Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, what steps she has taken to improve the (a) safety and (b) security of public venues.

The Government, working with the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) and the Centre for Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), continues to ensure that all stakeholders have access to the advice, training and guidance to ensure they understand terrorist threats and measures which can be taken to protect their staff and the public.

To further support delivery across the public and private sector and sharing of CT content, the Home Office has collaborated with NaCTSO and Pool Reinsurance to develop a new interactive online platform; ProtectUK. The platform was released at Security & Policing 2022 and is gathering feedback ahead of a more formal, public launch later this year.

Whilst our engagement and advice has done much to improve security and preparedness measures at public places, this is undertaken on a voluntary basis. This Government announced our intention to introduce a ‘Protect Duty’ in legislation. The new duty will seek to improve the safety and security at public venues through the application of proportionate security measures.