UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 718
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
DEFENCE COMMITTEE
UK NATIONAL SECURITY AND
RESILIENCE
Tuesday 21 October 2008
RT HON BOB AINSWORTH MP, ADMIRAL LORD WEST OF SPITHEAD
GCB DSC, MR JON DAY CBE, BRIGADIER
CHIP CHAPMAN, MS GILLIAN McGREGOR
and
MS CHLOE SQUIRES
Evidence heard in Public Questions 51 - 188
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Defence Committee
on Tuesday 21 October 2008
Members present
Mr James Arbuthnot, in the Chair
Mr David S. Borrow
Mr David Crausby
Mr David Hamilton
Mr Mike Hancock
Mr Dai Havard
Mr Adam Holloway
Mr Bernard Jenkin
Mr Brian Jenkins
John Smith
________________
Memorandum submitted by the Ministry of Defence
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses:
Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth MP, Minister of State for the Armed Forces,
Admiral Lord West of Spithead GCB
DSC, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Security and
Counter-Terrorism, Home Office, Mr Jon
Day CBE, Policy Director,
Ministry of Defence, Brigadier Chip Chapman, Director
(Military) Counter-Terrorism and UK Operations, Ministry of Defence, Ms Gillian McGregor, Head of
Operational Support and Knowledge Management, Office for Security and
Counter-Terrorism, Home Office and Ms Chloe Squires,
National Security Secretariat, Cabinet Office, gave evidence.
Q51 Chairman: Good morning and welcome to this session on
national security. Minister, would you
like to introduce your team?
Mr Ainsworth: Do you want me to make an opening statement as
well, Chairman, or just make the introductions?
Q52 Chairman: No, thank you.
At the moment just introduce your team - unless there is anything you
have to say to start us off.
Mr Ainsworth: I have with me, Chairman, Jon Day, who is our
Policy Director at the MoD; I also have with me Brigadier Chip Chapman, who is
the Military Director of Counter-Terrorism and UK Operations in the department.
Lord West of Spithead: I have got Gillian McGregor
who is from the Home Office; and Chloe Squires who is from the Cabinet
Office.
Q53 Chairman: I have an opening statement, which is that
this is very much a preliminary inquiry into national security, in the sense
that we do not wish at this evidence session to go into lots of operational
detail about how this country intends to defeat people who are intent on
attacking it. There may be questions
which we will ask which you will think it more appropriate to say it would be
unhelpful to answer that question. In
that case just say so. We do not want to
go into a lot of secret secure stuff that would give succour to our enemies, as
it were. So long as you make it plain
when you do not want to go in particular directions that would be helpful to
us. Minister, you began by talking about
making an opening statement, is there a need for you to make an opening
statement?
Mr Ainsworth: I have got one which I can read out to the
Committee, if that is what you wish?
Q54 Chairman: No, thank you.
National Security Strategy, who owns it?
Mr Ainsworth: The lead department for national security in
the United Kingdom
is the Home Office.
Q55 Chairman: How do you coordinate the roles of the various
departments in relation to the National Security Strategy?
Mr Ainsworth: As far as the MoD is concerned, we seek to
make our contribution by being involved in all of the relevant committees so
that we can get ourselves involved in the initial planning right through to
being available to make people aware of the various capabilities we have
got. We do not lead in any of this work. The very fact that we are involved enables us
to explain to people what we can and what we cannot do, what is available and
what is not available, and to make sure they understand how to access all of
the various capabilities that the Ministry of Defence holds.
Q56 Mr
Jenkin: Does not the Home Office lead
inevitably lead us to a rather narrow definition of what a National Security
Strategy is, given that, for example, our foreign policy is crucial to our
national security?
Lord West of Spithead: If I could just clarify - the
Home Office does not lead on the whole National Security Strategy. We are responsible for the counter-terrorist
aspect of it and specific Home Office duties.
The National Security Strategy is an overarching strategy covering all
departments and is coordinated within the Cabinet Office. There is a senior official there who is
responsible for putting that altogether, that is Robert Hannigan, and he is
responsible direct to a Cabinet committee, an NSID committee, and directly then
to the Prime Minister. That is the
way, at the moment, it is actually structured and set up. All departments have submitted to the
National Security Strategy; that was pulled together last autumn and through
over Christmas, and then of course resulted in the final strategy being
produced, the first time that has ever actually been done, which was on 19
March this year. The minister who owns
it is the Prime Minister effectively; the man who coordinates it all in the
Cabinet Office is a very senior official, and that is Robert Hannigan. Ministers get involved with it, clearly,
because on the NSID the MoD sits, the Foreign Office sits, a whole raft of
secretaries of state sit there, so they are involved in it there; but it is not
actually owned into the Home Office directly in that way. We have inputs on counter-terrorism and
things like that.
Mr Ainsworth: I am sorry, Chairman, the counter-terrorism
aspect I meant for the Home Office.
I did not want to confuse you.
Q57 Mr
Jenkin: That would explain why the
NSS is a bit of a Christmas tree because there is no single minister
responsible for creating coherence in the National Security Strategy?
Lord West of Spithead: First of all, I would have to
say I am not sure that it is a Christmas tree.
As I say, I think this is the first time this has been pulled together. I have to say that in my Seaford House paper
in 1993 I suggested that we ought to do something like this but it has taken
rather a long time to happen. This is
the first time this has happened. I
think it is very, very good and it is something that will go on and grow. It is a very good first attempt to actually
put together in one document all of the key areas of concern to this nation
from all the various government departments; and to try actually as well to
give some sort of assessment there of what actually we have done about the
various things, what each department has done about them, and actually to try
to maybe identify levels of risk. That
has been quite difficult to do. It is a
broad document, and of course we have now set up the National Security Secretariat,
and William Nye is the senior civil servant who that is under. He is pulling together his team and he is
doing the various bits of work that were identified when we produced this
National Security Strategy; for example, we need to establish proper
parliamentary oversight, and proposals for that will be going out soon. Also, for example, the National Security
Forum, how that will be constructed again, that will be going out very soon,
this autumn; putting in place these various things. Of course, that secretariat then will lead on
the work to move towards a refreshed National Security Strategy next year,
which will probably be in the early summer, which will I hope be even more
comprehensive, even more fine-tuned, and will have identified and done some
work in other areas where we have identified there were gaps before. For example, there are certain areas which I
have already talked to him about that he starting work with his secretariat to
actually attack.
