Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in support of the Bill and a particular pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, who has a long and distinguished record in this area of policy. I share her concerns about the appropriateness of the SIA as a regulator and, as she is aware, I have a few of my own.

Because of my noble friend the Minister’s characteristically collaborative approach and his and his officials’ openness to discussion not only in this context but outside aspects of the Bill, I have had the opportunity, as other Members of your Lordships’ House who will speak in this debate had yesterday, to discuss aspects of the Bill with him at his invitation. I shared those discussions to some extent, but I do not intend to take up much time today on the details of that; I will wait to see how far those off-piste conversations get me before I decide what I will say further. But in any event, I thank him and commend him for his comprehensive and helpful introductory speech. I am very conscious that he will live up to the offer he has made to be engaging and collaborative.

When measuring the effectiveness of legislation, the simple law of cause and effect should be adhered to. We should always ask ourselves two questions. First, why is the Bill needed? Secondly, does it do what it purports to do and address the problem that led to its creation in the first place? I believe that this legislation offers an answer to both questions. As your Lordships’ House has already been reminded—as if a reminder were needed—it is tragedy that has brought us here today. I do not intend to rehearse the circumstances at length, but I pay my own tribute to Figen Murray, whose indefatigable campaigning, with others, is not only a model of its kind but reflective of her selfless determination to ensure that no other parent should have to suffer the same grief she has suffered. Indeed, that is itself an answer to the first question I posed. The Bill is necessary to help protect our people from co-ordinated malign terrorist activity, to protect their families from unimaginable grief, and to increase our collective preparedness for acts of terror where they seem feasible.

The answer to the second question I posed is less stark but none the less positive. As we heard, the Bill establishes a tiered approach, linked to the activity that takes place at premises or an event, balanced against the number of individuals it is reasonable to expect might be present at the same time. It does not, and does not purport to, prevent terrorism, save, perhaps, at the margins. That is the job of the police and the security services.

In recognising that, I note the extraordinary work of the security services in disrupting 39 late-stage terrorist plots since 2017. In that context, can the Minister indicate what percentage of those plots would have affected premises within the scope of the Bill? Again, I realise that it is not a Bill designed to mitigate terrorist activity but to ensure that staff and volunteers know what to do in the event of an emergency. I ask that question because, when reading proceedings in the other place and the briefings that I suspect we have all received—I do not think they were sent to me for any particular reason other than that I was on the list of speakers—the bombings of two Birmingham pubs in 1974 came to mind. The Mulberry Bush and The Tavern in the Town were the two pubs in question. I re-read some of the things I was familiar with, and the testimony from a survivor who was in The Tavern in the Town tells us that everyone who was in the pub was either injured or killed. That was 111 people in total, with similar figures tragically reflected in The Mulberry Bush. If that information is correct, neither of these pubs would have been within the scope of the legislation.

The briefing that I and other speakers received from Survivors Against Terror suggested that the threshold has significantly reduced the impact of the Bill and that we should support, as it does, reducing that threshold, either now or in due course, to 100 or below. I am not making a case for this; I am simply reflecting the case that was made to us all. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister is familiar with the detail of its advocacy for such an approach. Interestingly, the Birmingham pub bombings, and possibly other atrocities, support that approach too.

The iterative approach by which the Bill has emerged from its chrysalis phase under the last Government into the proportionate, measured and effective shape of the legislation we are gathered to examine this afternoon, is testament to the value of our proceedings. It is Parliament’s scrutiny—principally in the other place, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, reminded us—that has achieved this.

In July 2023, a previous attempt at this legislation was described as a “not fit for purpose” by the Home Affairs Committee, which also outlined serious concerns about its proportionality. I do not often praise them, but the previous Government received this feedback in a constructive spirit and launched a further public consultation to remedy these shortcomings, the findings of which enabled the new Administration to fashion this improved legislation.

This spirit of constructive cross-party unity around this Bill has its dangers—again, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, reminded us—but, from my perspective, it is not merely enormously helpful from a practical standpoint but also holds symbolic value in that, in response to the amoral exercise of terrorist violence, we show the value of quiet diligence and a willingness to work across the House to find the remedy for it.

One of the comparatively small areas of contention has been the existence of the discretionary powers afforded to the Secretary of State to reduce the numerical threshold for the standard tier from 200 to 100 people. I recognise that the current number has been chosen for good reasons, not merely financial but in terms of freeing small businesses and organisations, such as village halls and community cafés, from more than necessary regulatory burdens. But, while they are all equally important in absolute terms, some venues of equivalent sizes are at significantly divergent risk of terrorist attack: for instance, a pub or a café near a military base that habitually hosts off-duty soldiers incurs a more significant terrorist threat than a hospitality business located elsewhere. With the proviso that the responsibility for monitoring such threats lies elsewhere, is any scope being considered to take specific venues of this type into either the standard or the enhanced tier?

My final point of clarification at this stage in the debate is that, subject to some minor qualifications, the extent of this Bill is for the whole of the UK. However, it has implications for policy areas that are devolved. I understand that officials are discussing these areas. I know from my experience as Secretary of State for Scotland that that process has proven positive many times before in relationships between the United Kingdom Government and the devolved Government in Scotland, for example. Can the Minister confirm that these discussions will be appropriately supported by Minister-to-Minister dialogue to preclude any difficulties in this respect further down the track? They can arise very quickly.

Despite my few points of clarification, I emphasise that I support this Bill, its intentions and the way in which they have been reflected in the drafting of its provisions. As it stands, this legislation is referred to as the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, but we all know, as we were appropriately reminded by noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, in his speech, that it will forever be known as Martyn’s law. I believe we owe it to his memory, and to all those who have been victims or survivors of terrorism, to ensure that it undergoes that transformation as soon as possible.