The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill has now been presented to Parliament. Figen Murray OBE has campaigned for the legislation since the death of her son Martyn in the Manchester Arena attack in 2017. Here, she calls on the industry to back its imminent introduction.

I did a 200 mile walk to raise awareness of the issue and to make sure that the government really understands that we mean business. When I met Keir Starmer, he gave me his personal and political manifesto pledge and allowed me to publish the letter he wrote me. I feel that gesture alone was a major step. For the first time, I have confidence that this government will do it.

We live in a democracy, and I don’t expect everybody to be of the same opinion as me. People will have objections, but they need to remember that the Bill has undergone the scrutiny of the Home Affairs Select Committee, resulting in a second public consultation. The second consultation was to address the issues for small businesses. We haven’t had the report on that yet, so I don’t know what the conclusions were.

 “For the first time, I have confidence that this government will do it.”

It has been suggested that a more cost-effective solution could be to use the existing licensing framework to include anti-terrorism measures but that would not work because it would not cover buildings such as schools, hospitals and museums; venues where no alcohol is sold.

It is important that this is a piece of separate legislation; it can’t be tagged onto either licensing or health & safety. Obviously, licensing is handled locally and that means local authorities could do things differently region to region, so that would create inconsistencies.

I have worked closely with the events industry, we have done a training programme with the security team for the Eurovision Song Contest, and worked with the team training the security staff at Co-op Live.  The entertainment industry is good at getting on board. I’ve had a lot of great feedback about how tight the security was for the Taylor Swift concerts at Wembley Stadium. It is so good to know that people could actually go to these events after the shows were cancelled in Vienna. In a lot of areas, there are massive strides being made to improve security but obviously it is not across the board because the legislation isn’t in yet.

In an ideal world, I’d like the legislation to be signed off by the King, either this side or just the other side of Christmas. It would be a crying shame if it went to the eighth anniversary of Manchester Arena bombing. I’m very much hoping that’s not going to happen.

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