Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Matt Bishop Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 14th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is an honour to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) and a privilege to speak to the Chamber today as the new hon. Member for Forest of Dean. First, I extend my good wishes to my predecessor, Mark Harper, for his 19 years of service to Forest of Dean. A few years ago, when I was chair of governors at St White’s primary school in Cinderford, Mark helped secure funding for a new school building. We worked together to finally get the school what it so badly needed, after 40 years of it crumbling. His help was instrumental during that time, and I appreciate all that he did for us.

I am the second Labour MP and only the third ever MP to represent the Forest of Dean constituency since its recreation in 1997. I agree wholeheartedly with what both my predecessors, Mark and the great Diana Organ, stated in their maiden speeches: that Forest of Dean really is the most beautiful constituency in the UK. I know that many others have also made that claim over the last year, but how many can boast that their constituency landscapes have graced the screens of iconic shows and films? Puzzlewood, for example, has served as the stunning backdrop for many shows, including “Doctor Who” and even a “Star Wars” movie. That brings the beauty of the forest to the big screen, allowing individuals from all over the world an insight into the place that I call home.

I invite all right hon. and hon. Members to visit the forest, where they will witness not only its natural beauty but a collection of individuals and groups who understand the importance of community. We have inspiring organisations such as the Forest Voluntary Action Forum, which supports many community-led projects, shaped with and for local people, and the Wilderness Centre, which provides exceptional day and residential visits for schools from the primary, secondary and independent sectors.

That community spirit is also evident through the actions of individuals. Just a few weeks ago, we experienced some localised flooding after the intense rainfall; as the constituency is rural, many areas, roads and houses became almost impossible to reach. During the floods, I saw local farmers in places such as Westbury-on-Severn and Sedbury coming to people’s rescue without hesitation, picking people up in their tractors and getting them home safely. I might have been one of the lucky ones who received that help. It is this spirit of solidarity that inspired me to move to the forest 17 years ago—the place where my wife grew up, and the place where we chose to raise our children, surrounded by a community full of kind-hearted individuals.

However, certain issues persist that require urgent attention. Many residents experience isolation because of inadequate public transport and a lack of community centres. There is a shortage of bus services, with limited routes and poorly maintained roads. With only 5% of the constituency in built-up areas, substantially improving public transport is vital for relationships to thrive and to combat the isolation that many residents feel. I welcome my constituents’ campaigns to turn the site of the former Dilke Memorial hospital into a mental health and wellbeing centre. Campaigning for a dedicated space within the community highlights the drive and determination of my constituents to ensure that no one is left behind.

Finally, throughout my career in public service I have been exposed to the great challenges in our society, and I appreciate the vital role that national Government, local councils, and the community play in addressing those issues. I served for many years as a police officer, including four years here in London for the Metropolitan police. On 7 July 2005, I was one of the first officers on the scene at the Tavistock Square bus bombing, where I saw at first hand the horror, destruction and chaos caused by such despicable acts of terror. I was also struck by the many admirable examples of courage and determination demonstrated by the emergency services, injured victims and members of the public. Perhaps now it is only right that we take a second to remember and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives or were injured during the attacks on our country on 7 July 2005. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

My time as a police officer has shown me the importance of ensuring that our residents feel safe, and I am acutely aware that the security of our communities, locally and nationally, must be a priority for the Government. That is why I chose this debate to make my maiden speech. I wholeheartedly support Martyn’s law, and I am pleased to see it implemented so early in this Labour Government.

Education is another particularly prominent issue in my constituency. As a former governor in multiple schools and as a local councillor, I have seen how national policy directly affects our local education system, which has long suffered as a result of funding decisions made over the past 14 years. During a recent visit to Forest high school in Cinderford, I was alarmed by the state of the school buildings, which were crumbling before my eyes. It is no exaggeration to say that classrooms were flooded, ceilings were collapsing, and the flooring was falling to pieces. We can have the best teachers in the world, but without a basic safe building, how can they provide the education that they want to provide? Our children deserve better, and they deserve better now. They deserve schools that inspire learning and growth, not schools that are collapsing. In recent years, the state of our schools has been forgotten. I, along with the new Labour Government, will not allow this to continue.

There is a song about the Forest of Dean which my constituents will know, called “The Land Between Two Rivers”, written by a constituent, Dick Brice.

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

Sing it!

[Matt Bishop]

Later. The song pretty much sums up our constituency. For too long those rivers, the Wye and Severn, have suffered from pollution and sewage issues. The communities in Newnham on Severn, Lydbrook, Lydney and many more villages and towns have rallied to demand action from the Government, and I am committed to bringing their voices to Parliament to reinvigorate the ecosystem and protect our wildlife.

Finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am proud to stand before you as a representative of the people of the Forest of Dean. This position is a responsibility I take seriously, and I aim to serve with the same dedication and spirit of co-operation that I observe in our community.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill (First sitting)

Matt Bishop Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)]

Q I reiterate your comments, Dame Siobhain, about the admiration we all hold for Figen and Brendan and for the campaigning that they have done. Figen is a constituent of mine and I know we are all very proud of her in Macclesfield. May I ask you, Figen, what you think is the most important element of this Bill?

Figen Murray: I think it is that as many places as possible are covered. We as a campaign team are concerned about the threshold, if I am honest. I live in a small town —more like a village—and with the original 100 threshold, quite a few of the restaurants as well as the little theatre we have and the pubs would have been covered under the law. With the change in the threshold, my little town is now not coming into scope at all and is completely not secure under Martyn’s law. It concerns me. The change from the 100 threshold to 200 will exclude about 100,000 premises. It feels like quite a lot now no longer need to be within that scope. It worries me.

[Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)]

Q Thank you both for coming; I echo the words of everyone else this morning so far. Are there any recommendations from the Manchester Arena inquiry that this Bill would not address?

Figen Murray: The Manchester Arena inquiry obviously had Martyn’s law as one of its recommendations. If I remember rightly, Sir John’s words were that it is needed as a matter of urgency. I think he referred to training, and he also recommended—which is certainly not covered in Martyn’s law under the standard tier—that people have lifesaving training. That is not for debate in Martyn’s law at the moment. But certainly the ACT training was part of the recommendation.

Brendan Cox: To add to that, the other thing that has been amazing—I think you are hearing from Mayor Andy Burnham later—has been the extent to which Manchester has already started to operationalise some of this, so when we are having the debates about proportionality, we can consider some of the real experiences of businesses that are already implementing this. It is worth really digging into that conversation, because what it shows is that lots of businesses that fall below the threshold are voluntarily taking part in the training and starting to implement Martyn’s law, because they know what it gives them. Who does not want their venue to be safer from terror attacks? It is something that organisations in general want to do, and that is why we have been seeing the adoption of this ahead of the legislation being published, even by venues that will not be covered by the capacity legislation.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

Q Can I ask a bit more about the reaction of organisations that do fall in scope? Can you tell us a bit about what their experience has been, any teething problems that they have had and how they have adapted in Manchester as they have implemented it?

Figen Murray: We had in Manchester a tabletop exercise that Nick Aldworth and I were allowed to witness. They invited us in and they gave us the results of that tabletop exercise. There were medium-sized businesses, small businesses, and venues and businesses even under the scope, and the feedback was that implementing Martyn’s law would actually be either no-cost or low-cost and that it would enhance, in a lot of cases, customer experience, because people would feel safer. The most onerous thing, in some people’s opinion, was to ask their staff to do the 45-minute, free-of-charge ACT e-learning training. Basically, they had to pay one hour of staff wages, but on the whole, they felt it was good and the staff felt better having that knowledge, because they felt better equipped to deal with a crisis.

In fact, some of the venues in Manchester were also saying they do regular real-life practice of lockdowns, for instance. For some reason, Manchester has really embraced it. A few years ago, I got called into a council meeting and they basically said, “We want to support you. What can we do?” I just looked at them and said, “Don’t wait for the legislation. Just do it anyway.” And Manchester did. They worked together with counter-terrorism police and put on the free-of-charge, once-a-month, three-hour, face-to-face ACT training. The sessions are always oversubscribed; they are very well attended.

Brendan Cox: I think that the fact that it has been taken up so strongly belies some of the idea that this is a huge burden on businesses. Of course, with any methodology like this, you can come up with a costing for how much the opportunity cost of doing x, y or z is. You have the big public campaigns around “See it, say it, sorted.” Of course, there is a cost with that. You could measure that cost through the amount you spend on it, the opportunity cost of the things that people could be doing while they are listening to it, the distraction cost—there is a whole way in which you could come up with a very big figure, but the reality is that is a proportionate response to what is a very substantial threat when it happens. As Figen mentioned, our threat is substantial at the moment, and that is therefore the proportionate response that we are trying to come up with.

In the conversations on and implementation of this in Manchester, one of the reactions we got, which was a broader reaction from the public as a whole, was, “Doesn’t this already exist?” The public expect that public venues would have an obligation to keep you safe. You have an obligation on the temperature that you need to keep food at, the number of toilets that you have and to fill in your tax return, but you do not have any obligation to keep your often paying customers safe from a very substantial threat, which is judged to be substantial by the Government. That is a massive loophole, and that is what this Bill helps to fill.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

For this oral evidence session, we have until 11.25 am. Can the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?

Heather Walker: I am Heather Walker. I am the chief operating officer at the Royal Ballet and Opera.

