Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

The second part of Amendment 24B would ensure that the Secretary of State, who will be aware as time goes by what sort of times are in practice necessary, spells it out. The Secretary of State can list the factors to be taken account of—because, otherwise, “reasonable time” is going to be meaningless. It does not have to be too definitive, but it is common in the courts to give examples and factors in legislation of what will be a reasonable time or reasonable practice, and so on. What is reasonable for the tribunal, when looking at all the other pressures, may be hopelessly too long for a body with premises that it cannot use. I ask the Minister in all seriousness to consider the practical aspects of this and how it might be made to work.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendment 24B to Clause 11, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. Clause 11 requires determinations by a tribunal to be made on a perfectly reasonable list of subjects; I hope and expect that the tribunals would respond proportionately to the urgency of the questions asked. However, Clause 11 raises the responsibilities of the Security Industry Authority—SIA.

As those of us who are interested in the Bill know, it gives the SIA very new functions to which it is not yet accustomed—unlike anything it has done before. With that in mind, I have met and corresponded with Heather Baily QPM, who is the chair of the SIA. Although she has been very helpful, I remain unsatisfied at this stage with what we know about what the SIA is going to be doing. We know it is being given two years to learn the skills and measures it has to comply with and deal with, but we need something more than that before the Bill reaches Report.

I wrote to the SIA and suggested a list of issues it should inform your Lordships’ House about before we debated these amendments. At the very least, I urge the Minister to ensure, by Report, that the SIA—which I know has done a lot of work on the Bill already—sets out a proposed, not definitive, timetable for what it is going to do over the next two years to ensure that it carries out its responsibilities under the Bill. That would include giving information about the sorts of issues and how they would be raised by the SIA under Clause 11.

We are not going to have a complete picture of what will happen under the Bill, unless the SIA informs us in some detail. We need to know, as soon as possible, about what affected organisations and we, as the public and Parliament, are expected to accept from it as its responsibility under the Bill.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I will say a word about Amendment 24B. It is quite unusual for a tribunal or a court to be required by statute to deliver its judgment within a “reasonable time”. I can understand why the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, realises that a proposition of that kind—which is so general—requires definition.

That brings me to the second point, which is the power given to the Secretary of State to define the length of a “reasonable time”. The problem the Secretary of State faces is that if he gives a definition, it will have to last, presumably, until some further exercise of the power is resorted to. Looking ahead, it is very difficult to know what exactly the reasonable time would be. At the very least, I would expect that if the Minister were attracted by that amendment, it would be qualified by “after consultation with the tribunal”. To do this without consultation with a tribunal would be really dangerous because it might set out a time which, realistically, given its resources, the tribunal cannot meet.

I see what the noble Lord is trying to achieve, but it has difficulties. To try to define “reasonable time”, even with the assistance of a tribunal, is a task that would not be easily achieved.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I am grateful to the Minister, and for his assurance. Of course, I was aware of the substantial sum of money that is being given to the SIA to enable it to carry out these activities. However, if it is well in hand, surely we have reached the point at which at least an outline plan could be given by the SIA as to what it is proposing to do with that money? This relates to a number of amendments that we are going to be considering later, and I thought I would get my blow in on this early. I suspect that there are going to be real concerns about a regulatory authority that has never regulated anything like this. Surely it would be right for us to be given at least a two- or three-page outline of what its proposals are, because it must have at least reached that point.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am in danger of straying into a future set of amendments, or indeed a general Second Reading debate on the Security Industry Authority. I say to the noble Lord that the SIA currently has a very good record of processing licensing applications—93% within 25 days—and has an 86% satisfaction rating by individuals in terms of their interaction with the authority. Ministers are going to be accountable for the performance in the event of this Bill becoming an Act. We have said, particularly my honourable friend Dan Jarvis, the Security Minister in the House of Commons, that there will be key ministerial engagement with the SIA in helping to develop and shape that plan over the two-year period between the Bill potentially receiving Royal Assent, and its implementation by the SIA and this scheme becoming live.

We may have that Second Reading debate in later groups of amendments. I hope I will be able to reassure the noble Lord then that Ministers have taken decisions to put the SIA in the prime spot of the regulator. Ministers want that to succeed, and they will be making sure that the plans are put in place to make sure that it succeeds, because this legislation is meaningless without the regulation, delivery, oversight, guidance and training that we believe the SIA can put into place. We will revisit that downstream.

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for his contribution; I think he stole some of the lines that I was going to use. He made the very clear point that the tribunal has a responsibility for setting its timescales and its deadlines, and that it is not for ministerial direction to do that. The tribunal system is well established, with statutory rules and experienced judges and officials who understand the need to make timely decisions in a variety of contexts. It is these rules and processes that should determine how that tribunal operates: with appropriate parliamentary and ministerial oversight—certainly—through amendments to legislation relating to courts and tribunals.

I note the potentially positive objectives of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. He wants to see a definitive timescale set, but if we included that provision in the Bill, it would set an unhelpful precedent and cut across the roles of the Tribunal Procedure Committee and the tribunal procedure rules. I do not anticipate a large number of cases coming before a tribunal anyway, because I hope that—again, as with most of the issues in the proposed legislation—we can resolve these matters well downstream. In the event of an issue coming to a tribunal, it is right and proper—and I am grateful that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, mentioned this—that the tribunal itself is able to operate effectively, with its own well-established framework to deliver its own fair decision, and not be hampered by timescales set by legislation which may not anticipate what will happen two, three, four or five years down the line. Therefore, I will take support where I can get it and thank the noble Lord for his contribution.

The tribunal has an overarching duty to deal with cases fairly and justly. If an arbitrary time limit is imposed, the proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, may undermine that existing duty.

I hope that, in my response, I have given some comfort to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and that I have explained to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, why I wish them both not to press their amendments.

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[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.

[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.