Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-109)
15 OCTOBER 2003
MR SIMON
WEBB CBE, DR
SARAH BEAVER
AND MR
PAUL JOHNSTON
Q100 Mr Jones: But is there not a
difference between what you have just described, for example that
a member country wanted it obviously for their own use, as opposed
to having a political reason, "We don't want this asset used"?
Mr Webb: Yes. The trouble is that
in practice it is very difficult to write something except in
terms of political goodwill which expresses that, but given what
we all know about the problems of airlift and so on I do not think
one ought to be too resistant to that as a way of particularly
organising for small countries to get access to lift. So that
if one of the smaller new members, as is happening at the moment
and we have seen some of this in Iraq, want to come and contribute
realistically they are not going to have an air fleet of their
own but there is some joint pool which needs a bit of structure
so you start to call it a joint command. I do not want to be too
snooty about that. It bears watching for some of the reasons you
have mentioned but I do not think we should reject it out of hand.
Q101 Mr Roy: In relation to Transatlantic
relationships, how will the Government ensure that it is able
to contribute to an effective EU intelligence capability without
compromising the UK's intelligence relationship with the United
States and will that not really cause the US a problem?
Mr Webb: Chairman, I am probably
going to ask to go into private session before we get very far
into this subject but let us see what we can do at this level.
It is about intelligence. The basic answer is that in any intelligence
sharing relationship it is not open to the recipient to give it
to anybody else without the consent of the person they got it
from. For what it is worth, however, I would say, having myself
visited the EU situation centre, that actually some pretty good
products come out of intelligence sharing. Intelligence can mean,
as you know very well as a committee, some very expensive and
highly specialised assets but it can also mean some jolly good
on the ground reporting which is well organised, thoughtful and
sensitive. Actually when I went to visit the EU situation centre
I felt that on the whole the net of the countries' contributions,
including our own, was better than the country's individual stuff
and in fact I see some things from there which I did not know
already. But your specific point about the US, I think I have
probably answered it. One has very, very strict rules and so do
we. If we share some intelligence with somebody else it says very,
very clearly what can happen to it next.
Q102 Mr Roy: Okay, I understand what
you are saying. Away from the intelligent aspect, in relation
to other Transatlantic defence relationships, how does the Government
propose to ensure that any commitments to sharing technology within
a European agency do not threaten British prospects for an ITAR
waiver?
Mr Webb: We need to be reassuring
that we handle intellectual property by the same strict rules
as we do, in other words that where information is released to
the UK and only for the UK we do not share it with anybody else.
It is as simple as that.
Q103 Mr Roy: So therefore it would
not undermine?
Mr Webb: Exactly, because the
ITAR waiver would be about information released to the UK and
it would not be open to us to release that to anybody else unless
the terms of release said we could. So the control remains with
the person who releases the information in the first place. So
it does not in any way undermine the case for an ITAR waiver,
which I think is a badly needed bit of machinery to make the international
market place work more efficiently in this arena.
Q104 Rachel Squire: Could I just
come back to the Agency and basically bluntly ask you—and
I know it is originally a UK-French government proposal—why
you think the Agency will be able to actually deliver the capabilities
and commitments which have been promised when that process and
procedure has already existed within NATO for some time and, as
we all know, a great amount of talk has taken place but actually
the action has been somewhat lacking. So I am looking to be convinced
that this Agency is not to be another talking shop.
Mr Webb: All right. One reason
for that is that I think it will provide a political dynamic Let
me explain a bit more. NATO is a somewhat top-down directed process
which has had its successes but is a certain style of structure.
I noticed that within the EU you can get a mood for collective
political action on subjects and it has been part of the great
success of the EU in a much broader sense. What I actually think,
to answer your question precisely, is if we get the chairmanship
of the Agency right and the chair of the board, who does not have
to be there all the time, is a senior political figure but is
well served by the Agency in terms of information about gaps,
which will be much more systematic so that we would not be just
talking about loose numbers, evaluation and assessment. So there
would be quite specific assessments of gaps. Let us be straightforward
about this. Senior Solana, if he was in charge of this and had
that kind of service from the Agency, which he does not get from
this structure, is the sort of person—I have seen him in
action and I genuinely mean this—he would go round and he
would put his arm around these defence ministers in the wonderful
style that he has and he would say, "Come on, you know, we
need this for Europe. Can't you get back to your finance ministry?
