Martyn’s Law will ‘compel’ places to comply, to respond to the threat of terrorism, to ‘achieve the desired security outcomes’, ‘through investing in and improving their security, leading to a benefit of a safer public and a country better prepared’.
That’s from the impact assessment for the proposal, signed off last month by Home Office minister Dan Jarvis. It says that Martyn’s Law will be ‘a first of its kind’ as other countries have gone about counter-terrorism without a ‘Protect Duty’ on businesses or other premises (the term ‘Protect Duty’ as used by the Home Office from 2020 has been replaced with campaigner Figen Murray’s own ‘Martyn’s Law’, named after her son Martyn Hett who was among those killed in the Manchester Arena bombing of May 2017).
Estimates
The document’s estimates of costs vary wildly; for example, the total set-up cost of Martyn’s Law is put at between £159.2m and £1.05 billion ‘with a central estimate of £439.7m’. How much it will cost businesses to keep up with the law are similarly wildly varying. Costs will be passed onto consumers, by businesses, in terms of ticket and entry prices, which are described in the document as ‘not dramatic’ and ‘could reasonably be expected to be absorbed’. Explicit by contrast is an end to leaving businesses to consider terrorist threats. The document quotes research that the Government commissioned in 2019 that found businesses rank countering terror well below health and safety, fire safety, and crime prevention; and were unlikely to mitigate the risk of terrorism ‘unless there was a mandatory requirement’. Elsewhere the document admits that some businesses ‘refuse to engage when approached’ by the authorities. Likewise when the Home Office commissioned research and surveyed 287 people responsible for security at their organisation’s premises, the survey found fewer than one in four carried out counter terror planning or risk assessments (which would take between 20 and 40 hours a year).
Promised is ‘statutory guidance’, to ‘encourage a positive security culture’ to comply with the law. The UK already has the official ProtectUK online platform. As for when the regulations will come in, the assessment acknowledges the need for time to prepare; don’t expect it ‘before 2025’. The regulation is likely to begin in 2026.
As for which ‘premises’ will come under the law, the assessment states ‘public premises with a capacity of 200 persons or more’ (200 to 799 persons for the standard tier, and 800 persons or more for the enhanced tier). It adds there is ‘potential’ for hospitals, and courts to come ‘within scope’. Schools, and places of worship, will come under the standard tier, regardless of size. The assessment justifies this for places of worship by stating that they are ‘free and openly accessible sites, welcoming to all people, often with no restrictions placed on entry’, and the Home Office funds schemes for such places to install physical security (and for mosques, guards also). As an aside, the document says that a ‘Faith Security Training scheme’ has finished trials and will roll out nationally, offered to ‘faith communities’.
The largest single sector to come under the law will be ‘retail and hospitality’; most village halls will not – they were a sticking point raised by a committee of MPs that poured cold water on the draft law in the summer of 2023. What’s changed is that whereas in the 2023 draft a place that held 100 or more would come under the law (including many parish and village halls), now the cut-off number for the law to start to apply is 200. While ‘retail and hospitality’ will also be the largest sector in terms of number of sites in the ‘enhanced’, larger tier with more to do to meet the law, all outdoor music festivals (985), zoos and theme parks (386) and hospitals (1921) will come under ‘enhanced’; according to a 2022 ‘estimate’. In passing the document notes that this law would apply to only two of the five locations attacked in 2017: Manchester Arena and London Bridge-Borough Market; in other words, not the other three – Westminster Bridge, outside Finsbury Park Mosque, and on a Tube train carriage at Parsons Green station).
Photo by Mark Rowe: Belfairs Methodist Church, Southend-on-Sea, scene of the murder in 2021 of the Conservative MP Sir David Amess.
For part two of the digest, click here.
