London Bridge Vigil

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The Protect Duty - Respond to the Standard Tier Consultation

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The Protect Duty is a new statutory responsibility which will impact Churches and Places of Worship. Responses to this consultation are needed . The deadline for responses is 18 March 2024 What is all this about? The consultations and parliamentary process for the Bill to implement a Protect Duty (" Martyn's Law ") have made a difference. Changes have been introduced to mitigate the severe unintended consequences of the original proposals. As it was they would have given terrorism a win by making things very difficult for churches and places of worship. I set out why that was here . It is now really important to respond to the consultation on the impact of the proposals as they now stand so that the changes for the better are not lost and so that the Bill can be improved further. Government needs to be clear about the impact of the Duty on Churches and other places of worship The more individual responses there are the better. Please respond yourself, and ask others in
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Unintended Consequences of the Protect Duty

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  A government consultation reveals some significant concerns for churches and places of worship.  As chair of the Faith Sector Panel of the London Resilience Forum I have a lot to do with London’s Faith Communities’ response to terrorism (see here for my role). So it was with interest that I heard that there was to be a consultation on a new “ Protect Duty ” to “make the public safer at publicly accessible locations.” The proposals follow campaigning by Figen Murray, whose son Martyn was tragically killed in the Manchester Arena attack , to introduce “Martyn’s Law” which aims to legislate for a duty on those who own or manage publicly accessible places to take actions to reduce the threat of terrorism. The ‘simple common sense security’ for which Figen Murray calls must be right; but the legislation now being consulted on causes considerable concern. The proposed legislation has very significant unintended consequences for places of worship. In my view it needs to be signific
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General Synod LLF Debate November 2023

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During the debate I spoke on the amendment calling for the Pastoral Guidance to be published before the implementation of the Prayers of Love and Faith.  This was my speech. You can watch it here . I welcome this amendment. We were promised in the debate in July that we would see the full guidance before the prayers came into use, and we should take our time to make sure that that is the case. Five issues which specifically affect the clergy. First, whether they use or do not use the prayers, the Pastoral Guidance will provide protection for clergy from challenge. Without it clergy are exposed. Seeing legal advice might give some consolation on this point, but even had that been offered it would be necessary to see the Guidance in full before the prayers are commended. This means secondly that the pastoral guidance fits into the framework of clergy discipline and with the clergy conduct measure passing through Synod we need to be clear about ho
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