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Mr. David Cameron (Witney): It was the Lord Chancellor.
Mr. Blunkett: I am not aware that he was wearing a wig at the time.
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham): And lady's tights.
Mr. Blunkett: Actually, this matter is quite serious.
Mr. Barschak presented as being slightly drunk and said that he was a party guest who had lost his way. The contractor escorted him to one of the side entrances to the castle, where a police officer was on duty. The police officer, who had to remain at his post, asked the contractor to take Mr. Barschak to the main entrance to the party. There was no further challenge from either the police or other staff controlling access to the party. Mr. Barschak was able to get unacceptably close to Prince William.
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk): He kissed him.
Mr. Blunkett: We do not have confirmation of that.
Having appeared at the prince's side, Mr. Barschak then made his way to the bar, where a member of the castle staff challenged him. He was handed over to the police and subsequently arrested. Following interview and investigation by the police, which is still continuing, Mr. Barschak was released on bail.
I am sure that the House will appreciate that I have to be very careful, in commenting on the incident, to ensure that I do not prejudice any possible police action against Mr. Barschak. Nevertheless, his actions have exposed
an appalling failure in the security at Windsor castle, which simply should not have happened. I know that the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis agrees with this view.I am determined that lessons should be learned from this incident. A detailed police inquiry is being conducted by a senior officer, Commander Frank Armstrong of the City of London police. The report of that investigation will determine conclusively what went wrong on the night, and whether disciplinary action needs to be taken. That report will be available within the next four weeks. It is my intention, in consultation with Sir John Stevens, to publish the report.
However, neither the police nor I are awaiting that report before considering what further security measures need to be taken. This is the subject of the most urgent work with the royal household by the Metropolitan police and my officials.
My particular concern is that this very serious breach of security occurred despite there being extensive security and surveillance measures already in place at Windsor castle. Further work has been carried out over the past few months, and more is planned for the autumn. Security at all royal residences remains under constant review, but at this stage we have no reason to believe there were any technical failures at Windsor on Saturday night.
Assistant Commissioner David Veness of the Metropolitan police has made it clear that the events of Saturday night are wholly unacceptable, and I share that view. That is why, within the confines of the inquiry and possible further police action, I have sought today to give the House a picture of those events.
I want to assure the House that we will work with the police and the royal household to ensure that lessons can be learned from this event that can only improve the security of the royal family for the future. I know that the whole House will share that objective.
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset): I am grateful to the Home Secretary for his statement and for giving me early sight of it, although that conventional courtesy was perhaps less important than usual as we have all read it in the press.
I take this opportunity to repeat in the House what I have already said outside: we are not aiming to decapitate the Home Secretary or anyone else. Our purpose in considering the statement and the events to which it refers should be to learn the lessons and improve the systems of protection rather than to satisfy any political or administrative bloodlust.
It is clear that the system failed. If there was human failure, as the Home Secretary seems to imply, that is not a sufficient explanation, because human beings do fail; the point of systems is to make up for their failings, to ensure that the outcome is good even when things go wrong on the way.
The House, and, I hope, the Government, will not want to focus solely on the immediate lessons and the immediate questions. There are also wider lessons. This episode and the systemic failure that it represents is an important metaphor for wider systemic failure. Faced with the current terrorist threat, Whitehall is doing many of the right things, but it is doing them far too
lethargically. I have recently seen a letter from the emergency planning officer of a county council. It is one of a number of similar communications that I have received from emergency planners around the country over the past 18 months.In the letter, that senior official tells us:
- "In respect of measures to assist in dealing with . . . the chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear threat . . . the time this is taking to implement across the country is a cause for concern".
It is all very well—indeed, it is very well—for the Home Secretary to ask for a report from the commissioner after the episode, but can he tell us whether he asked for reports on the progressive improvement of royal security in each of the last 18 months? I suspect that the Home Secretary and his colleagues would regard that question as naive. I suspect they think that I do not understand how busy he is; but the point is that I do understand how busy he is.
The Home Secretary is too busy—too busy to wake up each morning and to go to bed each evening worrying exclusively about the systems of civil protection in this country. Given the present level of threat, constantly emphasised by the right hon. Gentleman and by the Prime Minister, and recently re-emphasised by the head of MI5, and given the current deficiencies in our systems of civil protection, all too glaringly illustrated by the recent episode, we need a heavyweight political figure who can spend morning, noon and night worrying about those matters, and harassing the various agencies.
