Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Debate between Lord Sandhurst and Baroness Suttie

Committee stage
Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 30 and 31, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee, are probing amendments that aim to clarify how the provisions in the Bill will complement or enhance existing legal requirements on qualifying premises.

In speaking ahead of the Bill to a number of organisations with an interest in it, we heard from the live events industry that it is already heavily regulated and subject to a number of legal requirements under existing licensing laws. Music venues, festivals and events are regulated under the Licensing Act 2003 with, where appropriate, highly developed counterterrorism measures secured by licence conditions and overseen by the safety advisory groups, in accordance with long established and authoritative guidance such as the Purple Guide. This is an important local dimension for a number of events. There will already be local regulatory and partnership structures for counterterrorism resilience. LIVE, the live music industry body in the UK, which has spoken to us about the Bill, has told us that for larger festivals measures have already been taken to protect visitors and workers from terrorist attacks. That is because every venue and festival that comes under LIVE has a premises licence, which means they are already considering counterterrorism, safety and security in the running of the premises or events. As part of that, venues and festivals already work closely with safety advisory groups, which take advice from local police forces and counterterrorism security co-ordinators. Amendment 30 therefore asks for reassurance from the Minister that account will be taken of that in preparing guidance and advice under the Bill. I am sure he will agree that it is important to try, wherever possible, to avoid duplication between this Bill and existing requirements under the Licensing Act, and to promote coherence between the two regimes as far as is practicable to do so.

We heard similar concerns from the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre, which has resulted in our tabling of Amendment 31. To be effective, it is crucial that the SIA understands the industries that it is overseeing, including theatre. In particular, it must be familiar with their operations and existing security arrangements. I ask the Minister whether it is the Government’s intention that the SIA will undertake engagement work with sectors, such as theatre, that will be affected by this new legislation to understand their individual complexities and how they currently work.

Paragraph (ii) of our amendment would require the SIA to take account of particular considerations relating to adjacent premises, premises within other premises and areas in the vicinity of buildings. The Bill defines “premise operator” as the freeholder or leaseholder and “event organiser” as the entity overseeing event delivery. However, some theatres operate within multipurpose venues, such as university complexes. Similarly, many venues hold multiple events concurrently and the security stance changes from time to time. Is the intent that the venue will be required to submit its plans for each change of activity or change of resource? It is important for the guidance to reflect how various duty holders in a multipurpose setting can co-ordinate procedural measures. We urge the Minister in his response to give as much clarity for that industry as possible.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

Having heard the opening speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, the one thing that seems clear to me is that there will be different bodies out there with different responsibilities and we will have the SIA coming in. It is important that, before Report, it is clear who will sit at the top and have the last word, because there may be competing interests from different authorities. I do not know what all the details are, but the noble Baroness has set this out. If it is to be the SIA, so be it, but there may be other bodies which know much more about important matters. There needs to be thought within government about how that is to be addressed with specialist knowledge and so on.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Debate between Lord Sandhurst and Baroness Suttie

Committee stage
Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

I shall make three quick points. First, I hope the noble Lord can in summing up this debate reassure the Committee about proportionality and that it is not the intention of this Bill to attack or penalise volunteers—it is to encourage volunteers to play their role fully in the understanding of what this Bill is about and the need to prepare for the eventuality of a terrorist attack.

Secondly, I have listened very carefully and I have a lot of sympathy on the issue of volunteers. I am a volunteer trustee on several boards and I know about the liability that you have as a trustee on a board. You do have personal liability—but that does not put me off, and I hope that it will not put lots of other people off. I cannot support these amendments, because I think they water down the core element of individual responsibility in the Bill.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

For what criminal liability is the noble Baroness as a trustee going to be liable, other than the criminal offence of fraud?

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

That is a fair point—but you are financially liable as a trustee.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

You can insure against that, and I am sure the noble Baroness is insured as a trustee.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

For me, the amendments water down a core element of the Bill, which is about individual responsibility—people taking responsibility for ensuring that an organisation or an event at a venue has thought about what it will do in the eventuality of an attack. That is the key purpose of this Bill.

Thirdly, it would be useful if the Minister could write a letter or bring forward proposals to illustrate how volunteers will be treated with due respect and that it will be understood that this legislation must not put them off, which is why an information campaign is so important. A public information campaign should reassure people.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Debate between Lord Sandhurst and Baroness Suttie

Committee stage
Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I will try to be as short as possible at this time of night. Schedule 2 excludes from the scope of the Bill sports grounds that are not designated sports grounds. So far, so good—but it is not straightforward. The exclusion for recreation and leisure in part 1 of Schedule 2 applies only where those attending are not members or customers who paid. If it is a members’ club, you are not excluded.

Furthermore, a sports ground is defined as being a sports ground within Section 17 of the sports grounds Act, or whatever it is called. The definition in that Act says that it means

“any place where sports or other competitive activities take place in the open air and where accommodation has been provided for spectators consisting of artificial structures or of natural structures artificially modified for the purpose”.

The reference to accommodation for spectators could well include a pavilion or some other fairly relaxed accommodation, with perhaps a bar attached and changing facilities, and so on. It does not have to be a pavilion as I understand it, which would include accommodation for 800 people. It is just a sports ground which has accommodation, because you are looking at the sports grounds Act.

So a question arises where there are quite large playing fields, a pavilion and a members’ club, and 200 people come from time to time to watch the match on Saturday against other clubs. It is not a lot of people, and children come, and everyone else. From time to time—because that is the wording in the Bill—there is a match against their local rivals, and they bring 400 friends along, and the home team have got 600, so you have 1,000. Are they going to have to search everyone who comes, and every car, and so on?

I am not saying that this is entirely wrong, but I do suggest that thought has to be given to how it will bite. What is the definition of an outdoor event or a sporting event of the sort I have in mind, such as football matches between local villages and towns? Cricket matches sometimes attract quite a lot of people. I am not talking about county grounds but just matches between two clubs that are old rivals on a bank holiday or something like that. This is all in the open air, in a completely unconfined space and, one hesitates to say, not on the highest level of the risk register. I am not going to tempt fate by saying anything else. I ask the Minister to consider this, certainly before Report.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, given the hour, I shall be extremely brief. I felt that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, made some very convincing points, but I am afraid we still basically disagree with most of these amendments, because we disagree with the premise that rural sports grounds are less likely to be attacked. I do not think that there is evidence for that—at least, I remain unconvinced that there is evidence.

My second point echoes that of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, about requesting sector-specific guidance. I think that that would be a very useful thing for the Minister to pursue. Having sector-specific guidance for sports grounds would perhaps help with some of the concerns that noble Lords on the Conservative Benches have raised this evening.