Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill (First sitting)

Chris Murray Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)]

Q Thank you both for coming; I echo the words of everyone else this morning so far. Are there any recommendations from the Manchester Arena inquiry that this Bill would not address?

Figen Murray: The Manchester Arena inquiry obviously had Martyn’s law as one of its recommendations. If I remember rightly, Sir John’s words were that it is needed as a matter of urgency. I think he referred to training, and he also recommended—which is certainly not covered in Martyn’s law under the standard tier—that people have lifesaving training. That is not for debate in Martyn’s law at the moment. But certainly the ACT training was part of the recommendation.

Brendan Cox: To add to that, the other thing that has been amazing—I think you are hearing from Mayor Andy Burnham later—has been the extent to which Manchester has already started to operationalise some of this, so when we are having the debates about proportionality, we can consider some of the real experiences of businesses that are already implementing this. It is worth really digging into that conversation, because what it shows is that lots of businesses that fall below the threshold are voluntarily taking part in the training and starting to implement Martyn’s law, because they know what it gives them. Who does not want their venue to be safer from terror attacks? It is something that organisations in general want to do, and that is why we have been seeing the adoption of this ahead of the legislation being published, even by venues that will not be covered by the capacity legislation.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

Q Can I ask a bit more about the reaction of organisations that do fall in scope? Can you tell us a bit about what their experience has been, any teething problems that they have had and how they have adapted in Manchester as they have implemented it?

Figen Murray: We had in Manchester a tabletop exercise that Nick Aldworth and I were allowed to witness. They invited us in and they gave us the results of that tabletop exercise. There were medium-sized businesses, small businesses, and venues and businesses even under the scope, and the feedback was that implementing Martyn’s law would actually be either no-cost or low-cost and that it would enhance, in a lot of cases, customer experience, because people would feel safer. The most onerous thing, in some people’s opinion, was to ask their staff to do the 45-minute, free-of-charge ACT e-learning training. Basically, they had to pay one hour of staff wages, but on the whole, they felt it was good and the staff felt better having that knowledge, because they felt better equipped to deal with a crisis.

In fact, some of the venues in Manchester were also saying they do regular real-life practice of lockdowns, for instance. For some reason, Manchester has really embraced it. A few years ago, I got called into a council meeting and they basically said, “We want to support you. What can we do?” I just looked at them and said, “Don’t wait for the legislation. Just do it anyway.” And Manchester did. They worked together with counter-terrorism police and put on the free-of-charge, once-a-month, three-hour, face-to-face ACT training. The sessions are always oversubscribed; they are very well attended.

Brendan Cox: I think that the fact that it has been taken up so strongly belies some of the idea that this is a huge burden on businesses. Of course, with any methodology like this, you can come up with a costing for how much the opportunity cost of doing x, y or z is. You have the big public campaigns around “See it, say it, sorted.” Of course, there is a cost with that. You could measure that cost through the amount you spend on it, the opportunity cost of the things that people could be doing while they are listening to it, the distraction cost—there is a whole way in which you could come up with a very big figure, but the reality is that is a proportionate response to what is a very substantial threat when it happens. As Figen mentioned, our threat is substantial at the moment, and that is therefore the proportionate response that we are trying to come up with.

In the conversations on and implementation of this in Manchester, one of the reactions we got, which was a broader reaction from the public as a whole, was, “Doesn’t this already exist?” The public expect that public venues would have an obligation to keep you safe. You have an obligation on the temperature that you need to keep food at, the number of toilets that you have and to fill in your tax return, but you do not have any obligation to keep your often paying customers safe from a very substantial threat, which is judged to be substantial by the Government. That is a massive loophole, and that is what this Bill helps to fill.

[Chris Murray]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

There are no further questions, so I thank both witnesses for their contributions this morning. We will move on to our next guest, who is Andy Burnham.

Examination of Witness

Andy Burnham gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)]

Q The whole country saw how Greater Manchester came together after the arena bombings, and we have heard about the importance of not letting the memory of the event affect how we live our day-to-day lives. I wonder whether you can talk about the buy-in from local people and local communities. How important is it to the people of Greater Manchester and the city that lessons are learned and this legislation is implemented?

