Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I wonder whether the Minister and the advisers have been to Northern Ireland, where, for a long time, buildings have been designed for the exact threats he is talking about. I am not sure of the system, but I do not think that those designs originated from planning control or building control; they were brought on by the organisations themselves in order to provide protection. There must be lessons to be learned there on how best to stop these sorts of attacks; after all, although I hesitate to say it, we were under them for 40 years.

On the subject of the various organisations, including the SIA, we can point people in the right direction and get advice to them, but resources will have to be put into the communications between people and those organisations. The advice may be there but currently, there is not the manpower to communicate to the extent that will ward off terrorist attacks.

[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, I do not want to pour cold water on the proposal as it seems to be getting a lot of support, and I support the principle of it. I am very taken with some of the simple measures that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, outlined. However, they are not all simple measures. I have been on local authorities and seen how planners can get carried away with some of their proposals. All of a sudden, we are into not simple proposals such as those we have heard about today, but much more elaborate ones that would be impossible for the business or the community centre to implement.

We need to be careful about the proposal. I am happy with the principle, but the outworking could be much more difficult. I say in response to my noble friend Lord Brookeborough, let us not forget that a lot of the buildings in Northern Ireland that were protected against terrorist attacks were public buildings. That money was coming from central funds, not community organisations, churches, local football clubs or sports clubs.

I support the principle of this proposal, but I urge some caution as well.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, I think that this amendment has a lot of merit. It certainly raises some very important issues. Ahead of this Bill, I met with people from the insurance industry. They very much made the point that time and money could be saved by incorporating some of these security provisions at the design phase of public buildings.

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made a very powerful case for why this amendment would make sense. Clearly, retrospectively trying to put in measures for effective and safe evacuations and invacuations is frequently going to be harder and less cost-effective than building them in at the planning and architectural design stage for new public buildings. As others have hinted, this amendment is perhaps not for this Bill but for a future planning Bill, but it raises a common-sense and important set of issues. I look forward to Minister’s reply.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I am slightly concerned about this amendment. We have had, in previous stages of the Bill and in previous debates in Committee, concerns about the number of private contractors—the snake oil salesmen whom the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, talked about—who will crawl out of the woodwork and offer advice to people that they do not need, because either it will be common sense or there will be perfectly clear guidance issued by the Home Office and the Security Industry Authority that will make clear the sorts of things they need to do.

I am worried that, after all the discussion we have heard from His Majesty’s Opposition in Committee about the costs and burdens that will be placed on village halls, small enterprises and so on, they will now be encouraged by this amendment to go down the route of employing contractors who will seek to make a profit out of the arrangements, which will in fact add to the costs, when the reality is that they could do this themselves using the advice and guidance that we expect will be provided by the Security Industry Authority.

I am reminded of those companies that used to advertise themselves as being able to secure you a European health insurance card. I am not trying to raise any issue about the EU, Brexit or remain. This was, as noble Lords know, a system whereby all you had to do was put into the Department of Health’s website your name, address and national insurance number and you then got your European health insurance card, which would help defray the costs of falling ill within the EU. There were companies that would charge £15, £20 or more, simply for filling in the details you would provide them. I wonder whether the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Murray, might inadvertently create a market in which companies would recycle the guidance and advice issued by the Security Industry Authority and charge people for it.

[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I have listened to this amendment with some interest, and I understand the noble Lord’s reasoning for tabling it—sometimes such things require expertise. But I do not accept taking it away from public finances into the private sector, because the private sector will probably be financially burdened enough by this legislation.

My concern is that it might provide the opposite of the noble Lord’s intended idea. It might be very costly, as has been outlined, and you might not get the expert advice you need. But I do not disagree with the principle of allowing outside advice. That could be done through a training system for each individual company rather than being provided by an independent company. If there was a terrorist incident, one of the first things that might be asked is “What advice and what training did you take in respect of securing your premises and ensuring public safety?” So I understand the basis of the amendment, but I am not so sure that it is entirely there.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak on this group, but I will make a couple of points. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Murray, is not necessarily one I support, but the idea that snake oil salesmen are confined to the private sector means the fact that people are not aware of what is happening among NGOs, the voluntary sector and charities, particularly in terms of training. Goodness knows, there is a huge amount of guff being peddled and sold from that direction, so I want to at least acknowledge that it is not just private providers.

Even if I am not particularly moved by the amendment, it is also not entirely fair to suggest that it is trying to sell training certificates that will falsely imply that people will feel safe because they have had some accredited training. If I am honest, my concern about the whole Bill is that the public are being told that if we pass the Bill, they will be kept safe from terrorism. That is mis-selling.

I have raised these points throughout our discussions on the Bill. We face huge challenges when it comes to terrorism, extremism and keeping the public safe, and, of all the pieces of legislation we could bring in, this is the least effective and the most anodyne, and will have no impact at all on public safety. Yet it is heralded as being so important. So it is a bit rich to have a go at one amendment for doing that, when in fact it could be levelled at the legislation as a whole.