Martyn’s Law: a moment of reflection while moving forward

SIA Martyn’s Law Director Laura Gibb marks the first anniversary of Royal Assent and looks ahead to publication of draft section 12 guidance for consultation.

There’s a huge amount of work happening behind the scenes to prepare for commencement of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, and my aim each month is to share where we are, what’s coming next, and how you can get involved. Thank you for staying engaged and for helping us shape this new regime as it develops.

Marking one year since Royal Assent

At the first anniversary of the Terrorism Protection of Premises Act receiving Royal Assent, we want to pause and pay tribute to Figen Murray OBE. Figen’s tireless work to initiate Martyn’s Law—and the determination she continues to show in pushing for commencement—will make us all safer.

In a previous role, I met families bereaved by femicide. They spoke about the depth of their loss and the campaigning they undertook in response. People often talk about “closure”, but I’ve come to believe that closure isn’t really something you can achieve. As one person said to me, “grief doesn’t end because love doesn’t end”.

Figen’s persistence is a powerful expression of her love for Martyn. Her resilience, her energy, and her refusal to give up will mean that more consistent and stronger protections at premises and events become a reality. Thank you, Figen.

Statutory guidance

We are now in the final stages of preparing the SIA’s draft section 12 statutory guidance for public consultation. This guidance will explain our new statutory powers of enforcement and investigation and set out how we intend to use them.

The SIA section 12 guidance is about how we will operate as the regulator. It explains that we will take a targeted and risk-based approach to the use of our powers. It sets out how we will use guidance to help people engage with us and to comply with the law, and when we may provide advice in response to specific compliance concerns. The guidance describes how our powers to obtain information and carry out inspections will work, and how we will use the information that we hold. It also explains how we will address non-compliance—including the circumstances in which we may decide it is necessary and proportionate to use our statutory powers—how we will set the value of financial penalties, and what information we may publish about our compliance work.

The SIA’s draft guidance will be published alongside the Home Office’s section 27 statutory guidance on what premises and events will be required to do, which the Home Office intends to release this spring.

More practical guidance from the SIA as regulator on things like how premises and events should notify us that they are in scope of Martyn’s Law will follow later this year, when we have built our online notification system.

As soon as we are able to confirm the publication date of the section 12 guidance, we will. Thank you for your patience. Once the consultation opens, it will run for a minimum of 8 weeks, and I strongly encourage you to take part. Your feedback genuinely shapes the final product.

Hearing from us

Over the coming months, we’ll begin publishing more information for those responsible for complying with the Act ahead of its requirements coming into force.

We will also be working behind the scenes building a new and secure digital platform for notifications. Later in the year we will want to test it at various stages with the premises and events who will need to use it. We will be looking for volunteers to help us get this right at beta testing stage, and so that may be a great way to get involved. Watch out for this in future blogs and details of how to contact us about this.

Thank you for your continued support.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/martyns-law-a-moment-of-reflection-while-moving-forward