Alex Beard: I am Alex Beard. I am the chief executive of the Royal Ballet and Opera, formerly the Royal Opera House.

Paul Laffan: I am Paul Laffan, the group safety and security manager for ATG Entertainment.

Stuart Beeby: I am Stuart Beeby, the group operations director for ATG Entertainment.

[Matt Bishop]

Q Thank you all for coming. This question is open to all of you: what impact will the Bill have on your venues?

Alex Beard: In principle, these risks are ones that we face operationally day to day. We are already on the crowded places register, so we are already taking many of the actions implied in this legislation. In particular, the lens through which we do that is a risk-analysis approach, with support from the counter-terrorism security adviser and our specialist contractors.

Codifying the expectations of us through “reasonably practicable”, as well as having access to support in implementing this legislation through the relevant authorities and a regulatory body to refer to, are positive additions in principle. Of course, that is subject to there not being any cracks in the obligations between the various actors, and there being sufficient resource for the regulator to deliver its functions. I see this as building on the practice that is already in place. I would just like to stress that we are fully supportive of the legislation. We were involved in its consultation and we regard it as being a good thing.

Stuart Beeby: ATG Entertainment’s perspective is as a multi-site operator. We have 64 venues across Germany, America and the UK. 33 of those are in the UK, from Torquay to Glasgow. Similarly to the Royal Ballet and Opera, we have been involved in the creation of this Bill. While we feel we are already on a good footing with our processes and training and are fully supportive, it is a similar message from us if the process is too formulaic—a one size fits all.

Right now we work with all the security elements, be it contractors and risk assessments and the like or our counter-terrorism colleagues in the local constabularies. The challenges that we face running a 1,000-seat theatre in Torquay are very different from those at our two large theatres in Manchester or our 10 in the west end. So we are very supportive and feel that we are in a good position moving forward with training and processes, but we have an eye on how formulaic this may be with—forgive me—a cookie-cutter approach to it.

[Sonia Kumar]

Q What particular challenges do you foresee in conducting regular risk assessments for venues that have changing expositions, seasonal events, shift working or flows?

Paul Laffan: For us, we already have the processes built in. We have been doing this for a number of years to ensure that we are prepared, as we should be as a public space. Although our venues are vast and wide, the majority are quite straightforward in terms of what we do. The events themselves do not vary a great deal—it is either a play, a musical, a comedy or whatever—the operation of the building does not alter too much and the buildings themselves are predominantly listed, large buildings.

We would expect to conduct initial assessments, which we have already done, and to review them at a similar frequency to all our health and safety approaches; just regular touchpoints subject to any massive changes. We therefore do not feel that the risk assessment element would be overly onerous upon us. For others in our industry, where they have more dynamic spaces and second spaces, it could be slightly trickier; having that resource and knowledge could be challenging. However, we do not foresee its being a huge concern for us.

Heather Walker: One of our thoughts is that the public will need to understand how venues will operate under this Bill. As an example, post covid when we were all opening up, we all worked very closely together to make sure the kinds of mitigations and arrangements in place, so that the public felt safe coming back into theatres, were similar.

Whichever theatre you went to, you saw the same sorts of things in place. I think the nature of risk assessing for this arrangement, which I totally agree with, is going to mean different things for different people. Having different kinds of events, or a different audience profile attending those events, will perhaps change what mitigations you put in place. From the public’s perspective, they will need to understand that not everybody is doing the same thing. That might create some concerns about just how safe one place is compared with another.

Paul Laffan: If I may add to that, I think this comes back to “reasonably practicable” and how we apply that. Someone’s risk assessment can vary from operator to operator, person to person, so it is a question of how much guidance there will be around the expectations so that, when we are weighing up that impact likelihood, cost analysis, of “reasonably practicable”, we understand how we quantify that for a large operator with significant funds behind, it versus a small operator with far less funds. That then would raise concern for me that we may inadvertently create a higher risk profile for another venue; if ATG or the Royal Opera House spent a lot of money strengthening our own resolve and it makes another operator who does not have the same access to funds appear a more viable target.

Stuart Beeby: Our principle is “deter”. That is the key thing: the counter-terrorism strategy is not “defend”, but “deter”. That means that if there is hostile reconnaissance and you look professional and so on, if you are being targeted you could be pushing them along to what is considered a softer target, although dynamically they are actually complying with all the requirements of the Bill.

Paul Laffan: There would be some shape and colour around the risk assessment process and what some of the expected outcomes and the suitable and understood control measures are that would be pragmatic and proportionate to the risk, but also replicable across the entire industry. On Heather’s point, if as a customer I go to see “Mean Girls” one day and a ballet the next, I should not be surprised that there is security and a similar experience on the front end.