Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 307)
WEDNESDAY 26 JANUARY 2005
DR OWEN
GREENE, CHIEF
CONSTABLE PAUL
KERNAGHAN, MR
STEPHEN PATTISON
AND MR
STEPHEN RIMMER
Q300 Mr Viggers: Dr Greene, do you
have any comment to make?
Dr Greene: Yes, I do. It is obviously
a detailed area. I think there is significant scope for developing
training certainly in those areas around the various dimensions
of how to contribute to missions and so on and that is obviously
linked with this institutional change, who you are training. One
of the big issues is to train people who are then going to be
used for this task and to build on that training. One additional
point I think I would emphasise is that giving assistance to police
reform and capacity building of local police requires a number
of specific orientation and training skills which do not necessarily
arise in the military side and so on, it is more the training
skills of those people who are involved in development assistance
elsewhere or institutional change, and I think that needs to be
carefully thought through and certainly developed multilaterally
but I think there are a whole range of areas domestically where
this should be done. I should mention that I happen to know that
one of the areas in which the UK often wants to provide international
assistance in the policing sphere is to promote police reform
domestically in countries at risk of conflict through providing
local people with training on security reform and police reform
and right now there is no place in the UK that can really do that
in a routine way. There are plenty of places that can provide
specific training but there is a sort of gap both in terms of
training back here and also in terms of the capacity to provide
that training in region which is often more efficient. So, if
we were to develop the training for our own forces in this area,
we should look to synergies as to how we can provide that extra
value added to assist other countries in this area.
Q301 Mr Viggers: In order to maintain
control over individuals, would it be sensible to extend Her Majesty's
Inspectorate to ensure that they have access to those who are
overseas and perhaps inspect them or even certify them?
Chief Constable Kernaghan: In
fairness to the Inspectorate, they do go and inspect some of our
overseas commitments such as Cyprus Sovereign base areas etc.
It is generally because our people when they are overseas are
not UK cap badged, they are working for an international organisation,
be it the UN or EU. I can see sensitivities in respect of that
but it is important that we send extremely good people and I think
in fairness to Centrex, they would see that as a potential centre
of excellence but obviously that has to be taken into the wider
agenda between the Home Office and the other stakeholders.
Q302 Chairman: If Standing Orders
still permitted, I would expel my two colleagues and spend the
next two hours on the next question myself but I am constrained.
Private security. You mentioned, Chief Constable, that you would
not want your members to be exposed to danger in Iraq as well
as the group of people who do not operate to the rules. They get
quite well paid but they are prepared to go out on the streets
and large numbers of them, whichever country they come from, have
been killed and the heroes of Iraq are the Iraqi police officers
and the Iraqi police forces who are regularly butchered. A few
years ago, the Foreign Office had a consultative document on private
military companies and people mix up private military companies
with mercenary private security companies which is truly absurd.
Is there going to be a document emanating from the Foreign Office
as a result of their consultation? Linked to that is, one of the
last acts of Paul Bremer when he left the CPA in Baghdad was a
document on regulating private security because there are so many
security opportunists: American and British companies and all
sorts of companies operating with differential standards which
is embarrassing and dangerous. People are going out there purporting
to be experts who frankly should not be allowed to walk around
the streets of any of our constituencies. Has there been any thought—there
certainly should be—of somehow regulating the role of British
companies who go out to Iraq? It is only a handful of them who
are operating and it seems to be that there is an ideal organisation,
the Security Industry Authority, who can do the task if it had
the will and the instructions so to do. They may not be able to
regulate the individuals because many Brits are not resident in
this country and I understand it would be impossible to license
or regulate somebody who lives abroad but it could certainly be
possible to regulate the companies who reside or operate in this
country, to certify them, approve them, instruct them to go through
the following procedures before committing a member of their company
to deploy to Iraq or wherever else and that would ensure that
only good companies would operate and those who do not should
have their licence withdrawn or approval withdrawn. Can you give
us some indication as to what thinking is going on in the Foreign
Office and if there is any thinking going on in the Foreign Office
about how to regulate security personnel operating outside the
UK on missions such as Iraq and there are others.
