A committee of MPs is going to scrutinise the proposed Protect Duty in the latest step towards the Duty, more familiarly known as Martyn’s Law, becoming law. The Home Affairs Select Committee of MPs yesterday opened its ‘pre-legislative scrutiny‘ into the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Draft Bill.
You can submit evidence until Friday, June 23. As for what the MPs might scrutinise, that will include what Home Office security minister Tom Tugendhat acknowledged in a letter to the committee chair Diana Johnson; that a Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) in an impact assessment rated the draft law as “not fit for purpose”, notably because of a ‘red’ rating for small and micro businesses.
In December, PM Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced that Martyn’s Law will introduce a tiered model for hundreds of thousands of locations depending on the capacity of the premises or event and the activity. A standard tier will apply to public premises with a maximum capacity of 100 or more people, while the ‘enhanced’ tier would apply to public premises and events with a maximum capacity of 800 or more. What explanatory notes published alongside the draft Bill termed a ‘credible sanctions regime’, an ‘arms-length body’ like the private security regulator the Security Industry Authority, able to issue ‘suitable sanctions’ for the regulator to secure compliance will be set up, set-up estimated to cost £130m.
While the Home Office since it took up Martyn’s Law in early 2020 has been at pains to say that it wants to prevent unnecessary burden to businesses, Mr Tugendhat admitted in the letter that ‘there are still challenges to overcome’. As for cost, the explanatory notes makes no estimate overall, but does give a figure for local and central government-owned sites that will fall in the standard tier; a central estimate of £2000 per site (over ten years) as the cost of bringing its own sites into compliance, and for sites in the enhanced tier, £80,000, making the cost of compliance to the UK (the draft law would cover all the UK) in the hundreds of millions of pounds at least.
Among other details, the draft proposes to remove premise plans from the public domain in response to terrorism protection statements under the Licensing Act 2003.
As featured in the June print edition of Professional Security Magazine, Martyn’s Law campaigner and retired senior counter-terror cop Nick Aldworth calls on those who want the law to email their MP; while fellow campaigner Figen Murray, whose son Martyn Hett was among those who were killed in the Manchester Arena bombing of May 2017, is among those due to give evidence to the Select Committee, as she told the ACS Pacesetters security officers of distinction awards at Windsor, where she was the guest speaker.
For more about the Bill, visit the Home Office website.
