Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Hamwee]

24: Clause 8, page 6, line 14, leave out subsections (5) and (6)
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is intended to probe the impact of Clause 8 in relation to commercial agreements, as highlighted by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation’s Note on the Bill, published on 9th December 2024.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I hope the Minister will not feel beleaguered or besieged by this amendment, which is a probing amendment prompted by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation’s note on the Bill published on his website.

Clause 8 is about co-ordination and co-operation. I have always found it a bit difficult to get my head around the notion of a statutory requirement to co-operate, although co-ordination might be a bit different. The amendment addresses subsections (5) and (6), which place a duty on someone who is not responsible for the premises but who has

“control to any other extent of the premises”.

The duty is subject to enforcement by the regulator. The amendment is to ask what “control to any other extent” means. The Explanatory Notes say that it is intended to apply to the freehold owner of the premises or the superior landlord who leases to the person who is primarily responsible under the Bill.

The independent reviewer gives a particular example. The owner of a premises rents them out to the responsible person, who uses them, in this example, as a bingo hall with a capacity of more than 800. The lease has 12 months to run and provides that no alteration may be made to the structure of the premises without the owner’s consent. There are no plans to renew the lease—indeed, the owner of the premises wants to sell them to a developer. The responsible person decides that, to comply with his duty under the legislation, he must make a structural change, putting in a new exit where there are currently windows. The owner would be entitled to refuse the alterations, particularly because they would adversely affect the value of the premises. There are conflicting considerations. Does Clause 8(6) mean that the owner has a duty to give consent? It is practicable for him to do so, but is it reasonable? What is the policy intention? Does it matter that the lease gives the ultimate say to the owner over building alterations, or is the lease now overwritten?

All this amounts to a question whether Clause 8 is intended to overwrite commercial considerations. The clause has the capacity to impose new terrorism-related duties on many building owners and landowners, not only in the property investment sector. Its effect, the independent reviewer writes, is “uncertain”. He suggests that

“since the Bill imposes unprecedented terrorism-related duties on members of the public, and has the capacity to interfere with commercial relationships, the intended impact … should be clearer”.

In this group, Amendments 24A and 24B are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. I will leave it to him to introduce those. However, on Amendment 24B, in which he proposes that the tribunal must issue its determinations within a reasonable time—that being defined in regulations by the Secretary of State—I wonder whether he can tell the Committee whether this is entirely novel. He will know far better than I do, given his background and experience, whether the tribunal is required to meet a timeframe in other equivalent contexts. That is my question on his amendment. I beg to move my Amendment 24.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, in this group, I have Amendments 24A and 24B. Amendment 24A to Clause 10 is very simple. It gives the option in the case of non-enhanced duty—that is, standard duty—premises for the responsible body to delegate responsibility to more than one person. That will not dilute responsibility but, if we suppose that two people were given responsibility where it was a small and informal group, it would allow for a degree of flexibility. That is important in small, informal organisations which normally have fewer than 200 people but, in any case, fewer than 800 at an event. This is for smaller events—I do not mean that they are unimportant—and those in charge are likely to be smaller and much less formal organisations than for big places. If such organisations are to engage with all this, very often, if there are volunteers, person A may not be available because they may be on holiday, so we say let us have person B. It is not a big, structured organisation that we are talking about, necessarily.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I can see force in what the Minister has said, so I will not press my amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, will not pursue his amendment. As noble, and noble and learned, Lords will have understood, my question to him was a coded form of opposition. He said “It doesn’t matter that there’s no precedent”, but I think that it matters very much.

On my Amendment 24, I hope it is appropriate to summarise the Minister’s response as saying that there are two conditions for subsection (6) to apply: practicality and reasonableness. He is nodding—I say that so that we will get it into Hansard, because it answers the question raised by the independent reviewer. If we need to come back for any clarity, or if I am misconstruing him, perhaps there will be an opportunity.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for allowing me to intervene. I gave the words “reasonable” and “practical”; they are the tenors on which the legislation would be interpreted.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 24 withdrawn.