Mr Pattison: There is certainly
thinking going on. As you said, a few years ago, the Government
produced a Green Paper and we followed that up with consultations
with interested parties including representatives of a number
of companies in this sector and, as a result of that, what we
are now trying to do is to look quite carefully at what proposals
for regulation might be brought forward.[2]
This is not an easy area as I think you yourself suggested, Chairman.
The question of definition is a very tricky one. We all know the
difference between a private military company and private security
company when we see it but actually trying to define it for the
purposes of legislation is rather difficult. What we are doing
I can tell you is looking at two broad options. One is the option
which is essentially the option adopted for the security sector
in the UK which is, if I can describe it loosely, the licensing
of companies and I think it is the sort of option you have just
suggested who might apply to Iraq and other situations where there
are British companies overseas. One option would be to try to
do that and to, as it were, have an approved list of companies.
The second—and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive—is
to focus on the licensing of contracts which in essence would
be rather similar to the procedures we have for the licensing
of defence exports. There are arguments for and against and I
will not rehearse them all. In essence, one of the arguments is
that particular contract may be more sensitive in a certain situation
than it is in another situation, so maybe you have to have a slightly
closer system of regulation, but none of this has been decided,
these are all the issues that we are currently grappling with.
In terms of Armour Group in Iraq, of course, as you know, the
Security Industry Authority's remit would not run to companies
operating outside the UK, so, if you like, there is no immediate
read across. What we have done with Armour Group is actually draw
up an extremely detailed contact with them which covers a very
wide area of issues including the sort of people they recruit,
their answerability ultimately to the Consulate General in Basra
through senior police advisers there and the circumstances in
which we can ask their personnel to be removed and so on and so
forth.
Q303 Chairman: These are people the
Foreign Office employs for your contracts?
Mr Pattison: Yes, this is Armour
Group. This is the contract that we have with them. We have been
very careful in drawing up the contract. We had it for an initial
period of six months and we are just on the point of renewing
it. So, we are very aware of the concern surrounding the use of
private companies, security or military, in this area. We have
tried in the Armour Group context to address those concerns through
the contract, careful reporting channels and monitoring and, on
the broader area, we are grappling with Whitehall colleagues with
some of the real difficulties of designing an effective but not
unduly cumbersome regulatory system.
Q304 Mr Havard: The Foreign Office
has done what you have just described in terms of making itself
content with what is happening with that group. Britain is part
of a broader discussion. There is a sort of status of forces agreement
which came out when the new interim government was set up and
a letter of understanding or whatever it was that came from Colin
Powell. Why is it that those sort of principles, or were they
perhaps taken into a broader discussion about all the other organisations
that there are in Iraq, so that there was a general understanding
of how they are regulated and how they relate to that international
UN, we are told driven from the UN resolution, process?
Mr Pattison: There is a difference
between a status of forces agreement which traditionally would
apply to regular military forces sent by one country to another
and the employment of private contractors. It is clear that, in
the area of private contractors, there is a bit of a gap in terms
of proper accountability and so on and standards and that is why
we have sought through our contract with Armour Group to ensure
that we plug it and we would do the same in respect of any company
that we wished to employ.
Chairman: Perhaps you might speed the
process up. It is taking a long time. I know some of the problems.
People thought that mercenaries went out with dogs of war but
they are still around. Only total idiots would plan a coup attempt
in South Africa which is probably the only country in the world
that has anything approaching tough legislation but that is not
a problem for this Committee. I think there is a degree of urgency
about it because I think countries have to be protected against
that malevolent and incompetent sector of the private security
industry in this country and elsewhere and the good companies,
of which there are many, like Crawl, and Neutral Risks Across
America is an excellent company doing very, very good jobs and
they should be kept protected against the charlatans.