Andy Burnham: Mr Bishop made a point about recommendations from the Manchester Arena inquiry. The deputy Mayor, who is sitting behind me, has led a whole process to look at implementing every single one of those recommendations—to the letter. As I have said, what happened on 22 May 2017 has changed the city, but not in the intended way. It was intended to divide us, but it brought us together, as you have just recognised. It was also intended to weaken us, but in fact it will leave us with stronger arrangements. At no point in this process have I seen anything other than overwhelming public support for what Figen has called for. The public support has never been in any doubt whatsoever.

I want to come back to the point about the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service. You may remember that, on the night, there was confusion within the fire service about what to do, and it took a long time to arrive at the arena. The service has gone through a painstaking, difficult exercise about what happened and how, and it is a very different organisation as a result.

I want to come back to this point: the role of fire and rescue services is not clear. We, along with London, are the only two fire brigades in the country to have put in place arrangements for all our firefighters to have training in marauding terrorist attacks and to have the capability to respond. That is not the case with the others. Again, I had no resistance to that training from the firefighters or the Fire Brigades Union; everybody saw that it was the right thing to do. But we are now in a position where neighbouring fire and rescue services do not have that capability. It is unclear what happens in an incident, and it should not be unclear.

The Greater Manchester experience is that we have done everything that this legislation is asking, and more. We continue to challenge ourselves and do more, but it has to be standardised nationally for the reasons we have given around the nature of the threat. The message from us is that none of it has been resisted or too difficult to implement with our public services. There is strong public support. I come back to what I said earlier to members of the Committee: please do not let this Bill be watered down any further. If anything, it should be strengthened. Amendments should be coming forward to strengthen it. The risk is that smaller venues will become the ones that are more targeted if we leave that flank open, and I hope that we will not. I think that the standard tier should go back down to venues of 100 or more.

[Chris Murray]

Q I would like to ask about the impact that you think the legislation will have on events. My constituency is in Edinburgh. We have the Edinburgh festival in August, where suddenly we have 5,000 events taking place in one month and 50,000 tickets being sold in venues across the city. How do you think this legislation will help cities like Edinburgh, where we have large-scale events—especially when they are distributed? I should also say that Edinburgh city council is very supportive of this legislation. It recognises its power.

Andy Burnham: Thank you, Mr Murray. We are really grateful for its support. A lot of collaboration is going on between Edinburgh and Greater Manchester at the moment; the director of the festival was with us just last week.

I have visited Edinburgh festival for the last three years, and I am left in awe at the arrangements in place there because of the depth of experience in Edinburgh of running major events with many facets and many venues, and because of the number of visitors who come into the city. There is a lot to learn from Edinburgh city council and how it manages things. The fact that it supports the Bill should say something. Those who have been to the festival know that a whole range of venues are used—all kinds of sizes. That is the point I made a moment ago in response to Mr Roca: if the smaller venues were not covered by the Bill, they would potentially become the ones more at risk and more targeted.

The point is about the whole ecosystem of venues, from the smallest to the biggest. Measures should not be disproportionate, sure, but if the Bill went through in its current form that would cause me anxiety, given my position. I would have to look at the venues that were not covered. To go back to the question that Linsey Farnsworth raised, that would not make the job of Edinburgh city council, Manchester city council or any other local authority easier. Having clarity in terms of the arrangements is not going to make the job of local authorities harder—the more arrangements are standardised, the better.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Thank you, Andy, and thanks also to Figen and Brendan. You all make a really powerful case for why strengthening security actually helps business—it is not just helping the public, but helping businesses to thrive because then they can attract people in a secure, safe environment. However, at the same time, some smaller, independent, live concert promoters, very small-scale people, are worried about the impact on them.

The reason Martyn went to this gig was the reason a lot of people go to gigs—they love music. You love music. Greater Manchester, and Manchester itself, is fantastic for music. Could you explain what is happening in Manchester locally to reassure some of those small-scale live music people, who are saying that this could put them out of business—“We’re not the big boys, we’re not the arena, how can we cope with this and make everyone feel safe without changing our way of life?” As Brendan said, not changing our way of life is ultimately the purpose of this legislation.

