I think the noble Baroness is misinterpreting what I said. I said that in making these judgments, you had to have a risk appetite and that you needed to do that explicitly. I was not saying that any particular risk appetite was right or wrong; I was saying it should be made explicit.

I certainly was not suggesting that the noble Baroness was therefore glib about people being killed. I was merely saying that that is the trade-off, and anyone making those decisions has to be clear about the trade-off they are making.

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 44 in my name, and I can probably be quite brief, as it covers similar ground to Amendments 33, 34 and 36, which have been spoken to by my noble friend Lord Davies. However, my amendment is complementary to the amendments already on the table.

It does not replace them; it is consistent with them, but it looks at the problem slightly differently.

I think it is fair to say that those who have engaged with the SIA over the years have mixed views about its effectiveness even now, and that is when it has focused entirely on one fairly discrete industry.

Now we are proposing a huge expansion of its role to cover all kinds of premises and organisations of all kinds of sizes, including voluntary and commercial organisations and so on; it is a huge expansion of the authority’s role.

All these amendments really speak to the fact that there is some uncertainty about how that is going to be carried out in this very complicated and publicly sensitive area. My Amendment 44 looks at this in a slightly different way and proposes an independent review panel.

Of course, that could sit alongside the various advisory bodies that have already been spoken about, but, for two reasons, there is some value in having an independent panel when looking at these problems. First, it establishes a degree of distance.

Its reports to Parliament will have a degree of independence of commentary, of not needing to ingratiate itself necessarily with the regulator and the industry. That is what is needed in this situation of a new area of work for the authority.

More important is the point that is in proposed new subsection (3) in my amendment, which is the specific risk of overreach—I have spoken about this on one or two occasions before as we have considered this Bill—and that, once you establish a bureaucracy, everybody has to pay attention to that bureaucracy; once something is in law, that has to be the priority for those who are operating it.

There is a temptation for the legal authority to overreach and to lay down rules for its own convenience, rather than for the genuine good functioning of those that it is regulating; and to maybe not look sensitively at the different sizes and natures of organisations but simply to lay down one set of rules.

History suggests that with these regulators the effect is that the regulatory burden goes up and is insensitive to the people being regulated.

That is why there is particular value in looking at the issues of overreach and how bureaucracies work in practice and why there is particular value therefore in it being an independent body.

So, to conclude, I hope the Government will be able to give serious consideration to this idea, along with others in this group.

On 16 September 2016—I think I have the date correct—the noble Lord made a very strong statement in which he condemned the layers of bureaucracy and regulation in the European Union.

Does he not think it is weird and even bizarre for a serious Conservative to be recommending a regulator of a regulator when just a regulator might do very well?

There is a big difference between organisations set up in the framework of the European Union and us deciding how we work our own bureaucracy. There is a lot of value in an independent panel to examine the work of a regulator that is taking over a new and very large area of work.

So, no, I would not agree with the parallel; regulation and independent review are appropriate when we are creating a new regulator with a new set of work—that is the issue that is here today.

My Lords, I had written against the first and last of these, “Does this not have the danger of adding to the bureaucracy?” Perhaps more importantly, these amendments raise the issue of just how the governance of the SIA will operate—I certainly have not yet got a handle on that.

If the SIA itself wants to establish an advisory board, I think that is up to the SIA, but I do not think we are yet clear—and we should be clear very soon. The two years will go by fast and the SIA needs to be operating during the period.

As to how it will operate, the amendments also raise the question of just what the responsibility of the Secretary of State is, as against the SIA—although not against it, I hope—in this eco-landscape, as some might say.

With regard to a report to Parliament, I am sure that the Minister will say that the Government will keep the operation of the Act under review, although I am not sure the timescales are entirely sensible: things seem to come a bit too soon.

My Lords, I agree. I am surprised that the Opposition suggested more bureaucracy. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was right about the advisory board: if it is a good idea, and it could be, it is for the SIA to decide. Otherwise, if it were a separate body, there would be even more cost.

I have agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Frost, on many things about Europe, but I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, was entirely right: you cannot say that it is bureaucracy in that context but not in this, because it is. It would confuse rather than clarify.

Surely the purpose of the SIA board is to do the very thing that he described under the supervision of the Home Office. If it gets it wrong, I presume there would be a change in the legislation.

He made a stronger argument for more clarity in the law and that it was the wrong solution for a problem that may materialise. Finally, this reminded me that, post 9/11, the Americans concluded they had too many intelligence agencies.

I think they had 19 at the time, and the result was that they were not communicating. Their solution was to put things called fusion centres outside the major cities—big warehouse buildings in which all these bodies would work together.

Instead of reducing the number of intelligence agencies or finding a better solution, they built a place where they could meet better. I did not see the sense in that, so I cannot agree with either of these amendments.

My Lords, I am very grateful to those who have contributed to this short debate.

My Lords, just to confirm, the noble Lord will be speaking after the Minister.

Does the Minister accept that the major expansion of bureaucracy in the Bill comes from the regulatory requirement of so many small premises in the first place? That is the expansion of government activity under the Bill and I feel—I cannot speak for others—very sceptical about it.

Does he agree that it is a bit rich, having been willing to preside over this huge expansion of activity, to criticise those of us who want to see it properly monitored to do its job efficiently?

The noble Lord calls it bureaucracy; I call it life-saving measures. The Bill is about putting in place life-saving measures to ensure that, in the event of a terrorist attack, individuals know what to do. That might save lives downstream.

