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Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge) (Con): To be honest, because of its timing, this debate has not been one of our best debates on London. Labour Members accuse us of overstating the case, but we could accuse them of complacency. I have lived in my area all my life and I know that people think that things have changed dramatically. I am not sure that we can blame any political party for that, but in the past two weeks, and less than a mile from my house, we have seen a tuberculosis outbreak in a local school, terrorist suspects arrested and a bus attacked by a gang of youngsters. That is typical of the experience of many people and they feel a sense of desperation about it. The Government have introduced legislation such as the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, but just passing a law does not stop the behaviour.
As the elections draw near, I hope that we can all agree on one thing. London is a diverse capital city, which has always been one of its great strengths. When we go out to campaign in the streets, we must all ensure that racists and the British National party get nowhere and we must not use anything that would make life easier for such people.
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Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con): It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) in the debate and to echo his words about racism, which all of us need to bear in mind.
Before I go any further, I wish to tell the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Linda Perham), whose speech was extremely interesting, that I think that I am the only non-London Member present and I will do my best not to moan about her city or, indeed, to draw any inimical comparison.
Almost all hon. Members today have spoken, in one form or another, about security, crime and terrorism, on which I intend to major in a moment. The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) gave an interesting deposition on crime and the policing points were well made. Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) came in with an extremely well-put series of points on crime and rail, where he was joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait). The hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) referred in particular to crime, along with poverty. All those speeches were illuminating, but I shall concentrate on the point on which my hon.
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Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) majored: the interface between crime, security and terrorism.
This morning, a number of people were arrested in Manchester. In my shadow capacity, I would be the first person to emphasise the fact that, of course, terrorism is not simply a problem that will be concentrated around the London area. However, Riyadh was also attacked this morning. In the past two or three years, the major attacks—Washington, New York, Bali, Madrid and, again, Riyadh—have all taken place in capital cities, so the capitals will get it. There is absolutely no doubt that—I think that I am paraphrasing the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Adams)—we have got to be lucky all the time; the terrorists have only got to be lucky once and, if they can pick off a capital, they will do so.
I do not believe for one moment that it is easy to stop the terrorists getting through. Again, to paraphrase a great socialist, the bomber will always get through—although he was not necessarily talking about terrorist bombers: in that case, it was Nazi bombers. That is a fact: it is almost impossible to stop. There is no doubt that the Government have done certain things, but I should like to underline some ideas that, I hope, will make their efforts more focused and to echo one or two criticisms—they do not necessarily come from the Conservative party, but from other parties—about the way that things are being done at the moment. I hope that the Government will accept what I say as constructive, rather than destructive.
My first point is that we had some vocal interventions, particularly from the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), when we were talking about the level of exercising in the emergency services in the capital. There is no doubt that plenty of exercises have taken place in the capital, but to the best of my knowledge, there has been only one thorough field training exercise, to use military parlance: in other words, an exercise done live, on location and involving the emergency services—the blue-light services—in a situation that is as realistic as possible.
Of course I am talking about OSIRIS II, which, strangely, happened on the second anniversary, or thereabouts, of the events of 11 September. Although the Government are to be congratulated on getting on with that exercise, it took them a very long time to get round to doing it. I was there, as was the hon. Gentleman and several other hon. Members who are here today, and it struck me that it was the most basic form of exercise. I would expect to see such an exercise five or six weeks, not 105 or 106 weeks, after a major terrorist incident.
When will Ministers get round to holding an exercise or series of exercises that practise our emergency services when traffic is on the streets, pedestrians are about and the situation is thoroughly realistic? They have not yet done that. It is a little like sending soldiers into action without ever giving them the chance to use live ammunition. Blank ammunition is just fine but, at some stage, we have got to accept the opportunity cost and get on with things. We must say, as our American colleagues do, "I'm sorry, but we are going to interfere with trade and business for the next few hours and physically practise our response." The consequences of people saying in the media that their son, daughter,
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husband or wife had died because the emergency services had not been given an opportunity to practise would be horrific. If the Government want an example of that, they should examine the Spanish media after the Madrid bombings.
