back for this House to determine.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate on the amendment, particularly the Minister. I might just address one or two of the points raised. In answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, yes, the accreditation referred to in my amendment is the same as the certification.

I turn to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. Of course, I do not seek to replace the contingent liability on a contractor in contract law for faulty advice or workmanship in the floor example that he provided. I am suggesting more that the contractor would share the liability under the statute—the daily penalties and the financial penalties that can be imposed by the SIA and the criminal liability under the Act, which I think is separate from ordinary contractual liability, which would be recoverable under a civil action in the courts.

However, I am grateful to the noble Lord for pointing out and reminding me of the passage in the Saunders report saying that the advice provided needs to be clear and to assist the parties that receive that advice. That is exactly what my amendment seeks to achieve. The reality, as I sought to argue to the Minister a moment ago, is that bodies subject to duties under the Bill will look for advice because of the penalty regime, particularly the contingent criminal offence, which would fall upon the responsible person. One therefore expects that there will be a market for advice, and it is important that it is regulated to prevent the snake-oil salesmen that noble Lords across the Committee have expressed an intention to avoid.

I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Davies for his support for my amendment, and to all other noble Lords for contributing to the debate. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 28 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, and that in the name of my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower.

In the Manchester Arena Inquiry report by Sir John Saunders, the Security Industry Authority came in for considerable criticism. I refer particularly to paragraphs 3.25 to 3.38 of volume 1 of his report. In particular, the inquiry found that there was a lack of effective enforcement measures by the SIA, and this gives rise to considerable concerns about the readiness of the SIA to undertake this task. In previous groups, the Minister has said that one of the purposes of the two-year implementation period is to get the SIA ready for this much greater task. One of the points raised by the amendments in this group is that the SIA is compelled to consider other aspects of information which may be provided by local authorities. I suggest to the Committee that that is a useful and beneficial thing for the Bill to consider.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their amendments and contributions to the Committee. I think I have said already that guidance will be produced by the Home Office and by the Security Industry Authority. I do not need to go into the detail of that, as I have already covered it.

In relation to that, importantly, on Amendment 30, from the noble Baronesses, Lady Suttie and Lady Hamwee, besides investigations and enforcement, a primary function of the Security Industry Authority will be to advise, educate and support those who fall within scope of the legislation. That is part of its role. As well as the general overarching role, the SIA’s guidance will look at how it can exercise those new functions. It already plays a significant role in safeguarding the public, through the regulation of the private security industry. We believe that it has a wealth of experience in inspecting and enforcing legislation which better protects the public.

I accept that the regulator implementation programme, which is the nub of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, is in the early stages of development. However, the Government are clear that we expect the SIA to engage in work with existing public safety bodies—this goes to the very point that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, endorsed—before this new regime comes into effect.

It is important that the provisions under Clauses 5 and 6 are set down, but they have a crossover of responsibility in certain areas, as the noble Lord and the noble Baroness indicated. Ultimately, the SIA has a responsibility to regulate the functions of this Bill. The guidance will ensure that that aligns with existing requirements, so far as is relevant to the SIA carrying out its regulatory functions. Therefore, while the amendment highlights this area, I hope it is one that is not developed further, because existing proposals in the Bill, and in the intention I have given, mean that the SIA has responsibilities which I hope are clear.

Amendment 31 would place a statutory duty on the SIA to consult with stakeholders in different sectors. The amendment would require the SIA to consult in relation to requirements at contiguous premises, premises within other premises, and areas within the vicinity of buildings. I hope I have already set out that we recognise the importance of communication and that understanding the impact on affected sectors is pivotal to ensuring effective implementation. This includes the operational guidance to be issued under Clause 12 by the SIA and the statutory guidance I have referred to several times issued by the Home Office under Clause 27. The Government do not expect that the SIA’s operational guidance will address matters specifically set out in the amendment, such as premises within premises, as it will relate to its functions.

Furthermore, it is already the Government’s clear expectation that the SIA should engage with relevant stakeholders on its guidance, where appropriate. “Relevant stakeholders” means a whole range of bodies, potentially including local authorities. Again, I hope that we do not need to place a statutory duty on the SIA, because that will be part of its core business, as directed by the Government under this legislation, in the event of it becoming law downstream.

Amendment 32 has been tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. I hope I have given sufficient reassurance that the Home Office and the SIA recognise the value of engagement on the implementation of the important legislation before us. The department has already worked with local authorities as key stakeholders, and we expect that to continue. I know what the noble Lord’s intention is with this, but the question is whether we place a statutory duty on the SIA to notify local authorities of the guidance, as opposed to the SIA doing it as part of the general consultation.

The guidance will be published and will be publicly available. I am hoping that the SIA will give appropriate communications to accompany publication. This publication should be no surprise to local authorities, because, two years downstream, when it is potentially implemented, there will be plenty of opportunity to have that discussion.

Amendment 36A is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I understand that the intention is to clarify the purpose of Clause 27(4). As I have already set out, the Government are acutely aware of the need to provide help and support in complying with the requirements of the legislation through guidance under Clause 27.

Clause 27(4) applies where it is alleged in proceedings that a person has contravened a requirement imposed by Part 1 of the Bill. In such a case, the clause provides that the person may rely on proof they acted in accordance with this guidance as tending to establish that there was no such contravention. The intention of the clause is to provide comfort and reassurance to those responsible for qualifying premises and events, as it allows the person to rely on proof that they acted in accordance with the guidelines as showing them to have likely met the relevant requirements. It will not provide absolute proof but will be given the appropriate weight in proceedings, as the circumstances and other evidence must be. All of those things will be taken into consideration.

The noble Baroness’s Amendment 36A would put beyond doubt only that a person may adduce evidence to that end. The effect of this would be to provide a lesser level of protection to someone faced by allegations than is provided for by the current drafting. I do not believe that is the intention she had in tabling this amendment. Furthermore, the clause has precedent in other regulatory regimes, namely, the Building Safety Act 2022. Its inclusion recognises concern about the implementation of what would be a novel regime.

I hope that, with those explanations, noble Lords will not press their amendments at this stage and accept the comments I have made from this Front Bench.