Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1380-1399)
RT HON
ALISTAIR DARLING
MP, PROFESSOR SIR
DAVID KING
AND SIR
BRIAN BENDER
KCB
5 JULY 2006
Q1380 Dr Harris: You are not aware
of that; because it was mentioned again in the Sunday Telegraph
on Sunday, page lead: "Reed accused of burying bad news by
blocking research." Do you have a system in your office that
feeds in these sorts of reports, and I know they are only reports
at the moment, so that you can investigate it?
Professor Sir David King: My office
benefits from the DTI press office and I do tend to get cuttings
on a very regular basis, but I did not see that one.
Q1381 Chairman: Your Permanent Secretary
should alert you to these things?
Professor Sir David King: I am
not sure that it is the Permanent Secretary's job to alert me;
it is my private office, I am sure, that does most of that.
Q1382 Dr Harris: Sir David, I think,
is probably the best person to start, but please feel free to
chip in. Do you think that your understanding of what you call
the `precautionary approach' is the same as the European Union's
understanding of what it calls the `precautionary principle',
in terms of its definition and its implementation? If there is
a mismatch, what do you think can be done to ensure, given that
policy is made both in Europe and here, that there is not a clash
between those two?
Professor Sir David King: I do
not think there is a clash, if you judge it in terms of output.
In other words, there is nothing that we are doing in the British
Government, based on my precautionary approach, if you like, that
would lead to a different outcome from other European countries
operating what you might call a precautionary principle. My objection,
if you like, to precautionary principle is that it seemed to be
stating something new when, in fact, I think all it was stating
is "you should be cautious" and it did not seem to me
that it should be embodied in a new, big principle.
Q1383 Dr Harris: You cannot think
of any examples where a European Court judgment, for example,
Luxembourg has a definition of precautionary principle and therefore
has found the UK Government outwith that, because of the different
description that certainly you have with your precautionary approach,
which you have set out for us in evidence?
Professor Sir David King: What
I would say is that we have to live with risk, and risk management
is a big part of my job, but that does not mean that you manage
risk down to zero. I just want to avoid a "principle"
statement which seems to imply that is what you can achieve.
Q1384 Dr Harris: If the European
Union, for example, comes up with a Directive, or an attempted
Directive on, for example, the use of MRI machines—and I
hope you will have seen our Report on this, which touched on this—what
do you think you should do within Government to ensure that any
problems which were caused in that—and you may not accept
our recommendations, we look forward to hearing your response—such
problems that were set out there, because of what, I think, we
consider to be a different view of what the precautionary principle
required, those conflicts are minimised and prevented from happening
again?
Professor Sir David King: I think
that in any risk analysis there are two words which need to be
borne in mind; one is `precautionary' and the other is `proportionate'.
It is very important that you take `proportionate' into play as
well in every situation: `proportionate', in other words, whatever
action you take should be proportionate to the risk that is being
evaluated. Otherwise you get yourself into an absurd situation;
no people should be allowed to cross roads because it is risky
to cross roads. I am saying simply proportionate and precautionary
are the ways to approach these situations.
Q1385 Dr Harris: Was it proportionate,
therefore, to pull all these Cadbury's chocolate bars, when you
would have to eat 200 kilograms to get a dose of this bug that
would damage you, it is said?
Professor Sir David King: I can
make no comment on that.
Q1386 Dr Harris: Why not? Do you
think there is, in the case of the FSA food recalls, a disproportionate
response in order to keep public confidence in food, even if each
individual case is disproportionate, because that has been put
to us?
Professor Sir David King: I think
it may not be disproportionate, because I think it is absolutely
important that people who produce food produce it under properly
standardised conditions, and if they are found not to be operating
the conditions required then withdrawal seems to me a reasonable
approach.
Sir Brian Bender: Can I say, as
the Committee may know, I do some moonlighting, chairing some
cross-government work on risk. First of all, I agree with what
David said at the beginning, in his first answer to Dr Harris.
Secondly, I have read your Report and I agree particularly with
what Nick Stern is quoted as saying, where he doubted whether
risk analysis can be reduced to one particular principle or role.
I agree strongly with that. Thirdly, just picking up the last
exchange, the Treasury's appraisal guidance talks about `precautionary
action' and it talks about, in the context of five principles,
managing risk to the public, and one of those is `proportionality',
and, if the Committee will allow, I will read what it says on
proportionality. "Government will act proportionately and
consistently in dealing with risks to the public. Government will
base all decisions about risk on what serves the public interest.
Action to tackle risk to the public will be proportionate to the
level of protection needed and targeted to that risk." That
makes it very difficult to generalise; it applies case by case.
Certainly I read that as supporting what David was saying in reply
to the specific questions.
Q1387 Bob Spink: I just wonder whether
you are happy with the way the Government actually communicates
this concept of risk to the general public, how that could be
improved, whether you think it needs to be improved, whether you
think there are some reference points, some benchmarks that the
Government could introduce so the Government know what the level
risk might be in any particular circumstance? I know, Sir David,
you have been very vocal in saying what the risk might be in the
case of an avian flu pandemic and you have put figures on that.