Q58 Chairman: Minister, how has the Ministry of Defence's
approach been affected by the publication of the National Security
Strategy? Has it changed in any way and,
if so, what?
Mr Ainsworth: We have been involved in the development of
the National Security Strategy. We have
got officials who have been involved in the development of that. Ministers sit on the committee, as Lord West
has just said. It is early days to say
that it in itself has developed our capabilities because there is a lot of work
still to be done. However, we have
developed alongside the Adam Ingram report a compendium of defence capabilities
in order to make sure that there is better understanding by all who need to
know exactly the full range of what defence has to offer, so they can access
it, and that has been part of that process.
Mr Day: Throughout my career the MoD has been
criticised for pursuing a defence policy in isolation from the wider
context. I think for the first time, as
has been said, the National Security Strategy provides that broader context for
our thinking, rather than having to create that context on a case-by-case
basis, annually or in the context of defence reviews. For us it gives us a much more coherent basis
for our planning.
Q59 Chairman: What has the Ministry of Defence actually done
in terms of the National Security Strategy?
Mr Day: The National Security Strategy will play into
the next iteration of defence strategic guidance, and it will provide the
context for that. It is essentially a
planning document. It also provides
substance to the committee framework on which we sit. For the first time it will underpin our
planning in a way we have not had a central government doctrine in the past.
Q60 Chairman: When you say "will" underpin your planning; it
has already?
Mr Day: It is.
It is playing into the current iteration of defence strategic guidance
which, as you know, is the basis for our planning.
Q61 Mr
Holloway: You have got doctrines,
plans, committees, initiatives, X, Y and Z and of course it all sounds
absolutely marvellous, but the reality is that we are not winning the war on
terror. Do you not think we could be
doing rather more in terms of dealing with the drivers of radicalisation and be
a little more sensitive in our foreign policy because it might actually make
your job rather easier?
Mr Ainsworth: "We" the Department of Defence, or "we" the
government overall?
Q62 Mr
Holloway: The government overall, the
Department of Defence, from where you are sitting do you ever find it rather
frustrating that you are picking up the pieces of something that,
self-evidently, is not working?
Mr Ainsworth: In what way is it not working? We have a threat; the threat has been
developed; it is a global threat and it is developing over years and we have to
respond to that in kinds of different ways.
Of course preventing radicalisation is a part of that. Defence has a role to play in that as well,
but not necessarily a lead role.
Actually explaining what we do, the way we do it and the way we conduct
operations in order to prevent radicalisation is a role that we can play as
defence. We do attempt that; it is not
easy and we maybe need to do more; but that is a responsibility of the whole of
government to explain its foreign policy, the reasons for its foreign policy;
and to attempt to make sure everything about that is explained and is as
positive as possible and not having a negative effect.
Lord West of
Spithead: I cannot remember your exact
turn of phrase there, but actually we have done a great deal in terms of what
you loosely call (and I do not like the term) "war on terror"; I would say
"excising the terrorist cancer from our society" and actually making us all
safer. We have done a huge amount. The formation of the OSCT last year I think
was a splendid decision; I had nothing to do with it; I have to say I was not
in government at that stage. It took the
responsibility for coordination of counter-terrorism across all government
departments away from the Cabinet Office, where they did not have the resources
for it, and it is now based in the Home Office.
The OSCT, under Charles Farr, has been a huge success story. Our counter-terrorist strategy CONTEST was
first produced in 2006; we are busy refreshing that and there will be a CONTEST
2 coming out later this year. All sorts
of things have been addressed in there.
We have done some really good work on the Protect strand. We have done some really good work on the
Pursue strand; you can see that when you look at the number of cases going
through our courts. We have done an
immense amount of work on Prevent, which is stopping radicalisation and
stopping extremism. This work had not
really been done going back historically.
We have actually looked at what are the causes of it; we have put a lot
of effort into that. We have got a whole
agenda that goes across all government.
We now have a weekly security meeting chaired by the Home Secretary,
Vernon Coaker or me which gets people from every single department. The MoD are there and they go through issues
to do with Prevent; we get briefings from the agencies who are there; we have
DCLG; other government departments; and this is really closely coordinated and
done and actually I think we are delivering a huge amount. It does not mean the threat has gone away,
sadly, because the threat is very high; but we have done a huge amount. As this slowly comes out, what has been
achieved, I think quite rightly people will be very proud of what is being done. To be honest we should have done it because
we put a lot of resource into it, a lot of effort into it, and those things are
beginning to pay off.
Q63 Mr
Holloway: I completely accept, amongst
this raft of initiatives, there has been some great stuff; but the fact remains
that out there in the world we are still delivering defeat. We have got a huge problem with British kids
of Pakistani origin; we have got some serious problems in the operational
theatres; and Muslim public opinion around the world moves against us by the
day.
Lord West of Spithead: I would not actually put it
on that basis. All I would say is we
have a very closely coordinated plan with the Foreign Office and with MoD about
the things we should be doing in places like Afghanistan and other places. We have an outward-looking communications
policy; RICU are doing certain work on
this. We are looking very carefully at
the use of language. We are engaging the
Muslim communities in this country in discussion and debate about things. We accept that certain aspects of our foreign
policy have caused difficulties with them, but now at least we are engaging in
debate with them. I have found that when
you talk to them the first discussion with a group is actually pretty hardcore
stuff for you, but actually when you do it the second and third time they begin
to understand once you explain why you are doing things. They will not always see eye-to-eye, and I
think it is those things that we are doing which are all having an effect. This is not going to change just like
that. To stop this radicalisation of
extremism is going to take (and I will get into trouble for saying this) about
30 years, I think, but it will become a virtuous circle; it will start getting
better and better. We have to embark on
it and the recognition of that I think is one of the big things that has
happened over the last 15 months of the OSCT.
That huge Prevent package I think is something we should be proud
of. It is not perfect and there are lots
of things we have got to do but, my goodness me, we cannot arrest and protect
ourselves out of this problem. We have
got to have the forces to do the arrests if necessary to look after us, and
protect ourselves as necessary while we are doing this, but that is not the way
to ultimately solve the problem.
Q64 Mr
Hancock: I am curious because when you
first answered that question you suggested that there had been success in
stopping radicalisation of parts of the community. I would be interested to know how you
judge that because when I speak to young Muslims, and I have a sizeable contingent
in my own constituency and around the area, I do not see that happening. I am interested to know how you judge the
success or otherwise of what you are doing?
