Part two of a digest of the Home Office’s impact assessment for the proposed Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, that’s commonly known as Martyn’s Law. For part one, click here.
The document notes the โenduring and ongoing nature of the terrorist threat, which remains complex and diverse, and can change rapidly. A defining feature of such attacks is the targeting of peopleโ. Making the case for the law further, the document points out that โfirst responders to terrorist attacks will usually, until the emergency services arrive, be members of the public and staff โฆ. The actions of responsible parties โฆ. have the potential to detect and deter attacks, or through appropriate staff training to treat injuriesโ.
The Conservativesโ road to making the law, ended by their election defeat in July, was chequered; after a first consultation in 2021 and a draft law published in 2023, a committee of MPs savaged the draft which led to a second consultation. The main sticking point was where to draw the line for small premises to have to comply. The assessment admits that in the second consultation, opinions about โstandard tierโ premises having to meet the law were โmixedโ, โwith no overarching consensusโ. For those smaller premises, โconcernsโ were โburden in relation to administration (including the time and effort associated); financial impacts; training requirements and impact on staff and volunteersโ. According to the assessment, the UK has an โan information asymmetryโ about the risk from terrorism (the authorities have the data about the threats, businesses donโt, which โcan make it hard for sites to make informed decisionsโ. Hence in the words of the document โthe need for a wider society appreciation of the risks and harmsโ from terrorism, and Martynโs Law โwould provide a framework and legal basis for clarifying the responsibilityโ of public locations. The assessment admits that prevention of acts of terror is difficult, given unpredictable, โlow-sophistication attacks, from rapidly radicalised self-initiated actorsโ.
As for what premises will actually have to do, the document stresses that for the smaller places in the โstandard tierโ, itโll be simple, โlow burdenโ steps, such as โprocedures in place to warn people that an attack is taking place and they should evacuate, invacuate or lockdownโ. Put another way, one in ten at standard tier premises will undergo one hour of counter terrorism (CT) related training a year; while the rest will have ten minutes of โcounter terror related informationโ, whether from emails, posters or briefings (some training material will be provided for free through the official ProtectUK website, the document adds). For larger premises, one in ten will get three hours of counter terror training and the rest the ten minutes of โinformationโ. As for managers, the assessment puts CT procedure planning at six hours for a senior manager โto produce and sign offโ. For larger premises, risk assessment will take a similar time to health and safety at work. Similarly, the proposed regulator and inspector the Security Industry Authority (SIA) will expect premises to carry out what is โreasonably practicableโ just as the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) does as a regulator.
As for equipment to meet the new law, the assessment says that most places already have CCTV and physical security (such as locks on doors); less so, Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM barriers which might cost a premises ยฃ20,000), โsearch and screenโ measures and panic buttons. The document judges that the โburdenโ of meeting the law will be โproportionally higherโ on small firms than large.
As for the larger sites in the โenhanced tierโ, the assessment mentions the Manchester Arena, and suggests threat assessment, โreasonably practicable CT measuresโ and the maintaining of a โCT documentโ. Generally, the โresponsible personโ will be a corporate body. As for inspection (which could also be considered a โburdenโ on premises) the assessment reckons a โtypical inspection for a standard tier site will take around a day and a half, and take five days for enhanced tier sitesโ. Given the hundreds of thousands of premises and presumably hundreds of inspectors, meaning long times between physical inspection, the assessment acknowledges the need to develop also โtech based solutionsโ. For those that do not comply, โa credible sanctions regime will also be requiredโ, for โrare but serious breachesโ. A criminal prosecution, the assessment suggests, will be only for the most egregious (shocking) breach. While the published Bill gives the SIA the right to restrict a premises or even close it, the assessment says this power will be for โexceptionally rareโ cases. The document states that you wonโt be able to take civil action against premises for a breach of these rules. The document assumes the regulator will have under 100 inspectors that will inspect roughly five per cent of โenhancedโ tier premises every year; in other words, a place will get a visit once every 20 years. The SIA will visit one per cent of standard tier premises a year; again, in other words, a place will be visited once a century. The document assumes the SIA will issue between 15 and 36 โcompliance noticesโ and one โrestriction noticeโ a year.
As for the benefits of whatโs proposed, the document notes that many ways of to protecting premises from terrorism can deter or prevent other crimes, while adding that โmany of the potential benefits are unable to be monetisedโ. While parliamentary buildings of the four nations of the UK are explicitly kept out of this law, the document recalls that HVM around the Houses of Parliament prevented a 2018 attack (by a car).
Photo by Mark Rowe: flowers laid as tributes outside the Palace of Westminster to mark the murder of PC Keith Palmer during the Westminster Bridge terror attack of March 22, 2017.
More about the progress towards Martyn’s Law in the November edition of Professional Security Magazine.
