Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the status is of her Department's public consultation on Protect Duty, announced on 24 February 2020; and what the timescale is for that consultation.

The Home Office remains committed to developing a Protect Duty to further improve security at publicly accessible locations. We will launch a public consultation for the duty by the end of February.

This launch had been paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on many of the organisations we would hope to respond.

We know public venues and spaces vary; across sectors, size, geographies and nature of their operations. Whilst circumstances vary between different sectors and organisations, we know many have been dealing with an increased workload during COVID-19.

We will progress with an 18-week consultation period (instead of the usual 12) to take us into the summer, when we hope that the impacts of COVID-19 will lessen and businesses should be in a better position to engage with the consultation.