Q305 Mr Havard: There is the broader
conceptual question which is the extent to which, if you like,
there is not proper organisation and there is not proper contribution
from the countries, whether it be through standing arrangements
or sub-specialisms or whatever. These outfits start to substitute
or they come in through legitimate governments and that is a serious
issue. Can I just mention something parochially, we talk about
officers being deployed to these things, I was speaking to the
Chief Constable the other day who said that the other end of it
is police officers who want to go off for two years' deployment
to a shed-load of money from some of these companies and then
come back and be a police officer. I spoke yesterday to a member
of the British military who has resigned from the British Army
to go and work for these outfits for 12 months to pay off his
mortgage and then become a policeman. Chief Constables are saying,
"You can't go. I am not letting you go for those sorts of
purposes." So, there is an issue around who is actually making
up these bodies and what these bodies can do in terms of drawing
out resources from the police. I do not know whether there is
a consistent approach in relation to how people are allowed to
go, when they are allowed to go or on what terms. Is there any
coordination or is it down to each individual police force?
Chief Constable Kernaghan: At
the end of the day, there is an option in the Police Service called
Career Break which is a very positive HR innovation where people
go off to pursue a qualification or just to achieve something
in life that they have always wanted to do. I think I can speak
for all my colleagues when I say that if someone submitted an
application and said they wanted to go and work for a private
military or private police contractor in Iraq, I think we would
sit them down, counsel them hard and probably would not give them
that option. Ultimately, they can resign but I assure the Committee
that it ranges from what we call blue chip to frankly cowboys
and I think that most chiefs feel that they have a professional
and moral obligation to their staff to give them the best advice
that they can and I would be very opposed to any one of my officers
going to Iraq unless they are either wearing military uniform
or they are on a secondment to the FCO.
Q306 Chairman: Chief Constable, I
do not want to dissent from your views, there is little time,
but many of those people who are undertaking jobs working for
contractors do exactly the same jobs that the military ought to
be doing but cannot or will not and many of the personnel are
ex-military perfectly respectable people. So, I hope that when
people do consider the role of private security, they do not take
the Dogs of War video in their minds because these are
very, very brave people who are doing the job not just on behalf
of the UK but, in the case of the Foreign Office, for UK Limited
and therefore anyone who might want to go off and work for a reputable
company, VIP protection, guarding critical national infrastructure,
is doing a job that is equally noble although rather better paid
than the guy or woman or goes out wearing the uniform and wearing
the cap badge of a British regiment.
Chief Constable Kernaghan: I do
not think there is any light between us at all, Chairman. I am
simply saying that, as a serving office, I feel I have an obligation
to set out the blue chipped to cowboy spectrum etc. I quite agree
with you that there are certain functions being carried out out
there by extremely reputable personnel but equally there are perhaps
risks being taken in the name of individual profit and commerce
that you would have to speak about very clearly because our officers,
particularly serving officers, have limited skills. If they are
ex-Special Forces or ex-Army, yes, they may want to go off and
do that but actually what are they going to do, who are they going
to work for and that, I feel, is a professional obligation.
Q307 Chairman: If the company is
approved, that would be less of a problem because you realise
that they are operating in a legitimate area of business.
Chief Constable Kernaghan: Indeed.
Mr Pattison: I would just like
to raise a quick footnote to the point raised by Mr Havard. Armour
Group, in our contract with them in Iraq, have agreed not to recruit
serving police officers.
Dr Greene: One additional point
and I think you are absolutely right to raise this point and it
is very important and I would share with all of the other responses,
but the private security company issue is also a very good illustration
of the way in which policing missions need to be integrated with
other dimensions of rule of law. In nearly every post-conflict
country, most of the policing is done by private security companies,
militias, a whole range of completely unregulated in all sorts
of different standing and one of the first acts of a peace support
mission should be to contribute to the regulation of those and
have a clear understanding of how to get to get to grips with
them and that obviously involves some sense of priorities but
also some sense of how to use and the sort of regulatory structures
that we are developing ourselves and adapt them to those conditions.
In general, it is not realistic to get them out of the game but
to have some specific rules like how many machineguns they can
carry to be very crude, but accountability rules and so on often
may need to be brought into play very, very quickly and, in practice,
they are almost the last things and often are still not addressed
before the mission leaves.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very,
very much. I think that was exceptionally interesting and very
relevant. It may be that fellow Committee Chairmen will wonder
why the Defence Committee is dealing with such issues. However,
we are very broad based in our activities and I hope that, when
we produce our report, it may have some influence on the series
of debates but we really appreciate very much your presence and
your contributions. Thank you very much.
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