Lord West of Spithead: You have hit right on one of
the very, very difficult areas. Getting
measures of some of these - for the first time ever we have actually got PSAs
for some of our counter-terrorism, which was not there before, which is good;
but how actually do you measure? It is
extremely difficult. An awful lot of
what people work on is hearsay and nothing actually tangible; it is not
empirical evidence. One of the things we
have had to do is try and work out what we can use as empirical evidence. We are putting work into prisons, into places
of worship, into sports clubs. I would
not pretend for a moment that we have made a huge, huge win here and it is
galloping down, and that is why I say it will take that length of time; but we
are beginning to get there; we are beginning to have discussions with
people. We have identified organisations
that actually help us and are sympathetic to the way we are going, who agree
with the same shared values that all humans have and that we all have, rather
than some groups that did not actually go down that route, and we are really
beginning to make progress. I do not
pretend for a moment we are nearly there.
I regularly go out and talk to youngsters, and some of the reactions I
find just amazing because you think, "How on earth can you believe that?" We need to have a dialogue; we need to do
this; and we are actually doing that now, I think.
Q65 Mr
Jenkins: When I heard the term
"overarching strategy" I thought that is a great title, a great term. Within that do we have different departments
reporting, like stovepipes, up to the top, or have the departments changed their
policy, and are they working closer with each other so there are departments
working at every level? How has that
approach changed the operation of the MoD; and has the MoD felt its role in
working through the Home Office is somewhat restrained; or is it quite happy to
do that; or would it like more contacts, please?
Mr Day: Shall I give you an example of the sort of
cross-Whitehall working that is now becoming the norm?
Q66 Mr
Jenkins: Yes, please.
Mr Day: Under the NSID framework there is an Afghan
strategy group which brings together all of the key departments involved in
Afghan issues: Foreign, Defence, DFID,
Home Office, the agencies when necessary.
That organisation has created the joined-up strategy for Afghanistan
that was agreed last year by NSID, which had not previously existed. More important than that it now is the
vehicle through which we implement a joined-up strategy through our military
and civilian agencies on the ground, but also that we are now measuring success. So there is now a cross-government structure
for formulating and delivering strategy.
Another example, we talked about the Prevent agenda, within the foreign
and security policy context there are two information strategy groups that deal
with the information side of Iraq
and Afghanistan. This work is now integrated with what the
domestic departments do, for example, RICU and other parts of the Home
Office. There is a much greater
joined-up approach to these problems.
This all flows down from the National Security Strategy, which is a
change of culture as much as anything else.
Q67 John
Smith: Without giving away any
secrets, can you say hand on heart that this new joined-up approach to the national
security threats on our country has actually prevented or deterred actual
threat of attack or security threats against us, since you have been taking
this new approach?
Mr Ainsworth: There are repeated examples at every level of
a joined-up approach to all the different threats that there are. This provides the umbrella under which to do
that. The MoD is constantly responding
to requests for assistance from other government departments, both within the United Kingdom and outside the United Kingdom as well. It is just developing that relationship and
making sure that we are properly plugged into the decision-making framework and
we can make that contribution and people know exactly what contribution there
is that is there to be made.
Q68 John
Smith: Are you able to say that
attacks have been prevented by approaching it in this way?
Lord West of Spithead: I think I should answer that,
being the counter-terrorism minister.
I think there are two strands.
First of all, we were talking initially and I think Jon Day was talking
about the National Security Strategy and the joined-up-ness there which is
through these NSID committees, which stands for National Security and
International Development, another one of these acronyms. It is a Cabinet committee and it has various
subcommittees of that Cabinet committee that look at various specifics. That is where all government departments are
and that is how you get lots of joined-up stuff at National Security Strategy
level better than ever before; and looking at the totality of our security in a
different sort of way, not just nation on nation or whatever, but looking at it
in a different way. I think your
question more was relating down at the counter-terrorist level and the
cross-government work that the OSCT is doing.
Clearly I cannot go into specifics - if you get anywhere near specifics
everyone gets terribly excited and jumps around - but actually the reality is
that we have had successes which have stopped attacks in this country. I think it is fair to say we have had
successes that have stopped certainly hundreds, if not thousands, of people
being killed. So there have been
successes. I am not talking about just
in the last year - this is over a period of time. One can see that from some of the trials
coming through the courts where, because we have doubled the size of the
security service, because we are watching these people, we are able to move
before they do things and then act. The
answer to that is, yes, but clearly I cannot go into details.
Q69 Mr
Havard: We have got a National
Security Strategy within which there is a component that deals with
counter-terrorism essentially, and that element is now vested, for policy
purposes, in the OSCT in the Home Office, and coordination of responses for
that is largely with the Cabinet Office, into which all the other government
departments essentially feed in various different ways. Is that essentially what you are explaining
to me?
Lord West of Spithead: No. The OSCT leads on cross-government
coordination for counter-terrorism.
Counter-terrorism is one facet of our National Security Strategy. Within there, there are things like the
strategic deterrent; defence of the United Kingdom; there are issues in there
now for the first time to do with Resilience; to do with natural disasters; to
do with pandemics; the whole gamut of threats to our nation and our people.
Q70 Mr
Havard: My question then is
this: it seems as though there is an
elaborate architecture to deal with the counter-terrorism element, which you
now describe, but you have described something that goes beyond that. Is this the only thing that is essentially in
the National Security Strategy? Who does
the other bits? Who coordinates the
policy on those? This is a question
which other people have asked of me which is:
is it not time to have one ministerial position in the government
responsible for bringing the whole of the National Security Strategy together
rather than just one element of it, which is counter-terrorism etc?
Lord West of Spithead: I think it is more joined-up
than you would suggest. Within the
National Security Strategy, which is coordinated and held by this official
Robert Hannigan who reports directly through Cabinet committees to the Prime
Minister, the Prime Minister effectively is the minister who actually holds
this. These things are coordinated, for
example if it is Resilience, by the contingency secretariat who do all of the
Resilience issues; so they are coordinating all of those things. You saw we produced a thing called the NRA,
the National Risk Assessment, and we produced an unclassified version of the
National Risk Register. That is all
being coordinated by them, and they work to Robert Hannigan on those
things. In terms of defence, the issues
to do with defence and what they are doing were explained by Jon Day, how
that inputs into there and how that is done.
When it comes to pandemic, the Department of Health has the lead on
that, and again they will talk about that.
