Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill (Second sitting)

Sonia Kumar Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

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

Q Assistant Commissioner, thank you. First, I associate myself with the words of the Minister earlier in thanking you and your colleagues in the wider service for your work. What is your view on the investigatory and enforcement powers in the Bill? Do you have any concerns about them?

Matt Jukes: The first thing to say, as I am subject to a few watchdogs myself, is that the best performance of a watchdog is to raise overall standards and improve outcomes for the public. That might seldom be achieved by enforcement and best be achieved by the sharing of practice, the development of understanding and the support of the sectors involved. I do not have extant concerns about the investigatory and compliance powers, but I would expect a regulator and the authority that will come into that space to have their major focus on raising standards and for us all to hold compliance actions as the backstop to the cases that might be required.

I say that based on the fact that you will hear evidence from the Counter Terrorism Business Information Exchange, which we work with closely to work with sectors. We get an enormous amount of leverage from working with sector-specific experts themselves, and I expect that the regulator would want to do that, rather than investigate and enforce in any excessive way. Having said that, the absence of something that is rigorous and provides that backstop would undermine the overall effect of the Bill if it were not present.

[Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)]

Q You mentioned to the Home Affairs Committee that you would like to see a regulator in place that could provide intervention support and improved notices. Do you feel that the Security Industry Authority is the right regulator?

Matt Jukes: That is obviously a proposition that has come through close work by the Home Office and the consideration of others. In essence, just to land on a conclusion, I would definitely say that the SIA is well placed, having played a leading role in regulating security standards. I am into my 30th year of policing, and I can remember the quality of private security provision at night-time economy venues and all sorts of other places going back to the years before the SIA had its very important role, and there is no doubt that it has professionalised and raised standards across the security industry.

As well as the sector-specific support that we would get from networks such as CTBIE, which you will hear from, the SIA is very well placed to sit at the heart not just of this function as a regulator but of the private security industry, which in the end will play an important part in raising standards across the piece. It is a matter for Parliament in due course, and it has been a matter for the Home Office to bring forward its recommendation, but we could certainly support continuing to work in the way that we have with the SIA.

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[The Chair]

I call Sonia Cooper—sorry, Sonia Kumar. I’m making names and times up today! I apologise.

[Sonia Kumar]

Q That is okay, I understood.

How do you anticipate Martyn’s law affecting customer experience, especially for small retailers who may not have visible security measures in place?

Mike Pearce: Shall I answer that?

[Sonia Kumar]

Yes, that is for all three of you.

Mike Pearce: If I may, can I just set out what the CTBIE does and what we are made up of? I think it is probably quite pertinent to this conversation. The CTBIE has been around for over a decade now, it was sponsored originally by MI5, and sits now within the purview of CT policing. My co-chair is the head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, and we have 30 very senior, well-experienced security professionals who sit around the table representing 16 sectors of the United Kingdom. Around that table also sits the SIA—the Security Industry Authority—the Home Office, HSG—the Homeland Security Group—and a number of other acronyms, supporting that group. Each of that group has subgroups. For example, the CTBIE has a hotel subgroup, where it will reach out to the other hotels or smaller bed and breakfasts, so that it is transmitting and amplifying messages both from Government into business and from business back into Government, specifically around countering terrorism.

We have been doing that for 10 years. It is completely voluntary, and these individuals have given up their time, to introduce some significant products into the public space—the “run, hide, tell” messaging and the platforms that we have, which were all developed with John’s help —supporting the Government in getting the message to the widest possible parts of the engine room that is our economy and getting it to businesses in such a way that it makes sense to them.

We expect each of those sector leads to translate the messaging that they need to give to their sectors, because although it is one message when it is received by us, it needs to be adapted to the particular sector that it is being transmitted into. That is part of the complexity of this great Bill, which we support across the CTBIE. We are absolutely for it. We have been in it from the very beginning, as an absolute supporter. CT should bring us together—countering terrorism should bring us together—but the overriding priority for us is that we transmit and get these messages to business in the most effective and efficient way we can.

Let us, at the CTBIE, do that for you. We are very good at doing it and we are very practised at doing it, and we can measure how effective that delivery is. There are, of course, many other groups, and I am not saying you should exclude anybody, but this is a group that has been running—and running very well—for the past 12 years, supporting the messages from Government around countering terrorism. However, it needs leadership. It needs leadership from sectors. It needs us to set examples for the smaller businesses. It needs us to grow confidence in the communities that we seek to protect over the coming years; that is the opportunity. I do not know whether I have answered your question.