Andy Burnham: It is a good question, Paul, and it goes back to the guidance for local authorities. The way we work—when I say “we”, I am thinking of the leader of Manchester city council, Bev Craig, and deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, Paul Dennett; people you will know—is that we get close to the venues because we all love music and we are a music city region. You will know that there has been a threat to one of our venues night and day in recent times; at different points, we have had similar issues with other venues.

We cherish the infrastructure, and we work hard to keep it. We work hard to understand the issues that venues have, and how we can work in a practical way to help them. That is what I mean by getting close to the night-time economy—that is critical, and it is one of the things we do really well in this country. It is a big reason why people come and visit Britain: not just for the big arenas, but for the grassroots music scene as well. We had WOMEX, the Worldwide Music Expo, in the city last week; Councillor Besford has been very much at the heart of that, and he runs the English folk festival. We, like Edinburgh, often have events that involve the smallest and the biggest.

My point is: do not just impose things on venues. You have to sit down and talk with them and ask what we can do to help. This is my point about Greater Manchester Fire Rescue Service—if you have a capable fire service, they can go in and help. The blue-light services can help provide the training and help people comply with the measures in the Bill. This is not just about leaving venues on their own, saying, “Here is Martyn’s law, so get on with it even if it puts you out of business.” That is not how it is done. We are doing it a different way: get down there and listen to them all. They will all have different issues, so support what they do because they are important in bringing visitors to the city.

I am just giving you the Manchester perspective. That is the way we go about things. The music infrastructure in the city, and the broader entertainment infrastructure, is highly valued. There was an era when a certain nightclub was just left to close and there are flats there now. We do not think like that these days; we protect the infrastructure and that means supporting the venues. It is tough for them, so get close to them and support them. I appreciate that times are hard, but there are blue-light services everywhere that can help them raise their game from a security point of view.

I just think that we cannot talk ourselves into a sort of thing where it is all too big a burden. I can tell you from experience: a terrorist attack is a massive burden on a city and what it does challenges everybody at every level—and that is ongoing. Like Figen said, Manchester will never be the same again after what happened. It has changed us but it has strengthened us and made us more united, and as I say, I do not want any other city to go through that. The Bill is designed to prevent people going through that and part of what I would say is that the way we and Edinburgh do it is a good model for others to look at.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sonia Kumar]

Q Do you anticipate that certain types of community events or venues may struggle to meet the requirements due to the nature of their spaces, such as historic venues with limited security options?

Helen Ball: We have had conversations with a lot of parish councils and parish clerks over the last few months. A lot of village halls are quite distinct in where they are, so there is some concern as to how they would actually be able to enact evacuation and lockdown procedures, particularly when you have just got a large room and you may only have one entrance and one exit. There is that level of concern.

A lot of the problems that we have at the moment are more about the fear of the unknown; people have read the Bill and are looking at the worst-case scenario. We have tried to advocate—as a society and also as NALC, as part of our Martyn’s law working group—that it is a bit of a “Keep calm and carry on” situation, and that we can do this. A lot of it is a common-sense approach to security. The sentiment from our society is that the legislation should be welcomed and that regardless of whether there are bandings within certain buildings, we should develop a culture of terrorism awareness.

“What price is a life?” is the other comment that a lot of clerks have said of late. Why would somebody’s life be less important if they were in a building that has 199 people as opposed to 201? It is incumbent upon our sector to try to encourage a better culture.

[Chris Murray]

Q Could I ask about the responsibility being placed on specific officers? As we all know, in the days after a terrorist attack there is a lot of media attention and emotions are very high. What would it be like for the person responsible for compliance, or named as the one supposed to do something that might not be a very big part of their job or something that they had only received limited training for? What protections do you think would be in place for those officers to be prepared for that and to navigate that scenario?

Helen Ball: Let me give you a bit of my perspective as a practitioner. My involvement in that kind of terrorism management came two weeks after the Manchester bombings, because we were due to have an outdoor music event with 12,000 people in our park. We were starting to get comments from the public such as, “I don’t think I’m going to feel safe. Can I have my money back?” It was incumbent upon us to sit down with the event organiser and their security team, and the counter-terrorism officers and the local police, to put measures in place that would reassure the public that they were safe.