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It is clear that the burdens imposed by the Bill may be considerable. Allowing companies and small community ventures the opportunity to obtain assistance and pass on some of the contingent liability would reduce the impact, particularly on volunteers in small businesses. If they had contracted with a security provider and there was a breach, it seems there would then be a strong case for that provider to answer to and remedy the breach when asked to by the accredited body. For those reasons, I urge the Committee to consider the amendment closely.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord will have realised from the last debate, my noble friend and I are rather keen on accreditation of training—I will come back to that in a moment—but I should make it clear that we should not be using the term “kitemark”; I know I always do. Apparently, that is the term used by the British Standards Institution for products—as I discovered a while ago when I got this wrong in another context.

Accreditation of training is not quite the same as accreditation of the trainer or the provider. I am a little confused about some of this amendment: the terms “accredited” and “certified” are both used, and I do not know whether it is intended that there is a difference between them. When the noble Lord winds up this debate, perhaps he could tell us—that may be something or nothing.

I had written down, “Is this delegation of responsibility or liability?” The noble Lord just talked about sharing liability, but I do think that that is the direction that the Bill is going or should go in. I find quite a lot of difficulties with this amendment, although there are points where our thinking coincides. As it stands, I do not think we could wholly support it.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Murray, has been very careful in the drafting of this amendment and I respect the work he has done, although, like the noble Baroness, I do not agree with the amendment. It seems to undermine the fundamental purpose of the Bill, which is to place responsibility on those people who control premises. To create a box-ticking exercise of this kind, which is what it would amount to, would simply facilitate the payment of an annual subscription and leave it to some other company to take that responsibility.

The noble Lord will be aware, I am sure, that, when somebody employs an independent contractor to carry out part of the work they are contracted to do—for example, a floor layer to do part of a construction contract—the person who engages that independent contractor has at least a common-law responsibility to ensure that they take reasonable steps to ensure that the independent contractor is competent and does the work properly. This amendment would appear to remove that potential responsibility. All of us who have been involved in cases involving questioning the work of independent contractors will know that sometimes such claims can be successful because the employer has not carried out proper scrutiny of the independent contractor.

I also draw to the House’s attention paragraph 8.106 of Manchester Arena Inquiry Volume 1: Security for the Arena. Sir John Saunders recommended that

“consideration is given to amending the SIA legislation to require that companies which carry out security work which may include a counter terrorism element are required to be licensed”.

He recommended, therefore,

“that only fit and proper companies carry out this work”,

under an amended SIA licensing procedure similar to the procedure that the SIA already operates for security companies carrying out door security work and similar activities. If the aim of the Bill is, as I believe, to place clear responsibility on those who operate property to take reasonable steps to secure the public against terrorist acts, that responsibility should not be shuffled aside by an amendment of this kind.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, if there is not communication with local authorities on all the activities under this Bill, I would be horrified. They must have a major part to play. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, may be right in thinking that it needs to be put in black and white but, frankly, they are such central players that it had not occurred to me that that was required.

The two amendments to which my noble friend has spoken are about differences in the physical structure of premises and in how and when they are used. The briefing we had from the Society of London Theatre was about the get-out at the end of a run, when there is activity right through the night which affects adjacent premises. This is different from how other businesses are run. A good part of what we are trying to say is that none of us can know how every business operates. It requires wide consultation.

Now I look at Amendment 36A, as happens at this stage, it is not a very good amendment, but it enables me to ask how Clause 27(4) will operate. The subsection provides that, where there is an allegation that there has been a contravention of a requirement,

“proof that the person acted in accordance with … guidance … may be relied on as tending to establish that there was no such contravention”.

It uses the words “proof”, “relied” and “tending to establish”. The explanatory statement puts it better, but this probing amendment is to clarify the meaning of this and how it will operate in practice.