This is all coordinated by Robert Hannigan and, by now, the National
Security Secretariat - which did not exist before and I am very glad we have
now established that and that can actually pull this together better than ever
before - then it funnels up through the
Cabinet committee and ultimately to the Prime Minister. Should there be a minister doing that? This is something which has been thought
about, and we have not come to a final decision on that as yet.
Q71 Chairman: Are we not very unusual in terms of Western
countries in not having a national security adviser at the level of Condoleezza
Rice?
Lord West of Spithead: I have to say without looking
I do not know.
Mr Day: The fundamental difference I think between
what you are suggesting and the current approach is that to introduce a
minister with the sort of responsibilities you are talking about would either
require them to be a coordinator, or to have overarching responsibility (and I
am sorry to use that word again) across a range of very large government
departments: the Foreign Office;
Ministry of Defence; large elements of the Home Office; DFID; the Department of
Health; a whole range of departments.
You would have to take a decision as to whether that individual minister
took responsibility for all of these departments, or was simply a
coordinator. At the moment we have the
coordinating model which is done through an official working to the Prime
Minister. The alternative model would be
quite difficult to implement within our current structure, and would require
significant changes to the machinery of government. I am not sure that Condi Rice is quite the
equivalent in that respect, because I am not sure that she has the
responsibilities across such a large range of what we are calling "national
security risks".
Q72 Mr
Hamilton: The one that is missing from
all of the contributions is the devolved parliaments, because if you talk about
health, if you talk about serious crime that comes under the Scottish
Parliament. Therefore there is not a
minister responsible; that has to be a dialogue that takes place. Surely it is commonsense to talk about - those
matters should be taken from a devolved parliament and brought back into a
reserve power. I mean it quite
seriously. There is an issue about a
reserve power which covers the whole of the UK instead of a patchwork quilt
which we have got at the present time.
Whoever the minister is will have to deal with a devolved parliament,
with the appropriate minister in that devolved parliament about fisheries,
about serious drugs and about health.
Surely it makes sense that that part of terrorism should be brought
right back in and it should be all encompassing?
Mr Ainsworth: There is a lead department for every analysed
threat. Where it is a devolved matter,
in Scotland
a devolved parliament would take the lead.
MoD and all of the other parts of government would plug in and give
support. Where it is not a devolved
matter then the Home Office, or whoever else is taking the lead, would lead on
that. Some of these threats exist at the
local level and at the regional level.
Where is there the need therefore to take that back to a national
planning assumption? If there is a
threat in Scotland specific
to Scotland
then it is perfectly appropriate for the devolved administration to take the
lead in that area.
Lord West of Spithead: Defence and counter-terrorism
are reserved issues, so clearly they are dealt with on a national basis. When it comes to Resilience and things like
that, the devolved administrations do sit on the Cabinet committee so that they
are fully involved in those discussions.
I think this is addressed; maybe it is not as elegant and tidy as it
should be but then that maybe is partly to do with other structures, but at
least we get the input from them all.
Mr Hamilton: The point I am making is that it is still
evolving. If it is still evolving then
maybe that should be addressed also. If
the policy is still evolving, which it is, then maybe that should be looked at
again.
Q73 Chairman: You have heard what he has said. It seems to be a sensible point.
Lord West of Spithead: Yes, absolutely.
Q74 Mr
Hancock: I am grateful for the
comments we have heard, particularly the one that it is still open to debate
whether or not we do have a minister with overall responsibility.
Lord West of Spithead: Can I clarify that. The position is that it is something that has
been thought about now certainly for the last 15 months. There are huge implications, and what exactly
is he doing, and so we got nowhere in terms of getting anywhere.
Q75 Mr
Hancock: I understand the
implications, because it is about the ministers giving up power and nobody
wants to do that. I understand that but
I am heartened by the idea that it is still open to discussion. I would hope that the majority of the British
people would like to see somebody like that who is actually given that
responsibility. If the seriousness of
the situation is such as you have described then the one thing for sure is
people do not want to see this done through an elevation of committee
structures, ending up with the Prime Minister.
There needs to be some sort of coordination there at senior ministerial
level - a job for the Deputy Prime Minister, if we had one. I am curious about your suggestion, because
when you were asked questions about this organisation you did not actually tell
us what the Ministry of Defence were bringing to the party. You told us about all these systems that were
being set up, but you did not tell us exactly what differences there were going
to be in the past. I am curious about
how you are now sure you are going to be sustained in the loop; that the
intelligence services are sharing with you information; that the Home Office
and Cabinet Office are coming to you at the earliest opportunity, not as
an afterthought. I think that is the
crucial question the MoD has to answer.
What are you bringing to the party?
Are you satisfied that the processes that are being talked about are
sufficiently secure enough for you to be sure you are being told at the first
instance and not at the last step?
Mr Day: On the final point, I am absolutely sure that
we are joined-up entirely into the intergovernmental loop to as greater degree
as we have ever been. I do not see that
as a problem. As far as what the MoD is
bringing is concerned, in terms of the operations we are conducting we bring
the defence perspective, we bring the capabilities, we bring a level of
understanding about operations and policy that does not exist anywhere else in
government. Equally other departments
bring the same. In terms of
counter-terrorism and Resilience we can perhaps go into that in more detail
but, as the Minister said, we bring a range of niche capabilities and a
"back-up", if you like. It is very
difficult to explain when you are not part of it, but there is a closeness of
cooperation now in dealing with a whole range of issues that means, for
example, we are able to produce a strategy for Afghanistan that integrates and
has the buy-in of very, very different actors from defence, through to DFID,
through to the agencies, in formulating and implementing policy. That, to my experience, is something we have
not always been good at in the past.
Mr Ainsworth: The fear seems to be that policy will develop
and Defence will not be involved in that and will not have a say in the
direction of travel. We are involved in
the planning process exactly in order to prevent that from happening. We are completely embedded within it. We can see the developments are happening and
see proposals as they come forward and we can have our say and have our input
into that. As far as access then to
defence capability is concerned, of course that has to be done through the
Ministry of Defence; it has to be cleared through the Ministry of Defence; so I
do not really understand the concern that there is about us being left behind
or left out. We are embedded in the
planning process and then have control over the contributions that we make to
any particular scenario which arises.
Q76 Mr
Hancock: No-one was suggesting you
were being left out; we were making sure that you were actually included
in.
Mr Ainsworth: We are.
Q77 Mr
Hancock: I would feel sad if you were
left out, but none of us have mentioned that.
Mr Ainsworth: I thought that was your concern.