A lot of the kind of things in the current Bill are things that we have been doing. In effect, I, as a town clerk, have had to take on that kind of responsibility. I already had the responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, so it is not as if it is something brand new to us; it is just a different vein.

From our sector, clerks are exceptionally resourceful individuals. They have to be, because they have lots of plates spinning at any one time. So the right kind of guidance would be beneficial—perhaps guidance that we could work within the sector, including the security industry authority, to have very specific guidance that would help our fellow clerks. I think they would take it on board, because they see that this is an important piece of legislation that we have to work towards.

Keith Stevens: In the Bill, it would be good to have slightly more clarity on the responsibilities. If the parish council owns the land, and it is let out for an event, whose responsibility is it? Yes, I think it is down to the parish council to make sure the event organiser is carrying out everything per the rule, but whose responsibility is it if that person says, “Yes, I’ll do all that.”, and then does not? It is one of the slightly grey areas that could be made clearer.

[Chris Murray]

Q We have talked about the resourcefulness of town clerks. We have clerks in Scotland; I know the officers and they are very resourceful. I know local authority resourcing is a huge issue. Is this adding another layer of responsibility that you are concerned about, or is this another responsibility that is quite capable of being absorbed in the current broad resource envelope?

Helen Ball: It is something that has evolved over the years. When I became town clerk in Shrewsbury 15 years ago, when we were renting the park for an event, it used to be a case of, “Fill out the application form, send me your public liability insurance and the cheque, then drop the keys off when you are finished—thank you very much.” Now we have more stringent premises licenses that require us to ensure that there are event plans and security plans, and that they are communicated with emergency services and the emergency planning team. It has become a morphed role anyway that we have absorbed. I do not really see how Martyn’s law is going to add significantly to that. It just gives us more strength in the argument with event organisers that we have legislation backing us.

[Chris Murray]

It is reassuring to hear that. Thank you.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Q Thank you for giving evidence today. I represent a rural constituency, North Cornwall, which has 74 parish councils. I know from experience it can be really difficult to get parish councillors to stand for these positions. I am interested to get your views on how these new regulations may put off parish councillors from taking part in their local councils—if at all.

Keith Stevens: I don’t think so. One of the issues stopping people coming back or standing for councillor has been the standards regime. I was pleased that it was announced that that is being looked at, and it would appear to bring back the standards regime and the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I think that is the only reason why people have not come forward so much, and that is a growing problem not just for councils, but for charities, because of red tape and things like that. I think people will come forward and support their parish council on issues such as safety. People in the village have children and relatives, and they want to keep them all safe. That is where I think parish town councils are almost the key to safety in the community. They are the ones that know what is going on, and people follow their lead.

Helen Ball: I agree with Councillor Stevens. Parish councils are the beating heart of a community. The fact that they have community venues, parks and open spaces, as well as holding events in there, adds to the culture and the dynamic of that community. When you have that strong community infrastructure, you are likely to have a greater mandate from people wanting to stand. Both NALC and the Society of Local Council Clerks have regional structures, which means that we can cascade that enthusiasm and culture down to grassroots level.

Keith Stevens: I would just add that a lot of parish councils are custodian trustees for their village halls, and the village halls are run by a charitable management committee. In my view, it is beholden on the parish councils to make sure that all the community groups in their villages or towns also understand the effect of Martyn’s law. However, I have to mention that it will have a cost. There is not a cost on lives but there are a lot of smaller parish councils with a lower precept; the cost to them will increase, and we will need to undertake training programmes, which has been mentioned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Roca]

Q Have you a view on the designation of the SIA as the regulator?

Alex Beard: It puts additional responsibilities on the SIA, which needs the resources and expertise to fulfil those duties. It is a big step up—that is my No. 1 observation.

Heather Walker: And it needs the time to put this in place so that it is consistent and appropriate.

