Clarification needed on scope of Martyn’s Law, says health and safety expert

As we highlighted a fortnight ago, a draft bill designed to protect premises from the threat of terrorism is on track to become law. The government’s Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill was one of 21 bills mentioned in the King’s Speech on 7 November, signalling the Government’s intention to pass it into law in the coming year. The Bill places a statutory duty on qualifying premises and events to take proportionate and reasonable measures to improve public safety and protect against the threat of terrorism. 

A reminder. The draft bill follows recommendations made as part of the inquiry into the Manchester Arena attack in 2017 which killed 22 people. Also known as Martyn’s Law following a campaign by the mother of 29-year-old victim Martyn Hett one of the victims killed in the bombing, the bill introduces a ‘Protect Duty’ on those responsible for publicly accessible venues and events to help reduce the threat to the public from terrorist attacks.

Following the King’s Speech, the Home Office confirmed that in advance of the Bill’s introduction the Government will launch a further public consultation which they say is designed to find the right balance between enhancing public safety and not overburdening organisations. After that they will introduce the bill to parliament “as soon as parliamentary time allows.”

The upcoming consultation will no doubt look at the long list of concerns expressed by the Home Affairs Committee following their pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill back in July last year when the Committee concluded that it had not been well thought out on many different levels. So, let’s consider those concerns because they are shared by many clients wondering how the new duty will impact on them. Jonathan Cowlan is a health and safety specialist and earlier he joined me by video-link to discuss it:

Jonathan Cowlan: ”One thing I would say is I think the committee has done a good job in terms of the range of issues they've looked at and the evidence they considered. I think it's always going to be difficult with something like this to target it well enough to achieve its aims and some of the things the committee have brought up. So, for example, is capacity the right way of looking at these things, and the proportionality of response expected when you're dealing with capacities of 100? So village halls immediately springs to mind with that type of thing, and even for the enhanced premises, on a capacity basis, 800 isn’t that great. So, proportionality of what's expected and the impact that could have on, particularly, voluntary organisations running events and wanting the legal responsibility for that. I think other angles that you would also consider there are the competence to do risk assessments and then who will be actually carrying those out because that's certainly going to be a different type of risk assessment than is currently being done and guidance is awaited on the enhanced risk assessment detail. I think as well as that you've got training concerns where you're looking at training as specified within the draft bill. Well, to what standard? Who can supply that? What level of training are you going to need and how will that training actually happen? Will it be ‘hands on’ for things like first aid or will it be online training? There's no real detail included on that and, as you’ve probably picked up, certainly for the enhanced premises, there's concern about, well, will this draft legislation actually help prevent things that have happened in the recent past and there was certainly some debate around that from the expert evidence that was given.”

Joe Glavina: “We still don’t know how the new duties will be enforced and there are still lots of unknowns. What’s top of your list for clarification?”

Jonathan Cowlan: “Well, you did mention it. We have to touch on the subject of enforcement. There's a regulator mentioned although there's no detail on who that may be and, again, that was something that the committee brought up as a concern for clarification but when we look at the types of sanctions available they will be criminal sanctions. So, things like contravention notices, so making people put things right where they're not of an adequate standard and, for the standard premises, the smaller ones, fixed penalty fines of up to £10,000, and when you get to the enhanced premises you're looking there at potential fines of up to £18 million, or 5% of worldwide turnover, whichever is the greater. So, that’s a pretty big chunk of cash, I think you'd agree, and how the regulator is going to operate in that sphere, and whether it be national regulator or regional one, there's nothing there. So, again, that is another area that's key for clarification I think.”

As mentioned the government is planning a further consultation on the bill with a view to introducing it into parliament when parliamentary time allows. A fortnight ago Jonathan’s colleague Hannah Burton talked to this programme about the scope of the new Protect Duty and the risk assessment approach that employers will need to take. That’s ‘Further public consultation planned for Martyn’s Law’ and we’ve put a link to it in the transcript of this programme for you.

LINKS
- Link to HRNews programme: ‘Further public consultation planned for Martyn’s Law’