Before the Home Secretary retorts that a new Department will not help, let me restate, as I have on numerous occasions over the past 18 months, that I do not believe that a new Department is required. What is required is, rather, a centre of energy in the form of a senior Minister, spending his or her whole time energising those responsible for civil protection in Britain.
Such a Minister could be located within the Cabinet Office or within the Home Office itself, a Department which, I remind the Home Secretary—[Interruption.]—and the Chief Whip, who is muttering from a sedentary position—[Hon. Members: "As usual".] For three long months, under their aegis, the Department did not even have a Minister with part-time responsibility for those matters.
Will the Home Secretary, for our safety and for his peace of mind, take the opportunity of this episode to consider afresh what is genuinely intended as a constructive way forward?
Mr. Blunkett: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that there is no bloodlust. We all share the view that, if lessons are to be learned, we should move quickly to put things right. We also share his view that systemic failure occurred on this occasion.
I have already made it clear that the technology that was put in place did not fail, so there was clearly a failure in the systems for checking; there was human error and a failure to respond to particular indications of intrusion
and to ensure that after the initial checks had been made, continuing identity checks were made in the castle itself. All those lessons will be learned.Let me deal with the substantive issue—what the right hon. Gentleman described as a metaphor. Were the emergency planning officers right to believe that, if it has taken time to deal with the very substantive chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threat and if undue time has been taken to put in place the tens of millions of pounds that we are now spending to counteract that threat, there is a read-over to this event and therefore that urgency of action was the cause of the failure as well as not having a security tsar in the Cabinet, separate from the Minister responsible for counter-terrorism and policing, including MI5, SO13 and SO14 and the wider special branch? That is the issue that the right hon. Gentleman has raised this afternoon.
The right hon. Gentleman asks whether we have we taken steps over 18 months to secure the royal family. Yes, we have. At every royal palace, major work has been and continues to be undertaken, including at Windsor castle. When the report comes out, the steps taken, the technology available and the surveillance already in place will be spelt out, along with the detailed investigation of the failures. [Interruption.] The shadow Leader of the House rightly, almost perceptively, says from a sedentary position that it did not work. Well, self-evidently, it did not work; otherwise, I would not be reporting to the House.
Self-evidently, no matter how busy I have been, I was not there on Saturday night to oversee the events, even though, as Prince Andrew said to me last night, I would have been very welcome. I was attending an event that the shadow Home Secretary also attended. However, if I had been very welcome—let us get this clear—I would not have been operationally responsible for what took place at Windsor, not just because it would not have been correct for me to do so, but because Opposition Members have been berating me for the past two years for taking any step to have any operational responsibility for police activity. They can only have it one way: either I am operationally responsible, or a security tsar would be; or the police are operationally responsible, so long as we as a Government have put in place the resources, the available support and the mechanisms to ensure that they do their job properly.
Let me deal with the final issue. If there had been a security tsar in the Cabinet and I had been sitting next to him while he made this statement, would it have changed the situation? Would it have avoided the event? Would we be more secure? Would it have helped or hindered to have taken out of the hands of the Home Secretary responsibility for the general issue, but not the responsibility to hold to account the operational special branch and policing mechanisms, including SO14, which is responsible for royal security? Would it have made a difference if a separate person was answering those questions, or badgering me or the police about what they are doing separately from the duty that I would have to carry out in being in charge and accountable for MI5 and special branch? The answer is patently no. If someone else were trying to do my job for me separately, and answering for me separately while I sat next to him, the accountable lines of responsibility would be muddled. The police, including the commissioner, would not be clear to whom they were
accountable and the discussions this morning would inevitably have been with both of us and the report would have to come to both of us.In the end, these are the questions that have to be answered: did we do our bit of the job correctly? Have other people done their jobs correctly? Whom do we hold to account for the failures? How do we learn the lessons? It does not matter what silly party politics are made of this; those are the questions. We will have the answers within a month and, if someone else energising himself by rushing around triple checking the arrangements put in place and ensuring that personal and systemic failures do not occur would make any difference, I would recommend to the Prime Minister that it be done, but we have either overall charge of the system, or operational responsibility. We cannot have both.
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