Paul Laffan: Certainly from our point of view, it is a good appointment. It is the logical one, given what it already does in the private security sector. Our only real concern would be around its—forgive me for using the wrong word—ability to pragmatically apply the risk assessment and the review of processes in what is quite a different industry and setting across much of live entertainment, versus the classic private security sector, but we are sure that that will come out in its guidance as it starts forming.

It would be great to have clarity in the Bill on how the SIA will interact externally, such as with public planning. As we strengthen our own four walls, if that shifts the attack vector to externals, with things like vehicle-as-weapon, we have very little control over the public spaces outside our buildings, yet we will introduce a crowd of people leaving after a show. HVM—hostile vehicle mitigation—is an example. That is something that we always push for in planning applications and it is very swiftly declined, fundamentally on the basis of cost and whether it suits the planning aesthetic of pedestrianised areas. It is about understanding how much power the SIA will have in enforcing, collaborating and engaging with external bodies on behalf both of the Bill and of us as private entities.

Alex Beard: Ensuring that there are no cracks between the obligations on individual institutions and the role of the local authority and the statutory authority is absolutely key. Even when hostile vehicle mitigation is accepted as required or desirable, the time lag in implementing it can be very considerable.

[Chris Murray]

Q We have talked a lot about the proportionality and opportunity costs that come with these changes. Could you say a bit about what it is like in your sector? If there were a terrorist attack, that would obviously be really awful for the venue and the people involved, but if the public more broadly did not feel safe going to venues, would that have an impact on your ability to operate? How sensitive is your sector to those fluctuations? Put another way, is the proportionality correct? The impact on your sector could be quite significant.

Heather Walker: Security is both a moral and a commercial obligation for our visitors and our staff. It is essential that the public and our staff feel safe in our building; that is an important part of their feedback and how we keep on attracting them. The reasonable practicableness is a very subjective view. As an example, we do bag searches for everybody who comes into the building. Some might feel that having security arches is reasonable, but we have to balance that with the fact that we are a theatre—we are providing entertainment and this is a social space to come into with your friends and family. All these things are about balance and assessment. Having a CTSA to guide us through that is certainly extremely valuable.

Stuart Beeby: Our view, looking across the United Kingdom, is very similar. Things are affected, and there is a groupthink. We can demonstrate with statistics how long it took people to come back into places of mass gathering for great entertainment: post covid, it has taken a long time. I speak as the largest operator of theatre in the UK. There will be areas, particularly in some constituencies, where there are still independent theatres run by local authorities. The challenge with the cost base in live entertainment is very real, given the national living wage, energy costs and just the costs of producing. There has always been a high bar, but with those three it is a bit of a perfect storm. Unfortunately, cost is a reality that makes people look.

As we tried to paint a picture earlier, when we talk about the formulaic, you could get the same effect by scanning the ticket, having the table, checking the bag, having another queue for bigger bags or maybe not even allowing bigger bags into your theatre. You can do all that. If you come to our theatre at the Lyceum, with Disney as our partner, where we are doing 2,100 people with eight shows a week, you will see dogs there. I do not use dogs at the Savoy or the Princess theatre in Torquay, but that does not mean that you are less safe. There is an assessment.

We have to constantly manage that message. We do customer feedback, and you are right that we get the two bookends: “You made us do a bag search, it was raining, it was ‘An Inspector Calls’, the average age was 65 and we were out in the rain,” versus, “You were rushing us through, I had a bag and the check by your security staff seemed cursory.” We are constantly having to balance it.

There will be a real challenge on cost, which comes back to the application. For us, I guess it is about being very clear. It needs to be effects-based in terms of how it is assessed and the mitigations you put in place, because good training and being professional are just as effective as somebody being poor and just trying to whizz everybody through an arch, which would create a lot of cost. That formulaic piece is key.

We are constantly managing the message that these are safe spaces to be, because in the theatre the average age is still higher. It is still that demographic that is 45-plus with more disposable income and, particularly in regional theatre with your matinées, there will be more retirees, so they are very receptive to trigger events.

[The Chair]

As no other members of the Committee have questions, may I thank all our witnesses for their evidence this morning? That brings us to the end of our morning session. The Committee will continue taking oral evidence at 2 pm, here in the Boothroyd Room.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Keir Mather.)