Q78 Mr
Jenkins: If we, as you tell me, have
got in position a security coordinator who now is capable of pulling together
different parts of different departments, and we may possibly have a minister
who could do that but that would be politically dangerous if he were in
conflict with other ministers in other departments - I think that is the
underlying contention - and we might look at this procedure, do you not think,
Minister, in a democracy it is better to have a minister who can be brought to
the House and questioned rather than a coordinator who cannot be brought to the
House and questioned?
Mr Ainsworth: Yes, of course we need accountability for the
decisions taken, and ministers must take that responsibility at the end of the
day. What needs to be coordinated is the
information flow, and that needs to be coordinated on a regular basis. There is the ability to bring ministers
together whenever that is necessary in order to take the required decisions.
Q79 Mr
Havard: Is the active debate really
one about not necessarily having a minister who is responsible for all these things,
but essentially back to this argument about a security adviser so that this
coordinating position becomes something slightly different, and in a sense
almost in between being a minister and having more capacity than just simply
having a coordinating function? It
raises still the question that Brian raises about democratic deficit in terms
of being able to hold them to account.
Is that the real debate that is happening?
Mr Ainsworth: If you put a single person in charge of the
whole of the national security environment, or the counter-terrorism
environment in that regard, then that single minister winds up being
responsible for MoD's ability to counter-terrorism in the -----
Q80 Mr
Havard: What about a security
adviser.
Mr Ainsworth: MoD's ability to counter-terrorism in the
maritime environment; MoD's responsibility with regards to rapid reaction in
the air environment; and right through the whole spectrum to how you deal with
a flu pandemic, with all the expertise that is there and available in the
Department of Health. How you would
capture that in a single person - whereas Alan said, they would either become a
coordinator themselves; or you would be setting up some kind of pretty strange
and far-reaching department.
Q81 Mr
Havard: That is why I asked you the
question. Is it an active debate about
having an adviser as opposed to a minister?
Lord West of
Spithead: I think the active debate
more, now we have moved from the National Security Strategy (for example you
talked of accountability), is exactly how we will set up the joint committee on
National Security Strategy within Parliament, to actually look at the National
Security Strategy and actually be looking at that. That will be coming out in the matter of the
next few weeks. Because the Prime
Minister has the responsibility for this - as I say, Robert Hannigan through
the Cabinet committee supports the Prime Minister - the Prime Minister is
the man who is responsible for the National Security Strategy, he has been
rather tied up with some other bits and pieces and that has slowed down this
move. As I say, this autumn that will
come out. We will also establish the
National Security Forum which will have a focus group and will be able to aid
and assist these things, and I think that will allow us to have a very good and
refreshed National Security Strategy next spring. These other issues, as I say, have been hot
topics; for 15 months people have been talking about exactly what that top hamper
should look like; and I do not think we have absolutely decided yet. I am in no doubt whatsoever that the
coordination works well within the Cabinet Office. Robert Hannigan has a very firm hand on
this. The areas of Resilience are
coordinated by the contingency secretariat.
Other people feed into the various Cabinet committees, and therefore we
have a very good handle on this composite of risks to our nation, and actually
which departments are dealing with it, and each department will then deal with
them separately. For example, if we come
into Resilience, there are a number of departments responsible and it gets
pushed right down to a local level, so local government actually has its local
Resilience forums and actually produces plans for things. All this, I think, is actually remarkably
well coordinated. It does not mean there
is not room for improvement. Now we have
this overall strategy it makes things a lot easier.
Chairman: It may be that you have a very good handle on
it, but it is a year now since the National Security Strategy was produced and
Parliament does not have a good handle on it and it is really about time it
did.
Q82 Mr
Holloway: Admiral, I worry about this
because I think some of this talk is possibly dilusional. If you talk about having a joined-up approach
in Afghanistan,
which I know a tiny bit about; I lose faith in everything else you are saying
about what else is happening behind the scenes.
As a military man you and, I guess, I, in my pathetic military career,
were always told if you wanted to win an insurgency you did not need
coordination forums, focus groups, secretariat, yet more self-licking lollipop
process; we were told that you had to have unity of command and unity of
purpose. Do we have either in the UK at
the moment on this - unity of command and unity of purpose?
Lord West of Spithead: I think really this is a
defence question, is it not?
Q83 Mr
Holloway: No, in terms of dealing with
this problem.
Lord West of Spithead: In terms of dealing with the
National Security Strategy?
Q84 Mr
Holloway: In terms of dealing with the
threat we face, and forget about the process at the moment.
Lord West of Spithead: I think we absolutely do have
a clear assessment of what the threat is.
What is being done to tackle it?
All the various departments are there.
It is a much more all-encompassing view than it ever was before. As I say, it ranges through flu pandemics,
through flooding, coastal flooding, a whole raft of things that before were
never ever really looked at in a comprehensive way and now for the first time
this is happening. For hundreds of years
we have never done that (and today is Trafalgar Day, and I wish you all a Merry
Trafalgar Day; about this time I think Admiral Collingwood was breaking the
line) and for the first time ever we have actually moved down that route. I think people should be congratulated for
doing that - that we are actually trying to tackle this now. We did not have an all-encompassing thing
before and now we have.
Q85 Mr
Jenkin: We have mentioned Robert
Hannigan a few times and he is this coordinator. Why is he not here answering for the
government on this?
Lord West of Spithead: I do not know. You would have asked him presumably?
Chairman: I will take responsibility for this, as for
most things.
Q86 Mr
Jenkin: Does that not underline how
in fact accountability is confused?
Lord West, you are more refreshingly honest than is probably good
for you, your political career I mean, because when you say the Prime Minister
has been very busy with other things, is that not exactly the point: the Prime Minister needs someone at his own
level sitting at his right-hand side, watching his back and dealing with all
these issues, rather than it being lost in the bureaucracy of the Cabinet
Office and in the coordination between different departments? It cannot have the same coherence than if a
minister was at the Prime Minister's side coordinating these issues.
Lord West of Spithead: I cannot give a direct answer
to that. What I would say is that there
is nothing involved with the security of this nation that is not dealt with
immediately by the right people to do that.
Q87 Mr
Jenkin: I am sure that is the case.
Lord West of Spithead: I am not over-fussed by my
political career; I am very fussed by the security of this country, which is
why I am doing the job I am doing. I can
assure you those things are looked at straight away and dealt with.
Q88 Mr
Hancock: Can I ask a direct question
of the Cabinet Office about Resilience.