Do you think the Government can improve its communication of risk?
Professor Sir David King: Yes.
I think, again, improvement is always possible. If you take another
example, MMR vaccines, we now have measles outbreaks, just as
we predicted would happen; we have had the first death, of a 14
year old, and really this should not have happened. Clearly, communication
breakdown occurred. It is also a question of media response to
the issue. As you know, the Prime Minister has asked myself and
the Chief Medical Officer to go and talk to the heads of the major
media agencies and discuss risk analysis with them because they
need to see the risk to the UK itself, that they raise, when they
deal with issues perhaps irresponsibly.
Q1388 Bob Spink: Do you think this
is an issue that is of growing importance, given new technologies?
For instance, you will recall people talking about `grey goo'
and nanotechnology?
Mr Darling: I think the point
you raise is a very good one, and I agree with what David has
been saying. We can always do better but the best way of communicating
to the public is to put as many facts as we can in the public
domain. Sometimes these things succeed. To give you a different
example, again from Transport experience, if you take the risk
of rail travel, the response to the last major rail crash in this
country was much more measured and mature in this House and in
media coverage than it had been on some of the previous ones,
because people realise you can reduce those risks but you cannot
reduce them to absolute zero. If you look at the reporting around
the death of the swan in Fife at Easter-time, there were times
when the reporting was so far detached from reality that I suspect
the majority of the public just turned away and thought, "Well,
we don't know what to believe." The best thing, in these
cases, whether it is avian flu or MMR, especially, what David
was saying, as we now see what happens as a result of people being
frightened of having the necessary vaccinations, is to put the
facts, as much as you possibly can, in the public domain. I think
that is the way to build people's confidence. To answer your question,
of course we can always do better, because you do not have to
look very far to see where things could be better; also one does
rely, of course, on what one says is being reported, at some stage.
Q1389 Bob Spink: Can I take you back
to the political imperative and the electoral cycle; do you think
that constrains government horizon-scanning?
Mr Darling: No, I do not think
so, because, the sort of horizon-scanning that we are talking
about in general, most of it spans at least one, if not two, sometimes
three or four general elections already, so I do not think that
is a problem at all. I cannot think of everything that we have
looked at, or are looking at now, or indeed are likely to look
at in the future, where there will be any dispute between the
parties that we ought to be looking at it.
Q1390 Bob Spink: You would not accept
that politicians are short-term animals because of the electoral
cycle?
Mr Darling: There are some politicians
who do take very short-term positions and I am sure we can think
of many examples; there are others, on the other hand, who take
a far-sighted view on behalf of the whole country, of course.
Q1391 Chairman: I am sorry, Alistair,
we just cannot let you off the hook there, you know, with respect.
We had the Home Office's Chief Scientific Adviser before the Committee,
who made it absolutely clear that the connection between horizon-scanning
and departmental policy gave us a huge disconnect. He made the
point to us that it was difficult to get a department to lift
its head above the parapet from the immediate problems actually
to engage in horizon-scanning. Was he just talking nonsense, or
are they exceptional people that you work with, in terms of horizon-scanning?
Mr Darling: I have not seen his
evidence, as far as I know, you have not published it yet, and
I do not know the context in which he was either asked the question
or was answering it.
Q1392 Chairman: He was answering
it generally, as far as the Home Office was concerned.
Mr Darling: I was asked by Bob
Spink did I think that short-term political considerations got
in the way of the horizon scanning programme, and I answered by
saying I did not think so, I have not any evidence that is the
case. What you seem to be referring to is a slightly different
point, and that is it can be difficult, in some cases, to get
departments, ministers, top civil servants, to raise their eyes
from immediate problems and start looking at the long term. I
am not in a position to comment on what he was saying, because
I do not know what actually he was talking about, but of course
it is the case that if the department is so involved in day-to-day
matters then I can quite see that, frankly, what happens in 10
years' time may not be the thing that is top of the in-tray. What
I did say earlier though is that across government generally I
think departments are much better now at dealing with not only
today's problems but, in particular, looking at the longer-term
questions. I cannot really comment on something where I do not
actually know what the fellow was saying.
Q1393 Chairman: I accept that. I
think the point that Paul Wiles was making is that, yes, there
is some excellent horizon-scanning going on but there is a disconnect
between horizon-scanning and what actually happens in the departments?
Mr Darling: I can see that could
happen.
Q1394 Chairman: Did it not happen
in Transport?
Mr Darling: From my experience
of working in Transport, and I suppose in Social Security in 1998,
when you get to a department, if it is so busy fire-fighting that
you do not have any time for anything else, and someone says,
"How about looking at this problem which is going to arise
in 50 years' time?" there is a very short answer to be given
to that. However, it seems to me, the answer to that is you sort
out today's problems and you manage things so that you are on
an even keel, but any sensible department, any sensible secretary
of state, must look at not just today's problems but has got to
look at tomorrow's problems as well, otherwise, sooner or later,
you will end up in another crisis. As I say, that is a general
comment, not a comment on whatever evidence you heard.
