Rishi Sunak has been confronted by the mum of a victim of the Manchester Arena bombing after dragging his feet on bringing in a law in her son’s memory.
Figen Murray is campaigning for tougher security measures at public venues after her son Martyn Hett was killed in the terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017. The Prime Minister had promised to bring in Martyn’s law, which would require venues and local authorities to have preventative plans in place against terror attacks.
He met Ms Murray after she walked 200 miles to London for the seventh anniversary attack. But the same day he called a General Election on July 4, which did not give Martyn’s Law enough time to pass through Parliament.
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© Glen Minikin)
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© Glen Minikin)
In a voice message sent to LBC, she said: “Hello, Prime Minister. This is Figen Murray, the mother of Martyn Hett who was killed in the Manchester Arena terror attack. Remember me? I walked from Manchester to London last month to meet you.
“You have put in your manifesto that Martyn’s Law is a priority. I don’t know what you mean by that because you promised me 18 months ago, in a phone call on what would have been Martyn’s 35th birthday, that you’re going to really hurry up with Martin’s Law and you are very committed to it.
“There has been nothing since then. So what exactly do you mean by prioritising? Can you please put a number, a figure to it in terms of how many months that’s going to still be? That will be really good.”
Mr Sunak insisted he was still committed to bringing forward Martyn’s Law – and would get it through Parliament if he won the election. He said: “I saw her just a few weeks ago in Parliament and it was awful what happened to her son and everyone else impacted in Manchester and that’s why I’m committed to bringing in Martyn’s law.
“What we’ve spent the time over the last year doing is the consultation process, as when you bring a new law in that impacts of thousands and thousands of premises, you need to do that and make sure it’s effective. And we’ve done that work and as I committed to Figen when I spoke to her, if I’m reelected I said it would be before summer recess and that I will deliver on that commitment.”