Do you know exactly at this moment how many members of the Armed Forces
there are, where they are located, and what they would be able to do if you
needed them? Do you know that now? I am looking to the Cabinet Office to answer
this question. Coordination means that
they ought to. If Resilience means
anything it means they ought to know because the Ministry of Defence would have
told them on a pretty regular basis.
Mr Ainsworth: If somebody in the Cabinet Office does not
know exactly what forces we have got in a particular part of the country at any
one time, I do not think anybody around this table should be surprised by that;
but there is a structure for them to find out immediately at any level that
they wish to do so. First of all, there
is the Commander, Land Forces who is double-hatted in terms of being the
national contact for defence capability; and then we have got the regional
structure underneath that. If it is
regional people who want to know, they have those relationships already and
they plug straight into them.
Lord West of
Spithead: In the area, for example, of
counter-terrorism - and again this is a step forward that the MoD have done -
they have now produced a defence, counter-terrorism and Resilience capabilities
compendium - this never existed before - which the OSCT can look at; it says
what operations they are involved in; what they are doing; what forces are
available for certain things. Yes, in
the Cabinet Office they would not know the direct answer, as my colleague says,
of course they would not, but they could find out straight away. Some very good things have been done - that
is just in counter-terrorism - but in other areas as well to make these things
available.
Q89 Mr
Hancock: Going down a very long chain
before they got the answer.
Mr Ainsworth: The person who is going to be asking the
question is the person who is going to be faced up to the threat, and that
person at whatever level needs to access military capability, quickly, easily
and comprehensively. For instance, when
we had the floods in Gloucestershire last year, the command was taken by the
Chief Constable of the local area straightaway; he had already a relationship
with the regional brigadier who became part of that long command, and who gave
him sight of and access to military capability.
That is how the system worked at that level.
Q90 Mr
Hancock: Some of the Committee were
lucky enough to go the Counter-Terrorism Science Technology Centre and they
have an extraordinary range of capabilities there, but one of the things the
Committee picked up on was the difficulty they were having in getting other
government departments to make use of them and to learn from their experiences
and use their abilities. What are you
going to do to make sure that government agencies are actually looking to that
capability and to make better use of it than appears to be the case at the
present time?
Mr Ainsworth: Capability is in the compendium we have
already talked about, and you can see that yourselves. It is a classified document, so we cannot
make it ------
Q91 Mr
Hancock: Why are they not using it?
Mr Ainsworth: They are using it. There are requests for their assistance that
come to me on a regular basis.
Q92 Mr
Hancock: You are satisfied that all
government departments who need to are making use of the facility that is
there?
Mr Ainsworth: The purpose of the compendium is to make sure
that people know exactly what is available to them. For Resilience purposes we will try to make a
non-classified document available to a wider community so they can access those
capabilities.
Q93 Mr
Hancock: What are you doing about
making sure those other agencies and departments know what is available
there? Why do you think they are not
using it at the moment?
Mr Ainsworth: I do not accept they are not using it at the
moment. Defence capability is being used
by lots of different people on lots of different occasions. It is difficult to go into specifics for
obvious reasons but they are being used.
The purpose of creating the compendium is to give greater visibility to
everybody who needs it so that they can use that capability.
Lord West of Spithead: What establishment are we
talking about?
Q94 Mr
Hancock: This is the Counter-terrorism
Science and Technology Centre at DSTL.
Are you saying they are not, in their opinion, fighting an uphill battle
to get other agencies to make use of them?
Brigadier
Chapman: DSTL have a number of immediate response
teams. Those immediate response teams
have been used a number of times this year.
If they are not used we would argue that is probably a sign of success
because of increasing civil resilience.
The number of occasions they have been used and the circumstances I
cannot obviously go into at this forum.
Every civil power is aware of what can be brought to bear across a
capability framework. The Protect
framework and what the scientific support community can bring, all those who
need to know seem to be aware because they are used on a regular basis.
Mr Day: We would be very happy to pass you a copy of
the compendium on a classified basis and a list of those people who have it and
have access to it.
Q95 Chairman: Yes, it would be helpful if you could.
Lord West of Spithead: Mike has picked up on a point
and I think in a sense there is some validity in some of it. Last October I become very clear, for
example, that the MoD has more money to look at the scientific development of
various counter-terrorist devices than, say, the Home Office; and then there
are other government departments all doing the same and the agencies. What was quite clear was there was not a cohesiveness
amongst them, bearing in mind this is all a pot of government money, of what
are the priorities where this should be going on. Therefore I got the government Chief
Scientist last autumn, just before Christmas, to agree to have a meeting of all
the chief scientific advisers from all the various departments, and that group
now are looking at pulling together and coordinating an overall counter-terrorist
scientific requirement. People like the
HOSTB, the Home Office science labs, the agency labs will pull these altogether
so we do not find, for example, that one department is sending a lot of money
to develop something and actually another department is doing the same. That is more coordinated than it was, and we
are moving down the track to be able to establish a very sensible look. This will resolve even slight issues they
might feel at places like that. I think
that is firmly on track to tie that all together.
Q96 Chairman: I do not think that we would want to give the
impression from our visit to the Counter-terrorism Science and Technology
Centre that everything was going wrong, because we thought that they were very
impressive. There was just more we felt
that could be done to get what they have to offer out into the broader
government community.
Mr Ainsworth: Chairman, that is the purpose of producing the
compendium.
Mr Day: Exactly as the Minister says, it was in
response to our concern about this that we produced the compendium, which was
only issued during the summer.
Inevitably there will be a lag, but we are confident the information
other government departments and other agencies require is contained in this
document.
Brigadier
Chapman: The final codicil to that is that CT centre
personnel do sit on CONTEST, science and technology boards, so they do have
linkages into the Home Office, science and development branch.
Lord West of Spithead: The significance of that is
the linkage for making that look across all government, where the investment is
going in and how we can pull all those things together.
Chairman: We need to see whether that linkage is working
as effectively as it could be. In
answer to Bernard Jenkin's question, I understand we did ask to see Robert
Hannigan but, for good reason, he is away and unable to be here today.
Q97 Mr
Crausby: The Committee wanted to
explore, with more practical questions, into the cooperation between
departments and agencies. I suppose I
should begin by asking Mr Ainsworth, what structures do you have in place
to work with the UK
police forces?