Q1395 Bob Spink: There has been horizon-scanning
on EU Directives, for instance. You mentioned the REACH Directive;
that has got enormous competitiveness and cost implications on
industry and it is taking a different view on the management of
risk from the model used in Japan and in the USA. There was clearly
no real horizon-scanning; that was a political imperative, just
as the MRI Directive which came out is seen now to be a poor Directive,
because there was not sufficient horizon-scanning. Does this not
cause you concern, particularly from the European front?
Sir Brian Bender: You then get
into the question of how effectively one can negotiate in Europe,
and the models where things go well are where we are influencing
the Commission proposal which emerges; the models where they go
less well is when actually, once the proposal is on the table,
if it is in the wrong shape then we are into damage limitation.
We do our best and in some cases we have great successes, in other
areas we end up with rather messy Directives. The Waste Electrical
and Electronic Equipment Directive, which DTI is trying to administer
at the moment, is not a very well drafted Directive and we are
finding difficulty in implementing it effectively. We could roll
back the clock several years and say, in a better world, we would
have approached this negotiation in this sort of a way, and no
doubt there are lessons we can learn then for a future negotiation;
but, unfortunately, we live in a messier world.
Bob Spink: In drawing attention to the
planning gap, again, which you did right at the very start of
your comments, about an hour and a half ago, you seemed to be
agreeing that horizon-scanning has not been all it should be,
and perhaps there is room for a lot of improvement there?
Q1396 Chairman: David, do you want
to comment on this?
Professor Sir David King: Yes,
please. If we go back to the foot and mouth disease epidemic 2001,
that was a situation where I had to abandon everything else I
was doing and go 100% into foot and mouth disease and modelling
and then fly around the country, doing what I could to bring it
under control, using the MAFF resources. That is a situation where
you give up looking at the longer term. What I came away from
that feeling was that I never wanted to be in a situation like
that again, where I was unprepared for such a situation, so horizon-scanning
foresight is then the tool to prepare yourself, to avoid being
placed in such a situation. For example, we are now advising Government
to develop a tool that would enable us, if we had another foot
and mouth disease epidemic, and we had this tool, and the tool
that we are advising looks like a mobile 'phone, and yet at the
end you would have a PCR device which you could stick into the
mouth of an animal and tell what disease that animal had within
30 seconds or a minute, then you ping through the information
to the headquarters here and you can map out immediately, in real
time, on a map, how the disease is spreading. If we had such a
device, we could run our models, the same epidemic, instead of
costing the country £7 billion, it would cost about £70
million to bring it under control. This is a piece of foresight
where we are looking ahead in time and saying "This is what
we could have done with." It will take probably 10 years
to develop this; but with that tool we would be able to handle
worldwide epidemics, in real time, in the same way, so enormous
power in foresight. What I am coming to is that the Government
has changed direction in its Foresight activity, which I run.
The Foresight is now an in-depth process, it looks at specific
examples; what I am quoting to you from was our project on infectious
diseases, in which, for the first time worldwide, we brought into
play animal, human and plant diseases, and we came up with a set
of recommendations which are playing out not only through this
Government but through the World Health Organisation, the OIE
and the FAO. We are having an impact internationally; it is playing
into the G8 meeting in St Petersburg. Why is it playing in so
broadly internationally? We have had the first five years of this
new Foresight process reviewed and the outcome of the review is,
essentially, we are ahead of the rest of the world; there is no
other country which has a Foresight programme of this nature that
is having so much impact across Government. We could not be having
that impact unless Government was prepared to respond to situations
which really are running forward from 10 to 80 years into the
future. My response to the question that Bob has raised is I can
give you many good examples, of course, you can also give bad
examples, but I can give you many good examples.
Q1397 Bob Spink: Let me give you
the opportunity to give a good example. The point Professor Wiles
really was making was not that horizon-scanning was not happening,
you have done horizon-scanning, for instance, on the avian influenza
pandemic, but that it does not result in the necessary action.
Can you tell me, has your horizon-scanning on the possible avian
flu pandemic shown that there is a lack of capacity to manufacture
vaccines, if it ever happened, and what are you doing about that?
Professor Sir David King: The
short answer is, first of all, if I may here rephrase your question,
there are two possible epidemics. One is avian flu, which is the
phrase you used, which means flu within the bird population.
Q1398 Bob Spink: I mean mutation
back to humans?
Professor Sir David King: My answer
to that question is, yes, I think that we are probably better
prepared than any other country, in terms of our preparations
to handle wild birds arriving with avian flu, which is likely
to occur in August or September this year. On the other hand is
the potential outbreak of a human pandemic, which is a variation
of the current virus.
Q1399 Bob Spink: That is what I am
talking about.
Professor Sir David King: That
is what your question was aimed at. On that, every country in
the world is concerned about the actions that are required to
be taken. For example, is it possible to quench the outbreak,
if it occurred somewhere in the African continent, before it becomes
a human pandemic across the world; that is the first question,
it is an international question, which is why I am raising these
international bodies. Then we come down to Britain, the UK, have
we got the vaccine capacity to handle such a situation; but that
is only one of the questions. What about pre-pandemic vaccine,
what about anti-virals; and, of course, the Government is rolling
out a whole series of defences against a potential pandemic.
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