Around every CTBIE member, there are small business groups that reach out to us. Only recently, I was in Southampton with the police and crime commissioner, talking to small businesses about how Landsec—as the owner of big shopping centres and so on—supports the smaller businesses. How can we ensure that they understand whether the legislation, when it comes into effect, will affect them? More importantly, what do they need to do now to remain safe and what do they not need to be doing? They do not need to be spending money, asking for advice on legislation that is not yet in place; that is another concern of the CTBIE. All of the necessary authority that we hold as a group is respected within business, and utilising it would be an opportunity to reach out to small businesses very effectively. Does that answer your question?

[Sonia Kumar]

Q Kind of. My question is more about the customer experience. You have spoken about the retailer point of view, but do you think there will be an effect on customer experience for those retailers, including small retailers, that do not have visible security measures?

Mike Pearce: The one thing that every sector in the UK has in common is that we rely on customers to drive the economic engine. We rely on them coming back to our venues, our hotels, our shopping centres and our supermarkets. If they do not feel safe and if they do not understand what their responsibilities are in order to keep their families safe, they probably will not come back in the same numbers as before if there is a major event at one of those venues. We do not take that for granted.

For example, over 32 million people transit through Saint David’s Dewi Sant in Cardiff, a Landsec property that is right at the heart of the community. That is a huge number of people in a very vibrant city that we sit in the middle of, and the customer experience is everything to us. They understand—we hope, because we message our customers, including brand partners like John and others, as well as smaller brand partners and the general public—our expectations; for instance, they understand what we expect them to do if they see something suspicious. The “run, hide, tell” message has not gone away yet. We have seen examples at some of our sites—at Bluewater, particularly—that people will move quickly if they see a threat. That has taken years to bed into the public consciousness.

The experience for the public should be welcoming: “Come on in. You’re safe. Come and enjoy the venue. Come and enjoy the hotel. We’ll worry about security for you, mainly, but you have a responsibility, if you see something, to notify us—and working together, we will do something about it.”

[Kirith Entwistle]

Q I echo the Minister’s comments and thank you for coming today; I really value the input of businesses. The Home Affairs Committee argued that the capacity figure of 100 for standard duty premises was “disproportionate” and “burdensome”. What impact do you think the new capacity—of 200, at the moment—will have on small businesses and micro-sized businesses? That question is for anyone.

Neil Sharpley: Is that for me? Are you asking about the impact of the current threshold?

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[Dan Jarvis]

Q Good afternoon, and thank you for appearing in front of the Committee; we appreciate it. I have a couple of reasonably specific questions. What are your views on the proposed changes to the Bill, particularly in relation to the change in capacity calculations, where responsible persons are now being asked to identify the number of people reasonably expected to be on the premises at the same time? We hope that you will welcome that.

Secondly, we would like to get a sense of your views on the proposed changes in relation to the addition of the “reasonably practicable” standard. Again, we hope you will welcome that change. Your sense of those two changes would be very much appreciated.

Max Nicholls: I am happy to take that question. We certainly welcome the flexibility introduced by the change around capacity calculations, the ability to look at things such as historic attendance data and a wider range of measures that may impact how many people are on site. We have some sites in the sport and recreation sector that are quite large in their overall footprint, but which in reality have fairly few people in them at any one time. Previously, there was a concern that if a calculation based purely on footprint was to be introduced, lots of those premises could be drawn into the enhanced tier. We certainly welcome that change and the flexibility around how many people are on site based on the different criteria set out in the briefing note.

Cameron Yorston: The answer to the second question on the introduction of the “reasonably practicable” judgment is that we welcome it entirely. I also wanted to kick off a broader point that we, and the sector more broadly, welcome the intention of the Bill, as the gentlemen before us said. I think everyone can be supportive of the principle of trying to make venues in specific sectors more resilient across the country.

I suspect you will also have heard this throughout the day. What is missing—or rather, where we still need further clarity and guidance—is greater clarity on the practical implementation of the Bill and on how, in practice, that “reasonably practicable” judgment will apply. I am more than happy to elaborate and illustrate with specific examples of where it is not clear that the spirit and intention of the Bill, and those exclusions or measures you reference, will bite in the appropriate way. There is a risk of unintended consequences.

[Sonia Kumar]

Q What unique challenges do you foresee for community-based sports venues, such as the community boxing club in Dudley, in conducting and obtaining regular risk assessments, given the varied events types, participants and demographics?

Max Nicholls: I will make an opening point generally on community sports venues and organisations. Across the country, we have roughly 100,000 grassroots sports clubs; as many on the Committee will be aware, these are predominantly volunteer-run, and do important work in the community to get people active and deliver community cohesion, as well as delivering all these other social benefits driven by participation in sport and physical activity.

We know that there are lots of challenges around recruiting and retaining volunteers, specifically post-covid. One common thing our members tell us is that volunteer recruitment is one of the key barriers to delivering more sport and physical activity. As Cameron alluded to, something we are keen to work with the Committee and Government on, through to the production of guidance, is supporting those volunteers in community-based organisations; we want to understand what their environment requirements are and give them as much information and guidance as possible to support them in the undertaking of their requirements.