That is a type of bureaucracy that I am quite happy to accept. There are many burdens and bureaucracies in life, such as health and safety legislation, mine legislation and road safety legislation. There is a whole range of burdens that are there to save lives and this is the same process.

My Lords, I think it is my turn now. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions on this group. As I said, this amendment seeks to create an advisory board for the SIA, mainly from industry experts, local authorities and civil society. It is a collaborative approach that we look for.

As mentioned by my noble friend Lord Frost, it is about having a degree of independence as well. There is certainly food for thought in what the Minister said in his response. For the time being, I will withdraw my amendment while we go away and have a think about it.

I understand the concern that those in charge of organising events must act responsibly, and I hope the Committee will accept that all decent people—the sort of people who organise a voluntary event—will want to do so.

If things go wrong and there is a disaster in the form of a terrorist event, in particular one that could and should have been prevented, the person responsible—the chairman of the committee or whatever—will not want to be found responsible in the court of public opinion for an outrage occurring at something that they have organised.

Quite simply, no decent person who has thought about it for a moment would want that on their conscience. That is the starting point.

I cannot deal with rogues and vagabonds, because they are to one side; I am talking about the vast majority of people who get involved in smaller events, not commercial organisations. Small organisations, if properly advised, will insure against financial penalties.

That may be the cost of putting on an event. At a local jubilee event a few years ago in south-west London, in Putney, on a little green we have in our street, we were going to have a bouncy castle.

I said that we must get substantial personal injury liability insurance in case a child falls off and breaks their neck and suffers brain damage. It was vast damages then—not as much as it is now but certainly into millions of pounds. We were able to get it fairly cheaply.

However, that was for personal injury damages. What you cannot do is ensure against going to prison. You could certainly get insurance against criminal penalties up to a certain level.

If it is known that the fine is not going to be more than £2,000 or something, it will not be terrible, but the insurers will not insure you next year if you are fined this year.

I shall make three quick points.

First, I hope the noble Lord can in summing up this debate reassure the Committee about proportionality and that it is not the intention of this Bill to attack or penalise volunteers—it is to encourage volunteers to play their role fully in the understanding of what this Bill is about and the need to prepare for the eventuality of a terrorist attack.

Secondly, I have listened very carefully and I have a lot of sympathy on the issue of volunteers. I am a volunteer trustee on several boards and I know about the liability that you have as a trustee on a board.

You do have personal liability—but that does not put me off, and I hope that it will not put lots of other people off. I cannot support these amendments, because I think they water down the core element of individual responsibility in the Bill.

For what criminal liability is the noble Baroness as a trustee going to be liable, other than the criminal offence of fraud?

That is a fair point—but you are financially liable as a trustee.

You can insure against that, and I am sure the noble Baroness is insured as a trustee.

For me, the amendments water down a core element of the Bill, which is about individual responsibility—people taking responsibility for ensuring that an organisation or an event at a venue has thought about what it will do in the eventuality of an attack. That is the key purpose of this Bill.

Thirdly, it would be useful if the Minister could write a letter or bring forward proposals to illustrate how volunteers will be treated with due respect and that it will be understood that this legislation must not put them off, which is why an information campaign is so important.

A public information campaign should reassure people.

My Lords, this amendment is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Suttie. It is a probing amendment in connection with the disclosure of information, which is the subject of Clause 28.

Clause 28(5) provides that: “In determining whether a disclosure would contravene the data protection legislation, the requirements imposed, and powers conferred, by this Part are to be taken into account”.

The purpose of this amendment is to determine what weight there is in the phrase “to be taken into account”. I have proposed changing that to “do prevail”. In fact, it is the data protection legislation that should prevail, but this seemed to be the shortest way of getting to the probe.

The Events Industry Alliance has told us that there may be extremely sensitive information, including commercially sensitive information, connected with the fulfilment of the requirements under the Bill, and one can understand its concern.

I hope that the Minister can tell us how the different interests are weighed, and whether data protection—as I would have thought would be the case—would override everything. I beg to move.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for Amendment 37.

I hope I can reassure her that the Security Industry Authority already has robust safeguards and processes in place for discharging its duties under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, which ensure that it is therefore compliant with data protection legislation.

The Government’s clear expectation is that the SIA will apply the existing safeguards that it has under the 2001 Act when implementing its new regulatory functions under this Bill.

Furthermore, as an arm’s-length body, the SIA must ensure that any disclosures of information under the Bill do not contravene data protection legislation, including the Data Protection Act 2018, or the prohibitions in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

The regulator will be able to share information only in accordance with the parameters in the Bill—shortly to be an Act —and other applicable legal requirements, such as those under data protection legislation as a whole.

I hope that those three bits of legislation—the Private Security Industry Act, the Data Protection Act and the Investigatory Powers Act—give the noble Baroness the assurances that she seeks.

My Lords, I am not sure that I am reassured, because I do not understand how opposing points can be taken into account. If it is data protection legislation that governs—if that is what prevails—why do we need this subsection at all?

I have not looked at the Private Security Industry Act to which the Minister referred, so I will certainly look at that and at what he has just said. I do not want to be difficult; I just want to get an understanding so that everybody understands it, not just me.

Would it help the noble Baroness if I ensure that I write her a letter between now and Report, which will be announced shortly, so that she has clarity on her concerns? To save her having to look it up, I will also send her the relevant section of the Private Security Industry Act 2001.

Sending me the reference will do; computers are wonderful—mostly. I am grateful for that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.