Can't you reshape your department? Get this capability on line.
We really need you." It is a sort of political thing and
he would be doing that in a political context where Europe was
trying to do well against the Petersberg tasks. I think that political
momentum is not present at the moment. I go to NATO meetings,
EU meetings and I am an observer of political processes. Chairman,
as you know, I know little about them but I watch them and I think
that it would help in that sense. So that is the first thing,
that it would get a bit of political dynamic into it. The second
thing is that I think the assessment side, which actually Dr Beaver
has done a lot of work on, getting the numbers crunched about
what we have and have not got will bring a good bit of British
realism to the situation. You would not get away with just saying,
"You know, we've got this and this." Thirdly, it would
provide an inner core close to the centre of the EU for putting
together these multinational projects which we have just been
talking about. People would be got together and it would provide
a good forum to get the projects started. Not to run the projects,
for that we have got OCCAR or LoI and other agents to deal with
it. So that is why I believe it. I think on my side is the fact
that the EU has benefited from institutions. You might think it
is an odd thing for a British defence department to be proposing
EU institution machinery but I think I am convinced that it could
help.
Q105 Mr Howarth: Against you is experience.
Mr Webb: No, for me is experience.
Q106 Mr Howarth: No, it is against
you. All experience is against you because there is Typhoon, I
set the example to the Secretary of State yesterday, Airbus A400M.
I keep asking BAE when they are going to start cutting cardboard.
It has taken so long to put together what is really a basically
simple military option, which is a cargo aeroplane and we are
not really a great deal further forward. Whilst I accept that
the actual contract would be run by, as you suggest, OCCAR or
under the Letter of Intent, I think it is called?
Mr Webb: Yes.
Q107 Mr Howarth: I just put it to
you this way. I do not know that we are going to agree but I just
put it to you that all the experience that we have had to date
in trying to arrive at common positions has not really been very
successful. I do not really see any point in pursuing it because
there is actually a point I do want to pursue, if I may, which
comes back to what Frank Roy was saying, which is about the intelligence
business. I do not want to trespass on that which is sensitive
but what I want to say to you is that I do believe that you actually
do place the Ministry of Defence in a very difficult situation
where you have got the conflicting relationship with the United
States and that with the EU and the politics of it are that if
the Americans perceive that you are not absolutely 110% watertight
they will not be in the business of sharing information and this
is going to extend beyond you narrowly. It is going to end up
affecting companies like QinetiQ, which of course are active in
so many constituencies in our country.
Mr Webb: I would argue that A400M
would have benefited from a senior political figure to have done
the brokering actually. I think if we had had somebody who was
going around at an international level saying, "Let's get
this together," it would actually have helped, I genuinely
believe that, and a target date which was set against the European
target and I could argue that Airbus has been a very good project
run in a different way.
Q108 Mr Howarth: I think the Airbus
has and what you have in your favour there is that Airbus was
really directed not by the British Government but actually by
the French government, who put the French national interest and
their hostility to the United States above all else and we have
shared in the result.
Mr Webb: That is not the sort
of climate I would hope to try and create for the Agency. On intelligence,
Chairman, I would like to say let us not talk this issue into
a problem. I have told you that the US can be 100% guaranteed.
I am a member of the JIC. I have been through this. I have colleagues
from the agencies who are just as intense. There is another scrutiny
committee which takes a lot of interest in this. I can assure
you that there are 100% watertight arrangements to ensure that
no US released intelligence is abused by Britain and please let
us not talk it up. If you want to ask me some more questions let
us go behind the curtain.
Q109 Chairman: We had other questions
to ask but time is running on and we will drop you a note. I did
not want to ask you to defend the role of the Defence Committee
vis-a-vis the European Parliament, Mr Webb. That will be for other
people to reassure us that the European Parliament's role is not
going to subordinate the legislatures in the national government
side. That is given as far as we are concerned. Thank you very
much and one day we will have a chat to you, Dr Beaver. [2]
Mr Webb: I am sorry, that is my
mistake.
Chairman: I could see you were trying
very hard to talk to us, but you take it up with Simon later on.
Thank you so very much for coming. It has been very helpful.
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