Mr Ainsworth: Commander-in-Chief, Land is double-hatted as
the standing joint commander. He has
overall responsibility for ensuring that defence cooperates with other
government departments. We then have the
regional structure which plugs into all of those other government departments
at that regional level. All of the
planning of training work that takes place across government departments, the
MoD is a part of that, is consulted on the developments that are being made and
able to cooperate and be fully involved.
Q98 Mr
Crausby: I want to make sure that we
do not get so concerned with all the technical arguments at the top that we do
not get down to the real business on the ground. Can I ask effectively both Mr Ainsworth and
Lord West: do Armed Force units take
part in regular inter-agency training exercises? How do you satisfy yourself that units are
ready to deploy in an emergency and can work seamlessly with all the emergency
services, the police, fire brigade, ambulance service, and indeed any other
necessary organisations?
Mr Ainsworth: At a national level there is usually a
counter-terrorism exercise carried out every year. MoD is fully involved in that. There are three Resilience exercises carried
out every year. We are involved in those
as well. There are all kinds of
different exercises, decided at a local level or decided at a regional level,
where MoD is fully involved in a way that it wishes to be. With regard to, how do I satisfy myself that
the capability is there and available, the niche capabilities that we are
tasked to provide are wholly and solely our responsibility, to make sure they
are maintained. So we maintain a
maritime capability. We have other niche
capabilities it is difficult to talk about - air rapid reaction capability; they
are all solely the MoD's responsibility.
Although they are encapsulated in the overall national strategy they are
our responsibility to maintain them at the level of readiness that we are
committed to do.
Mr Day: I do not think it has really been clear yet -
the Army's non-deployable brigade structure in the UK is designed specifically to
provide a command and control and cooperation and coordination structure with
the civil agencies. Our structure is
designed specifically with the sort of thing you are talking about in mind.
Q99 Mr
Havard: It is a peripheral point in a
sense, but the question was not only other formal agencies but other
organisations. I declare an interest
here: I am Secretary of the All-Party
Mountain Rescue Search Team group and this is an organisation that is purely
voluntary. It has to be able to
communicate with all these other organisations, and communications is the key
to all these responses. We saw this in America with 9/11; we have seen now a new system
in the tube, for example, in London
so people can communicate whenever they need to. Digitalised processes of communication cost a
lot of money. It is special pleading in
one sense but I have been arguing with the Prime Minister about getting some
extra money to support some of these voluntary organisations, but they are
first responders, second responders, and they are a vital part of the whole
picture. The military has to be able to
talk to everybody essentially. Could I
just make a plea that when you do look at this stuff you actually take into
account when these exercises are done that all of the agencies can properly
communicate with one another, because there is a growing problem with maintaining
that capacity from what is a growing area of people who need to help you in
terms of the response.
Brigadier
Chapman: Can I pick that up on behalf of the
Minister. Just taking the very good
example of the mountain rescue teams, as you are aware the RAF maintains four
different mountain rescue teams across the country and they have communications
which can communicate with the first line responders, including Airwave, which
is the principal response communications from police, ambulance and fire
services.
Mr Havard: We get great support on the Brecon Beacons from
Chivenor; there is not a problem with that, that is not the point. It is the point that it is becoming
increasingly expensive for voluntary organisations to keep pace with the technological
change - whether it is the police, ambulance service, fire service, military
whoever - in order to be able to continue to make that contribution.
Q100 Mr
Crausby: Our visit to the Defence
Academy last week, I think, provoked
us into wanting to ensure that we get full value from the Defence Academy. Whilst I know that it must be very difficult
for you to be specific about the training that the Armed Forces undertake for
military assistance with the civil authorities, I think what we wanted to draw
out really today was to ensure that that is going on and to ask broader questions,
such as, is there any doctrinal training going on, for example?
Brigadier Chapman: We have a defined doctrine
which is out to all government departments, which is called 'Operations in the
UK: Defence Contribution to Resilience - JDP-02', which actually was only
republished last year, as I think I am right in saying that it is the second
edition. That goes through all the gamut
of military support to the military and civil authorities, including MACP, MACD
and military aid to the civil communities.
Q101 Mr
Crausby: Can you tell us in broad terms what role the Defence Academy plays in this regard with both
the MoD and the Government, but broadly?
I know it is very difficult for you to go into specifics, but we are
interested, as I say, to ensure that we take full advantage of the facilities
there.
Brigadier Chapman: The actual doctrinal
publication is produced by the Defence
Academy through the
Director General of Developments, Concepts and Doctrine, so they are plugged in
with any developments in this area.
Q102 John
Smith: We were, Mr Chairman, as you know, very
impressed by what we witnessed at the Defence Academy
last week, and I know the Minister is very familiar with what is going on
there. I wonder, do you see a greater
role that could be played by that Academy in the training of not just military
personnel to support civil authorities, but in the training of civil
authorities and in fact possibly training the Cabinet? I do not think it would be a bad idea, from
our experience last week, to have the Cabinet down once or twice a year and,
instead of going to Chequers, perhaps they could go to the Defence Academy and
co-ordinate some of this strategy.
Mr Ainsworth: You were really impressed,
but have you ever been to Chequers, I do not know!
Q103 John
Smith: I used to work there.
Mr Ainsworth: The things that go on at
Shrivenham are not exclusively defence; there are a lot of cross-government
courses and training that is made available from the Defence Academy
to other government departments. There
is a course that I spoke to while you were there which was not exclusively
defence, but people from other government departments were there at the time
participating in the same courses as military personnel and civilians from the
Ministry of Defence.
Q104 Chairman:
But I
would echo what John Smith says, that a half day spent at Shrivenham by the
entire Cabinet would pay absolute dividends for the future of the country, and
I would suggest that is something you should be seriously considering.
Lord West of Spithead:
I am all
for more military training for everybody, but I think it is just worth
emphasising that an awful lot of these issues that we are talking about, the
prime responders and the people who are primarily responsible for acting on
them are other government departments and agencies. Taking the resilience area, for example,
since the Civil Contingencies Act, there is no doubt a lot has been done there
in terms of getting acts together and being able to react to these things, and
there are large numbers of people. We
have something in the region of, if you count VSOs and everything else,
160/170,000 police in this country, then one looks at the numbers in the
military and then we have got 52,000 in the fire brigades. The numbers involved and the responsibilities
do lie with these other groups and, as I say, since the Civil Contingencies Act
and our National Capabilities Programme, I think we are getting better and
better at responding. When one needs the
military, apart from some very niche things, if something goes dramatically
worse, then there are mechanisms for actually achieving that, but, as my
colleague says, there are certain things like MCT and certain things like the
air capability which of course could not be provided by anyone other than the
military itself.
