PEERS have paid tribute to the courage and persistence of Figen Murray, the mother of Martyn Hett, one of the 22 people killed in the Manchester Arena terrorist attack on 22 May 2017 (News, 26 May 2017).

She has campaigned for a law — popularly known as Martyn’s Law — requiring premises of all sizes to take steps to reduce their vulnerability to terrorist attacks (News, 21 May 2021). The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill had its Second Reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday.

The Minister of State at the Home Office, Lord Hanson, described Ms Murray’s persistence as “quite frankly extraordinary” in pursuing the Bill, which seeks to bolster the UK’s preparedness for, and protection from, terrorism. The Government has raised the threshold for the scope of the Bill from 100 to 200 people attending an event. The Minister emphasised that its requirements were not “one size fits all”.

Baroness Suttie (Liberal Democrat) described the Manchester attack as “utterly heartbreaking. Deliberately targeting children and young people at a concert is beyond evil.” She was one of many members uncertain about the threshold increase, in a debate that centred on proportionality.

The cross-bencher Lord Anderson asked: “How much centrally available guidance . . . will add to the common sense of those who operate small venues and know them inside out, particularly when, as is thankfully the case in most places, the risk of a terrorist attack is almost vanishingly small?”

The Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, said that Martyn Hett had been killed some three minutes’ walk from Manchester Cathedral. The diocese included about 300 places of worship, most of which would find that the Bill directly applied to them. He spoke of the immediate aftermath of the Manchester attack.

“I spoke then of the crucial difference between defiance and revenge. . . Crucially, by being defiant, we did not allow the extremists to determine how we lived our lives. We did not cower behind our front doors. We did not retreat to the safety of those who looked, thought, or believed like us. We got on with our lives while being somewhat more vigilant than before.

“The same principle needs to lie at the heart of this Bill. . . What we enact in this Bill must be proportionate. It must balance the very real risks that we face with the need for us to live as we choose, not as the terrorists seek to dictate.”

Focusing on the expected attendance at an event rather than some technical capacity of a building was the right approach, he said. “Many of my churches are built to hold the largest occasion likely ever to be required. While I pray for the day when every service is as packed as it is on Christmas Eve, I need to be realistic, and we all need to pursue measures commensurate with the numbers that we expect.

“We all need to be fully equipped for the responsibilities that this Bill assigns to us. Given that places of worship across all main religions form between ten per cent and 20 per cent of the affected premises, at a guess, I ask the Minister for his assurance that His Majesty’s Government will produce guidance specifically to address these contexts before the Bill is enacted.”

Baroness May (Conservative) spoke of the “absolute horror” of the attack and of the terrorist who deliberately targeted children and young people. One of her concerns was that “we do not allow, or do not see, a situation where venues are almost bombarded by consultants who are all too keen to advise them on the steps that they should be taking, regardless of whether those steps are actually what is required in the legislation or not.”

Baroness Goudie (Labour) referred to the risk to those attending places of worship. “There needs to be some training, but that has to be linked to the police and the local authority. It should not be left to churches and other religious spaces to work out for themselves how this should be done, using private security and other advice.”

Lord Hanson concluded that the contributions of all members had shown “the spirit of this nation and that city to ensure that we have integration and a positive approach to our society, and that we do not bow down to terrorists or their threats but . . . uphold the security of our people as the first tenet of good government”.

The Bill will now go to Committee Stage.