As you say, that will look very different in different parts of the country. We represent a huge plethora of sports and recreational activities where the clubs and activities are very different. Having the flexibility to understand what is appropriate and practicable for those different organisations is important.

Cameron Yorston: To add to that briefly, and to reiterate the earlier point, we want to avoid unintended consequences. It is quite hard as at now to envisage all the specific impacts that might emerge from the legislation, given there is clearly a need for greater clarity and guidance.

The overarching point is that we do not want to impose any potentially prohibitive burdens or requirements on volunteers who are already very stretched, as that risks reducing the provision of sport, physical activity and recreation against the backdrop of the country’s wider challenges, such as issues with public health and a struggling NHS. What we do not want to do is inadvertently reduce people’s ability to participate in sport, recreation and physical activity, because there are adverse unintended consequences to that.

[Kirith Entwistle]

Q Where premises are in the scope of the Bill, is it clear to you who the person responsible would be?

Max Nicholls: There are some areas in which further guidance would be welcome. In a sporting context, we often have tournaments or events that are held in different venues every year: the Open golf tournament is held in a different golf club each year, for example. The interaction between the organiser of the event and the premises at which it is held is important not only from a responsible person perspective, but in terms of the requirements for the duration of the event and the rest of the year.

We would like to see flexibility where premises host an event that is classed as a qualifying event but are otherwise standard-tier premises for the rest of the year—where they understand their requirements under the obligations on standard-tier premises, but for the duration of the event only they must meet the enhanced requirements for a qualifying event. There is still some slight uncertainty about how that would work in practice, so we would welcome further engagement and clarification in the guidance.

A venue such as the Nottingham tennis centre hosts a one-week tournament with 5,000 people on site, but for the rest of the year it is a community facility with a couple of hundred people on site. We think that those are two different uses and should be treated as such, but we would welcome further engagement and clarification.

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[Dan Jarvis]

Good afternoon to you both. Thank you very much for appearing before the Committee today: you have a particularly valuable insight and we are looking forward to hearing from you.

We heard earlier from Mayor Andy Burnham, who was very positive about the impact that these measures are already having on the hospitality sector in Greater Manchester. I want to get a sense of whether that accords with your analysis of the impact of these measures on the hospitality sector nationally. It was very positive to hear the good news story from Greater Manchester, with the way it has been embraced by the hospitality businesses there, but it would be good to get your sense of whether there should be the same approach right around the country.

Kate Nicholls: I do not think anybody in the hospitality sector or the wider live music and events sector could have experienced the recent incidents we have had—not just in Manchester, but in London—and just sat back and waited for legislation to ensure that our customers, our public and, most importantly, our staff were safe. Since those events, and since the learnings coming out of the inquiry, we have been working collectively with our members to look at how we could take forward this protect duty within the context of our existing licensing regime—the Licensing Act 2003 puts on us a legal obligation to ensure we take account of public safety. As part of that, businesses in city centre locations, in particular, have worked with their local police forces and counter-terrorism to ensure that steps are already being taken to look at measures that could be encompassed within this duty.

I should also say that we are working to ensure that that is taken right down to the very smallest venues and that lessons are learned there, so that we have a basic level of security within the public realm. While Manchester is leading the way, quite unsurprisingly, we are working hard to make sure that we are doing the same thing and carrying out those lessons and delivering that in practice.

[Sonia Kumar]

Q How might the increased security requirements impact staffing for night-time venues, particularly with training and retaining part-time or seasonal workers? I think this question might be better for Mike.

Mike Kill: With regard to the businesses that we represent—particularly some of the small and medium-sized enterprises and businesses that are slightly smaller and, as you can appreciate, on the lower tier—there is, without a doubt, a resonating concern around the cost base given the current economic climate.

A key area of concern for us, because the industry has a high turnover of staff, is that that continual training of staff within that high turnover is going to represent a level of cost. When we looked at things like the impact assessment, we felt that without a doubt, given the infrastructure, systems, processes and considerations at either level—whether on the standard or the enhanced tier—there is a concern that this will be onerous cost-wise, particularly around staffing levels. There is also concern with regard to certain shifts around things like the national living wage, which will drive that forward as well.

From the perspective of the industry, there is still a resonating concern that there will be an undue burden on small venues and community groups in particular, which, in the current economic climate, that could lead to further challenging situations. That is not to take away from the importance of safety; however, the reality is that we have to be honest about our position moving forward. So there are resonating concerns, but people are taking positive steps forward.

Just to reiterate and support Kate’s comments, there has been a very positive reaction to the Bill—it is very well supported. I believe the right action to move forward is happening across the sector as a whole at varying levels, but Manchester is without a doubt leading that, given the circumstances represented there.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions from members of the panel—