Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission.

I will also start by paying tribute to Figen Murray: tempered by her own experience of the tragedy of the Manchester Arena terrorist attack, her work promoting the principles behind the Bill has been nothing short of extraordinary. Not only has she campaigned, but she has researched the subject and was awarded an MSc by the University of Central Lancashire in 2021. Her thesis, which I have read—particularly as I am quoted in it—argues that legislation needs to be part of a wider initiative to inform the public, so that people can be empowered to be more vigilant and more conscious of their personal safety. A legislative framework and public awareness not only have to go hand in hand but are mutually reinforcing.

In 2016, Mayor Sadiq Khan—I congratulate him on his knighthood in the New Year Honours List—asked me to report on London’s preparedness to respond to a major terrorist incident. One of my recommendations, published six months before the Manchester Arena attack, was that, as a condition of licensing, venues should have to be reviewed by a police counterterrorism security adviser and to have taken the necessary action as a result of that review.

The point of this, which is implicit in the Bill before your Lordships’ House, is that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. Each venue is different and faces a different type of threat, but the principle of carrying out a basic assessment of the risk and taking sensible, proportionate security measures is simple, straightforward and should be unavoidable.

Concert halls, theatres and other venues must, by law, take fire precautions as well as meeting other regulatory requirements. It seems extraordinary, therefore, that, until the Bill passes, there is no requirement on them to take advice on reducing the risk of a terrorist attack and to take sensible precautions. In some instances, bag checks may be enough; in others, they may want to look at other measures. In extreme cases, metal detectors or knife arches may be more appropriate for the largest of venues. Similar rules should also apply to sports stadia, large shops and shopping malls.

This principle was accepted by the previous Government. The 2019 Conservative manifesto said:

“In the wake of the terrible events in Manchester in 2017, we will improve the safety and security of public venues”.


Last year’s manifesto was even more explicit:

“We will urgently introduce Martyn’s Law … This will ensure premises are better prepared for terrorist attacks by requiring them to take proportionate steps to mitigate risks”.


Thus, there is wide political consensus about this measure and, after the delays of the last few years, I am pleased that this new Government are at last taking action.

Let us be clear: terrorism has not gone away. Only last week, we saw the car ramming in New Orleans. Ken McCallum—also knighted in the New Year Honours List, and whom I also congratulate—warned in October that:

“Since March 2017, MI5 and the police have together disrupted 43 late-stage attack plots”.


“Some of those … were … in the final days of planning mass murder”,


at the point when the intervention took place.

The nature of the terrorist threat has changed. It no longer necessarily comes from organised groups. In my second report for the Mayor of London, completed three years ago, I warned that attacks are increasingly committed by individuals who operate alone, frequently self-radicalising and learning techniques online. Attacks of this nature are inevitably harder to detect and prevent in advance. They may also be opportunistic and mean that the range and nature of potential targets have widened to include far more venues that previously would not have been considered under any circumstances.

What is more, while the majority of those planning attacks would appear to be Islamist extremists, an increasing proportion are domestic and extreme right-wing. As Ken McCallum said, MI5 and the police are increasingly encountering would-be terrorists who are more volatile and with only a tenuous grasp of the ideologies they profess to follow, and it is becoming harder these days to determine whether a particular act or planned act of violence is ideologically motivated or driven by another factor such as mental health. It does not really matter what the ideation or motivation is: the effects are the same, and the needs for the sensible precautions being included in this Bill remain under all those circumstances, irrespective of whether it is traditional terrorism or something else.

Of course, as I warned three years ago, in online spaces, extremism is increasingly prevalent and, more worrying still, has become almost normalised; this point has just been made by the right reverend Prelate. This spills over into greater polarisation in the real world, which, in turn, can and does lead to violence. That is the context of modern terrorism, and that is why anyone can be a target. The first volume of the Manchester Arena inquiry reported:

“None of those directly concerned with security at the Arena … considered it a realistic possibility that a terrorist attack would happen there”.


Yet, as we know, it did, and 22 people were killed and 1,017 injured. That is why this Bill is needed.

Nowadays, it is taken as a given that the places we visit abide by health and safety regulations and will take appropriate fire precautions. It is surely not unreasonable to expect them also to take appropriate and proportionate protection measures against terrorist violence. Now, of course, better security checks and a Protect duty will not prevent terrorism, but they make soft targets harder. Where many people congregate together, they have a right to expect that the appropriate and proportionate measures to protect them will have been taken. The aim should be that all venues have their own Protect plan and, in the event of an incident, be geared up to guide and shelter those who visit. At the very least, those responsible should have considered the implications—how to evacuate, how to invacuate, what doors should be locked, and so on—and that this has been conveyed to those working in the location concerned. It is much better to have thought about it, even just a little bit, before an event happens than to be doing so in the heat of an attack.

The principle has to apply to other sectors as well. In the past, most places of worship—again, the right reverend Prelate has talked about this—have often seemed to operate on the basis that an attack would not happen to them because of their innate goodness, but they, too, need to plan and take sensible precautions. They have been the subject of attacks in Europe and elsewhere. Of course, it is difficult: places of worship are intended to be open places of sanctuary and peace, but that does not mean that they cannot be targets, and sensible and proportionate measures should be taken there too.

In my 2016 review, I made a series of recommendations on strengthening the Protect responsibilities, which I think remain valid today, including that the Home Office will need to provide more funding for CT security advisers around the country; that counterterrorism advice should automatically be taken by those applying for venue and event licences; that there should be short- form advice on CT matters for small and micro businesses rolled out using local authority and neighbourhood policing networks, so that everyone has access to that sort of sensible advice; that owners and operators of shopping centres and other large venues should ensure that Project Griffin training is being given at regular enough intervals to deal with the high staff turnover that those businesses and organisations experience; and that there should be specific training for other sectors.

I also suggested that the Department for Education should build on the model of having a designated governor responsible for safeguarding, to ensure that each school appoints a governor responsible for ensuring security and preparedness against an attack—to at least think about it in advance. Each school should have a preparedness plan, and those plans should be tested. Schools have fire drills where they evacuate pupils, so they perhaps need to have lockdown drills to invacuate pupils or at least to have considered how those might operate.

I hope that the Bill gets a smooth passage through your Lordships’ House. I believe that we owe it to the victims of the Manchester Arena attack, the two London Bridge attacks and all the other attacks of recent years. It is our responsibility to give them, and the public who visit those venues, the security that this offers.