Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 14th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I know there will be many detailed discussions on that in Committee. Since the original draft legislation was published, we have sought to ensure that there was extensive consultation with businesses, with premises and with venues of all sizes. That is why there is a different approach, which I will come on to, for different sizes of venue, ensuring that the response that premises need to make is proportionate and recognises the detailed individual circumstances, which will be very different from one venue and one organisation to another. I will come to that point and that detail.

The legislation requires for the first time that those responsible for certain premises and events consider terrorist risk and how they would respond to an attack. Larger premises and events will need to take steps to reduce their vulnerability to terrorist attacks. For premises to fall within the scope of the Bill, it must be reasonable to expect that there may be 200 or more individuals present on those premises at the same time. In addition, the premises must be used for one or more of the activities specified in the Bill—for example, entertainment or leisure. For those premises that are in scope, a tiered approach has been established, with requirements varying. Events and premises where it is reasonably expected that 800 or more people may be present at once will generally be in the enhanced tier, and any other premises—those where 200 to 800 people may be present—will be in the standard tier.

Those responsible for premises in the standard tier will be required to notify the regulator and have in place public protection procedures to reduce the risk of harm to individuals in the event of an act of terrorism. It is important that those procedures are designed to be very simple and low cost. There will be no requirement to put in place physical measures in the standard tier. There are four categories of procedure: evacuation, which relates to the process of getting people safely out of the premises; invacuation, for example where we need to keep people safe within premises; lockdown, if a premises needs to be kept secure from an attacker who is trying to get in; and communication—simply communicating to all those involved, including staff and the public who might be at risk.

In recognition of the potentially greater impact of an attack on larger premises, those in the enhanced tier will be subject to additional requirements or public protection measures: monitoring for risks and indicators; security measures for individuals, which might mean search and screening processes; physical safety measures, where relevant, such as safety glass; and securing information to make it harder for people to plan, prepare or execute acts of terrorism.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I just ask, given that the atrocity in the Manchester Arena was caused by a terrorist coming in with explosives in a very prominent backpack, how the measures being proposed would have affected that scenario?

[Yvette Cooper]

We are being clear that it is not for the Government to specify precise arrangements for every venue. I do not think it would be appropriate to do so. Arrangements will vary according to the event. We know that many large venues already have procedures to search bags or conduct those sorts of checks. We are clear that this needs to be done proportionately, and according to the size of the venue and the arrangements in place.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

If I may pursue that point a little further, if what we are really talking about is explosions being carried out by suicide bombers among large numbers of people, the one thing that all those atrocities have in common is that an explosive device, which is invariably bulky, has to be carried in. Is that not the central point that everybody ought to be addressing?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. That is why one of the things we would expect is that premises have proper search measures, and particularly to ensure that there are security measures around the movement of individuals, but as well as the searches that might take place at an event itself, safety measures may also involve having monitoring procedures in place—for example, if the same individual has been back, circling a venue several times, and is behaving in a suspicious or inappropriate way. Making sure that staff are trained to recognise those kinds of risks and indicators may be an important part of keeping the venue safe.