Martyn’s Law – October Update

The Terrorism Draft Bill (Protection of Premises) aims to place a duty on qualifying public premises or events to take definite measures to reduce the threat of terrorism to the public. 

Our team have a recent update on the Terrorism Draft Bill, originally shared with our clients in July 2023. Please find below an overview of the latest developments on Martyn’s Law and what MAPP is proactively doing to prepare for this change.

Qualifying premises are separated into two categories:

• Standard duty tier (public premises with a capacity of 100 – 799)
• Enhanced duty tier (public premises with a capacity of over 800 individuals).

On July 27, 2023, the Home Affairs Select Committee, tasked with pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill ahead of its formal introduction in Parliament, released its report.

The Committee Report raised significant concerns regarding the potential effects on smaller businesses and voluntary or community-run organisations which fall under the standard-tier premise category. 

The report finds a lack of evidence supporting the Bill’s ability to sufficiently mitigate the threat of terrorism for smaller organisations. In addition, the Committee has expressed concerns about incomplete provisions, the regulator’s role, and the fundamental purpose of the draft Bill. They have identified a number of other areas where they believe the Bill could be improved upon.

Next Steps

The government will need to respond to the points made by the Committee and we anticipate that there will be further amendments required before it is agreed by Parliament and becomes formal legislation. Despite the issues raised by the Committee, it is clear that there are steps that can be proactively taken now to prepare for the Bill’s inevitable implementation.

We recommend that our clients work with their dedicated MAPP team to carry out security audits to help identify any security vulnerabilities and to implement any quick fixes to improve the security of our managed properties.

Several clients have already instructed MAPP to complete these on their behalf as a duty of care to their occupiers and visitors. We will also recommend any longer-term initiatives to improve building security so that these can be planned for accordingly.

MAPP has provided preparedness training to all employees and is partnering with service providers and local authorities to conduct major incident emergency preparedness drills at larger properties and centres.

For further information on our Security Audits and Security Penetration tests, please contact us at [email protected].