Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

25: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“TrainingThe Secretary of State may provide resources to support the provision of initial training and advice to support persons with control of relevant premises to establish the skills required to implement the provisions of this Act.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would permit the Secretary of State to make provision for training and advice to support relevant person meet their obligations under the Act.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, for adding their names to Amendment 25; I am delighted to see the noble Lord in his place. I remind the Committee of my interest as president of the Heritage Railway Association, with which I spent the weekend at its award ceremony in Newcastle.

Our Amendment 25 deals with training and public awareness. It has been grouped with Amendments 26, 27 and 29 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Suttie and Lady Hamwee, from the Liberal Democrat Benches. All these amendments are designed to ensure that those responsible for premises where public access is provided are aware of their responsibilities and are properly trained to fulfil their obligations under the Act. They are necessary because the somewhat neutral statement of requirements in the Bill masks the huge effort that will be required across the country by those who have to implement its provisions. This is particularly true of the great number of venues that will be run or staffed by volunteers.

I have two important points to make here. First, volunteers give their services freely, and this legislation imposes further obligations on them, which they may not be prepared to undertake in a voluntary capacity. The concern is that some of these volunteers may simply walk away from the need to undertake further obligations if they are perceived to be too onerous, leaving organisers with a choice of either employing more paid staff or, if that proves not to be possible, simply closing the venue or limiting the scope of events.

Secondly, in cases where volunteers are prepared to undertake additional responsibilities, they will need to be trained to fulfil the obligations imposed by the Bill. At least initially, such training will require the services of professional trainers, and there will be a cost to this. There is no indication in the Bill of how these additional costs are to be met. Your Lordships will readily appreciate that the costs of training will be hugely increased where volunteers are used, compared with paid staff. Where paid staff are used, and one security officer will be required, four or five volunteers may be needed as, in the voluntary sector, these tasks are shared between several people, commensurate with their age and stamina relative to the duties required of them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The purpose of this legislation is to provide guidance for the responsible person where buildings and premises are impacted at the time of a terrorist attack to ensure that the responsible person knows what to do. It is not designed to be worrying about the downstream elements of potential terrorism—although we all worry about these things. We all need to be vigilant on trains and in the street; we all need to understand what is happening; we all need to support the police and the security services. As professional forces, they are doing what they can to prevent an attack occurring in the first place—but, in the event of terrorists choosing to attack a village hall in my noble friend’s former parliamentary constituency, or another railway heritage site, what happens when that attack takes place? That is the nub of what this Bill is about.

The provisions under Clause 5, for smaller premises, and Clause 6, for larger premises, and the provisions on having a nominated person are linked to an understanding of what we do in that circumstance. The amendments today are about whether we need to ramp up training to do that. What I am saying to the House is that the Security Industry Authority and the Home Office will provide guidance on how to understand and implement that legislation, but the specific training and vetting and supporting specific training providers is not one of those obligations. Certainly, however, there will be guidance from the Secretary of State and the Security Industry Authority.

Indeed, as I was saying before my noble friend asked to intervene, there are government fact sheets currently. There is social media promotion of the leaflets and there is stakeholder engagement. We have had a massive consultation, in several incarnations, through different Governments and through various rounds of scrutiny by the public and parliamentarians. What we are trying to get to is an understanding of certain responsibilities that individuals have to have to make sure that there are protective measures in place in the event of an attack, which remains unlikely but could happen anywhere, at any time. When it happens, how do people understand their responsibilities and responses?

The two-year implementation period that we are likely to have before the Bill becomes implemented law, as opposed to Royal Assent law, will allow for wider discussion of the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, mentioned around whether we need to tailor specific advice or not and will include widespread dissemination of the type of information that the proposals of the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, have brought forward today. This is a valuable discussion to have, but the aim of the Government is to try to make this as simple as possible; to give guidance to ensure that it is as simple as possible; and not to overcomplicate things by making everyone think, “I have to have training to do this”. It is not about training, it is about responsibilities. Those responsibilities are set down in the Act and guidance will be given in due course.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his reply at the end of the debate. If I may, I will come back to that in a second. I first want to thank all noble Lords who have spoken, many of them on the other side of the Chamber from me, and one on my side, on the Back Bench here, because there is clearly great public support for the Bill. We are determined that it should pass and that it should work, but we believe that, for it to work effectively, there must be a commitment by the Home Office, the Security Industry Authority and other interested bodies to make certain that there are people in place in the organisations affected who are properly informed and trained in what their duties and responsibilities are going to be.

The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, spotted the fact that I had the word “may” in my amendment, and not “must”, which does, I hope, leave the Government with some discretion as to how it wants to implement the two-year consultation and implementation period. I hope that there was enough in my noble friend’s speech to indicate that, if it is going to be necessary for some form of structure to be established, it will be necessary not only for guidance to be available; the implementation of that guidance will need to be properly organised, either with public funds or through some other means of providing trainers who are able to do that. I hope that that opportunity is not ruled out and that there is going to be determination to ensure that the Bill, when it becomes an Act, will be implemented effectively and that the organisations that are required to implement it feel comfortable and are not affected financially by having to take on these responsibilities.

For the moment, I will of course ask the Committee to allow me to withdraw the amendment, but I hope that my noble friend is clear: there is a lot of support for the propositions that all of us have been making in this debate and I hope that we can come back to this at a later stage to see how we can implement them. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 25 withdrawn.