Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Committee stage
Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 8 similarly seeks to raise the threshold for mandatory compliance with the requirements of the Bill to

“300 people, or, if smaller”,

where

“the Secretary of State determines that the premises are at a heightened risk of terrorist attack”.

This is a more flexible measure than the amendments proposed by my noble friends, although I entirely agree with the sentiment of the speeches that we have heard from my noble friends Lord Frost and Lord Udny-Lister, and in an earlier group by my noble friend Lord De Mauley.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, observed a moment ago, the Government were entirely right to increase the threshold from 100 to 200, but I suggest that 200 is still too low and will cause disproportionate expense and disruption to small businesses. In particular, I will focus on the potential impact on community volunteering.

In engaging in the balancing act of the protections which this Bill will afford, one must look at the history of the type of terror attacks that we seek to address. As my noble friend Lord De Mauley observed in his remarks, they are largely urban and at large venues. While the Minister is right to say that attacks can happen at any premises at any time, it is also right to say that there is a greater risk at certain types of venues and in certain locations, and that is borne out by the history of terrorist attacks. It is therefore incumbent, I suggest to the Committee, that this legislation adopts a flexible approach to risk. I have sought to reflect that in my Amendment 8.

I suggest that we must have a proportionate approach, or this legislation will have the effect of closing largely community venues, much valued by people up and down this country. One needs look only at the Home Office’s own impact assessment, produced with the Bill. At page 9, the authors note that among respondents to the survey of premises with a capacity of 100 to 299—the owners of smaller premises, places of worship, village halls and community centres—only four in 10

“agreed that those responsible for premises within the standard tier should have a legal obligation to be prepared for a terrorist attack”,

and

“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”.


This Bill is a sledgehammer that is going to crack the nut of our village halls. I ask the Minister: if, two years down the line, after the implementation of these procedures, we find it is very difficult for village halls to find trustees and volunteers who are prepared to take on the legal obligations of the enforcement regime that this Bill imposes and those village halls start to close, what will the Government do to undo the damage wrought to our communities by the closure of these much-valued venues?

I strongly commend my amendment and a measure of flexibility to the Government and the Committee this evening.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, not for the first time in a debate on terrorism in your Lordships’ House, I have to say that I do not want to be the person who in a few years’ time says, “I told you so”. This Bill is about terrorism. If a terrorism act resulted in the deaths of 20, 30 or even two or three people in a hall that was holding a qualifying event that had 232 people, for example, in the audience, in both Houses we would be saying, “Something’s got to be done. We got this wrong”.

I remind your Lordships that one of the most notorious and most damaging terrorist attacks this country has ever seen took place in a public house in Birmingham. So the idea that we hold a sort of numbers auction on the capacity that qualifies under the Bill is, I am afraid, foolish and wrong. Indeed, I am very concerned about this debate on numbers, because it runs the risk of being part of a playbook for terrorists to read—and many terrorists do read very carefully, both on the internet and elsewhere, when they are making their decisions.