On 12 September 2024, the UK’s new Terrorism (Protection of Buildings) Bill was introduced in the House of Commons, with second reading following on the 14th.th October. Now comes the committee stage, followed by a third reading, where the same sections are repeated in the Lords, before the bill receives royal assent and becomes law. As is common in the area of counter-terrorism, the bill enjoys the support of groups in the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak then committed his government to the new law before calling an election, including his final Lord’s speech in November 2023. The new Labor Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has been a long-term supporter, writing to Figen Murray. – its main advocate – as it prepares for its successful election, promising its launch as soon as possible. So the measure is about to become law, perhaps as early as 2025.
This move has been following, with the first draft bill published in May 2023, a pre-legislative review by the Home Affairs committee in the summer of 2023, and a public consultation taking place in early 2024. If passed as Law, the Safeguarding Act will represent the most comprehensive change to the UK’s counter-terrorism framework in the post-9/11 era. This is no small achievement, given the huge amount of anti-terrorism work that has already been done in this period, with 7 anti-terrorism bills passed by Parliament since 2000.
The new bill, also known as Martyn’s Law after Martyn Hett – one of the victims of the Manchester Arena attack in which 22 people lost their lives, and Figen Murray’s son – will impose new legal obligations on owners, employees, and security. workers in hundreds of thousands of locations. Shops, restaurants, libraries, community centers and other public spaces will be part of the UK’s fight against terrorism. Such places will now have to take ‘reasonably practicable measures’ to prepare for and deal with terrorist incidents.
There are two sections proposed in this bill before Parliament. Areas with a capacity of between 200 and 799 will be under the general category, with minimal requirements focused on implementation plans and limited training requirements. Areas of capacity 800 and above will enter the advanced category and more security measures will have to be taken. Protect is expected to cost £2.1billion, with additional costs affecting around 200,000 properties, dramatically expanding the reach and scope of the UK’s counter-terrorism framework.
The bill is believed to be a necessary step given the circumstances of the recent political violence. A key legal drive is to move from group-based, organized terrorism that uses sophisticated means such as IEDs and weapons, to the unpredictable violence of lone actors using widespread violence and low technology. As the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper in Parliament:
The public can be directed to many public places and places. We also know that the threat of terrorism is unpredictable and potential attacks are difficult to detect and investigate. That’s why everyone needs to be part of the steps we take to keep people safe—including those who manage buildings and events (Hansard 2024).
Under the new Protect Duty plans, property owners and staff will now be identified as being essential and active in the UK’s national security response to terrorism.
One way to think of Protect is as a critical acceleration of two existing mechanisms in the post-9/11 counterterrorism context. First, it advances the statutory expansion of counter-terrorism responsibility reflected in the UK’s existing counter-radicalisation framework, Prevent. The framework has produced new obligations for public sector workers such as teachers and health workers to identify those at risk of ‘radicalisation’ and intervene early, before crime. Second, it continues the broad effort to “responsibly” ordinary citizens as “detectives” or “participants” in the delivery of security against terrorism. We see this, among other things, in terrorist information campaigns – See It, Say It, Sorted It – and in the public relations efforts of the police and public authorities.
Despite these broad trends, there are aspects of Martyn’s Law that are new and unique. What is important is that where previous legal duties, such as the Prevent Duty, were focused on the public sector – and to some extent, extended existing legal obligations such as protection – Martyn’s Law brings a wider coverage of private business and the voluntary sector. Much of the pre-legislative consideration before the home affairs committee focused on the potential impact on smaller, non-volunteer associations (and this may explain why the size of the eligible area has increased from 100 to 200) but some of the biggest impacts could be felt on larger areas that may need to make significant changes. It could be argued that Martyn’s Law is not that different from health and safety legislation, which imposes legal requirements on public and private places to ensure that their premises are safe for the public and workers alike. Although legally this may be the case, Martyn’s Law also places those areas as being responsible for (elements of) national security. The guidance notes to the bill state that Martyn’s Law will apply to all four nations of the UK because the bill deals with ‘national security’ (which is a reserved matter, not a devolved matter).
The proposed law raises many questions that require urgent social science research. First, will the measure work? Advocates of the measure see it as a cost-effective way to save lives, while critics have expressed concern that the measure could remove rather than clear a space for violence. After the tightening of airport security after 9/11, and the liquid bomb plot in 2006, there was a significant shift in terrorist attacks to target “soft” targets and to do so using low technology. The wave of knife and car attacks that occurred in Europe in 2016, 2017 can be seen as a response to the changed security situation. If Martyn’s Law “passes” into law, how will the UK ensure that it does not divert violence and attacks from other vulnerable areas? Or will its ‘reasonably feasible measures’ save lives?
Second, can “ordinary” citizens protect the UK from terrorism? How can private individuals, without extensive security and counter-terrorism training, be able to deal with and prepare for terrorist incidents? Supporters of Martyn’s Law insist that much can be accomplished with simple steps just by having a plan that all employees know in the event of an incident, but critics have pointed to other issues with training. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Law has expressed concern that Martyn’s Law may have unintended consequences.
This Bill invites all kinds of members of the public to become counter-terrorism experts … if there is an attack and it’s against a person of a certain race, when you charge members of the public to be counter-terrorist police in a counter-terrorism situation, there’s a risk that people will start saying, “Well, I’m not going to have someone with that race to come in,” or, “I’m going to do more searches for people who seem to come from that kind of background”. The police and the Ministry of Security have strong legal and ethical structures, and people like me, who oversee that, try to make sure that people are not discriminated against. But when you throw a counter-terrorism operation at hundreds of thousands of civilians, the risk of unintended consequences is very high (Hall, quoted in House of Commons 2023).
Thirdly, and finally, how will the UK public respond to these new powers? Much of its success, in the end, will depend on how the public perceives these measures and those responsible for implementing them. With the Security Industry Authority (SIA) designated as the regulator of the bill, the private security industry and industry will have an important role to play. To what extent will the public accept and approve of private security to police and security areas that have traditionally been maintained by government security apparatus? Ultimately the success of Protect will depend on the response of those it is designed to protect: you.
Further Studies in E-International Relations
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