I also draw the Government's attention to a document that has already had a bit of an outing and which is known as "Project Unicorn". Its aim was to study what the commercial sector in London might do to assist the police counter-terrorism efforts. It was commissioned by the Metropolitan police, took a long time to produce and was extremely expensive. Its conclusions, which I note with interest that the Government have yet to publish, make fairly damning reading. The first point is that
"The Commercial Sector appears to be unanimous in its criticism of the present CT Communications Policy prior to a major incident: they find it outdated, condescending, generally uncoordinated and at times incoherent."
Several Members have already mentioned the need for a proper public information campaign. I note with interest that, during the proceedings on the Civil Contingencies Bill when we brought this idea up, we were completely and totally stonewalled by the Government. We were told that the matter was being dealt with and that we should not seek to scare the pants off the population. The population had to be alert but not alarmed. However, as soon as the Madrid incident occurred, the outstanding work of the police on the underground and the Metropolitan police produced public information campaigns warning people about what might happen, what to look out for and to be alert to exactly the points that we had been making to the Government. I urge Ministers to come back on this point and tell us why a much more coherent policy has not been followed to tell the population what is at stake.
Clive Efford: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the motion that he and his colleagues have tabled for this debate. It does not say anything about the fear of terrorism. The Conservatives appear to lack a policy for London, so should we not get back to the motion and start discussing the issues rather than trying to stir up the fear of terrorism in the way that Conservative Members have throughout the debate?
Patrick Mercer: I point out that I was quoting from a document, the aim of which was to study what the commercial sector in London might do to assist the police in their counter-terrorism efforts. There is an unparalleled opportunity for the people of London to be used as eyes and ears for the security services. That would make terrorism much more difficult.
Project Unicorn says that there is a
"perceived lack of a central focus for CT in Government which is accentuated by the belief that Government does not always understand the commercial implications of CT . . . For the vast majority of businesses in London this is accentuated by the lack of a coherent Communications Policy and confusing terminology such as 'Resilience' or 'Preparedness'."
I could go on, but I will not. However, it is crucial that London stops trying to glue together this jigsaw of counter-terrorist efforts, listens to the points that the Metropolitan police are making and tries to start to use the private and commercial sectors in particular. It
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should try to use all the security guards, who are already halfway trained in such skills, and to enrol people to fight the battle alongside them.
I wish to pick up a point that I heard being made, rather surprisingly, by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). We should look much more imaginatively at raising something like an emergency volunteer reserve whereby we use the skills, abilities and motivation of individuals to help the Government, as cheaply as possible, to prepare physically for an attack that we have been told, rightly or wrongly, is inevitable.
The report goes on to make points about, in particular, the lack of understanding of the chemical, biological and radiological threat to London. It says:
"To the public at large the CBRN threat is undoubtedly the most frightening aspect of 'the new terrorism', but it also the one that Government says the least about. It is little surprise therefore that the media fills the vacuum and the public assume the worst. Whilst the more astute commercial security directors have produced their own CBRN guidelines and contingencies, they are loth, in the absence of any official direction, to promulgate them."
I say to the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety, please can we look at that advice, which comes from a wholly objective source, and do something about it? Let us see the report published and a campaign for public information and training put in place.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster has already mentioned the civil contingencies reaction force. That very slender force was the only answer that the Government came up with relatively quickly to try to produce more muscle after 11 September. It never reached its 7,000 operational target, but—I do not want to be churlish about this—it is better than nothing. The force exists and can be called on.
The Ministry of Defence has told us that the most effective of the 14 civil contingencies reaction forces is that founded by the London Regiment. Yet the London Regiment—not all of it, but two companies—has been called up and is serving in Iraq. I wonder how many soldiers from London were involved in the four explosions in Basra this morning. Why were they there? Why were they not in Bermondsey, where they should be, doing their job? Has the Minister raised that with the MOD? Has she made it clear that London, above all areas, needs to have forces that will prevent threat from turning into reality? If that does not happen, I very much regret that the political consequences that we saw after the Madrid attacks may well come to pass in this country.
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