Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

The purpose of this legislation is to provide guidance for the responsible person where buildings and premises are impacted at the time of a terrorist attack to ensure that the responsible person knows what to do. It is not designed to be worrying about the downstream elements of potential terrorism—although we all worry about these things. We all need to be vigilant on trains and in the street; we all need to understand what is happening; we all need to support the police and the security services. As professional forces, they are doing what they can to prevent an attack occurring in the first place—but, in the event of terrorists choosing to attack a village hall in my noble friend’s former parliamentary constituency, or another railway heritage site, what happens when that attack takes place? That is the nub of what this Bill is about. The provisions under Clause 5, for smaller premises, and Clause 6, for larger premises, and the provisions on having a nominated person are linked to an understanding of what we do in that circumstance. The amendments today are about whether we need to ramp up training to do that. What I am saying to the House is that the Security Industry Authority and the Home Office will provide guidance on how to understand and implement that legislation, but the specific training and vetting and supporting specific training providers is not one of those obligations. Certainly, however, there will be guidance from the Secretary of State and the Security Industry Authority. Indeed, as I was saying before my noble friend asked to intervene, there are government fact sheets currently. There is social media promotion of the leaflets and there is stakeholder engagement. We have had a massive consultation, in several incarnations, through different Governments and through various rounds of scrutiny by the public and parliamentarians. What we are trying to get to is an understanding of certain responsibilities that individuals have to have to make sure that there are protective measures in place in the event of an attack, which remains unlikely but could happen anywhere, at any time. When it happens, how do people understand their responsibilities and responses? The two-year implementation period that we are likely to have before the Bill becomes implemented law, as opposed to Royal Assent law, will allow for wider discussion of the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, mentioned around whether we need to tailor specific advice or not and will include widespread dissemination of the type of information that the proposals of the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, have brought forward today. This is a valuable discussion to have, but the aim of the Government is to try to make this as simple as possible; to give guidance to ensure that it is as simple as possible; and not to overcomplicate things by making everyone think, “I have to have training to do this”. It is not about training, it is about responsibilities. Those responsibilities are set down in the Act and guidance will be given in due course.