From spring 2027, any Cambridge venue where 200 or more people can be present at the same time will have new legal duties under Martyn's Law. That can include pubs, theatres, conference venues, university and college buildings, gyms, shops, churches and community halls. The first steps cost nothing, and most of the work comes down to knowing your building and your people.
What is Martyn's Law?
Martyn's Law is the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025. It is named after Martyn Hett, one of the 22 people killed in the Manchester Arena attack in 2017, and his mother Figen Murray campaigned for it for years. It received Royal Assent on 3 April 2025. The Security Industry Authority (SIA) will regulate it and expects the duties to start in spring 2027, although no date has been fixed in law yet.
Is your venue in scope?
It depends on how many people could reasonably be there at the same time at your busiest, counting staff, volunteers and contractors as well as visitors.
- 200 to 799 people: the standard tier.
- 800 or more people: the enhanced tier, which has heavier duties.
- Places of worship, childcare settings, schools and further education colleges stay in the standard tier whatever their size.
Events with 800 or more people and entry checks, such as tickets, have their own duties too. If you are not sure where you stand, our free Martyn's Law tier checker asks four questions and shows which tier is likely to apply. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
What the standard tier asks of you
Two things. You must tell the SIA that your premises is in scope, and you will have three months from the start date to do it. You must also have public protection procedures that the people working there would follow if an attack happened, so far as is reasonably practicable. Those procedures cover four areas:
- evacuation: getting people out safely
- invacuation: moving people to a safer place inside
- lockdown: stopping people getting in or out
- communication: telling people on site what is happening
The law does not demand a written plan at this tier, but the official guidance recommends one, and it is far easier to brief staff from a document than from memory.
Do your staff need training?
The Act does not require any specific training. The Home Office guidance is clear, though, that staff with a role in your procedures must know what those procedures are and what their part is, and that without informing or training them it will be hard to show your procedures are appropriate.
Start with the free official courses. ProtectUK offers ACT Awareness e-learning, which takes about 45 minutes and suits every member of staff. Be wary of anyone selling expensive courses that promise a course alone will satisfy the law: the guidance says paying for third-party training is not mandatory, and only the SIA decides whether a venue meets its duties.
What the free courses cannot do is teach your own building: where your exits are, who calls a lockdown, and how you warn people in the bar or the back hall. That part has to be specific to you, and it has to be practised. In 24 years in the RAF I learnt that a procedure nobody has rehearsed tends to fall apart on the day.
Five steps to take before 2027
- Work out how many people could be on site at your busiest, including staff, and which tier applies.
- Write down your procedures for evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication.
- Give every member of staff, including casual and agency workers, basic awareness training.
- Train the people with specific roles on what they will actually do, and run a walk-through or drill.
- Keep a simple record of who has been trained and when you practised, so you can show it if the SIA asks.
The penalties are real: up to £10,000 for standard tier premises, plus daily amounts for continuing failures, and far more for the enhanced tier. For most venues, though, the work is modest if you start early.
Our guide to Martyn's Law training sets out who needs what, with links to the official guidance and the free courses. If you run several sites or want training built around your own procedures, Capytech's Martyn's Law Academy can help, but the free steps above are the place to start.
About Capytech UK
Capytech UK is a Cambridge digital learning company and part of Capytech, which has built corporate training technology for 13 years. We build custom e-learning from your own policies and procedures, and run it on the Capytech LMS and TMS.