Mr Havard: One component we saw there
was - is it called the Advanced Research Group - ARAG. To me, it is the Advanced Research Group.
Mr Holloway: And Assessment Group.
Mr Havard: Somebody is doing research
and this research, whether it is stabilisation in Afghanistan, it is about
resilience, it is about all of the various components of national security, and
it is something that is under pressure, I believe, in terms of funding every
year. It is one of those sorts of things
where research is always thought to be not very useful until you need it of
course and then nobody has been doing it.
It just seems to me that it is a very valuable resource and it is maybe
something which ought to be supplemented and embellished rather than under
threat through its funding because it is the one place that brings together all
the component parts.
Chairman: Well, Minister, you have
heard our plug for your establishment.
Q105 Mr
Borrow: We have had mention earlier in the proceedings
of the role of Commander-in-Chief, Land and the support for civilian
authorities, and there are a few questions that I had earmarked to ask you and
some of them we may have touched on, but I will just run through them and
perhaps get a response, Minister, to those issues. Firstly, could you outline briefly how the
provision of military aid is made to the civilian authorities and what
provision the MoD makes for emergencies in the UK?
In what sort of situations would the civilian authorities be likely to
request support from the Armed Forces and how is that decision made as to
whether or not that support is given?
Finally, are there specific capabilities which you have earmarked for
supporting the civilian authorities? I
think, Minister, you mentioned one situation and I was not quite sure whether
that meant that you could not tell us about the rest or whether there was a
wider range of specific capabilities which you could bring into the public
domain at this point in time.
Mr Ainsworth: There are two broad
categories of capabilities which we maintain and one, I would say, is niche
capabilities which other people generally cannot provide, and that is a full
range from the air component through to maritime counterterrorism, Special
Forces' capabilities, things that we cannot go into in detail, but they are
there and the MoD is the provider, and then there is augmentation capability as
well. Generally speaking, that is pulled
together through the Commander-in-Chief, Land and the regional structure. Now, that can be provided by whatever is
available to suit the purpose at the time.
Sometimes it is Reserves and sometimes it is Regular Forces to meet the
needs of the particular request. All of
those are approved at ministerial level.
All of them are charged against the Department which is requesting the
assistance because they are the people who actually hold the responsibility,
not the MoD, in the first place. If
there is a training gain to the MoD in conducting a particular operation, then
we take that into account in the charges that we make, but that is the broad
structure. I do not know whether Jon
might want to put any more on that.
Mr Day: I think, Chip, you can go
through the details.
Brigadier Chapman: This really comes into three
areas. That we provide military aid to
the civil authorities is the broad-brush one and of course within the UK you
have civil powers, which we support, by the government departments, the
agencies, etc. I think your question is
specific to the civil communities and, at the high end of that, we have
Military Aid to the Civil Authorities, Category A, which is when there is a
threat to life. When there is a threat
to life, we would not charge and the Commander-in-Chief, Land, as the standing
joint commander, would force-generate from any available Forces outside of the
guaranteed niche capability to bring the capability to bear. For example, in the Gloucestershire floods
last year when we provided 1,026 people to help the civil community in that
circumstance, that was force-generated from SJC Land from the Regular and
Reserve Force structure without any need to caveat defence outputs elsewhere in
the world or in the UK within the basket of niche capabilities which are
guaranteed 24/7, 365 for the high-end counterterrorist aspects or certain other
guaranteed capabilities that we bring to bear.
Mr Day: If it would be helpful, we
can provide you with examples of the kinds of areas of support we have provided
in recent years, both on an unclassified basis and on a classified basis as
well.
Chairman: Yes, both of those would be
helpful, thank you.
Q106 Mr
Borrow: Can I just follow up and ask you, Minister, in
relation to the sort of support that would be available in terms of helicopters
over the next couple of years, are there any changes likely in that sort of
support that can be provided in the UK to civilian authorities from helicopters
were circumstances to arise when that request could be made?
Mr Ainsworth: Well, we have the search and
rescue capability and we have also got a training capability constantly
available in the UK
which could be recharged.
Brigadier Chapman: It is worth saying that of
course one of the few places where we do have a lead government department
responsibility is in the provision of search and air rescue, and the number of
places I do not think is going to rise in the future, and of course they are of
extremely high readiness every day of the year to help the civil
community. Of course in the
Gloucestershire floods last year, that was the biggest search and rescue used
in the UK,
I think, since the Second World War.
Q107 Mr
Borrow: Are there any plans to change that capability
in terms of the UK
as against the capability that is available in theatre?
Brigadier Chapman: It is different with a
different series of aircraft; they are mutually exclusive.
Mr Ainsworth: Search and rescue aircraft do
not leave the UK, they are
permanently tasked in the UK,
but in Gloucestershire we used more than just search and rescue
helicopters. We had Chinooks active in
the area and the other helicopters which were just available and within the UK
that we put to task in order to assist.
Q108 Mr
Borrow: Are there any changes proposed in terms of the
provision that would be available were those circumstances to arise again?
Mr Ainsworth: Specifically on helicopters,
we have to maintain a helicopter force in the UK overwhelmingly for training
purposes, and that is not going to alter.
It is not just a case of your helicopter capability out in theatre, it
is not judged by how many frames you can get out in theatre, but it is trained
crews that you can get out in theatre that is often the pinchpoint, so you have
to have that capability back in the UK.
Q109 Mr
Borrow: So as to the level of helicopter support that
would be available in 18 months' time, were an emergency similar to the floods
that took place in Gloucestershire last year to happen, we would be able to
mobilise the same number of helicopters as were available to be mobilised in
2007?
Mr Ainsworth: I know of no reason why we
should not be able to.
Chairman: I am sure you will find that
we have further questions to ask on that sort of thing in due course.
Q110 Mr
Holloway:
Admiral, if there were a series of big, white flashes in a provincial
town or city or in London and there were thousands of dead and injured, can you
give us just a flavour of the sorts of things that would happen in the
aftermath in terms of all that you have been putting together?
Lord West of Spithead: Sorry, do you mean CBRN-type?
Q111 Mr
Holloway:
Or whatever, but something with many thousands of dead and injured,
10,000, say. What sort of things would
come in?
Lord West of Spithead: Well, the initial reactions, as I say, will be
taken by the prime authorities, so it will be the police, fire brigade and
ambulance which will take the initial actions.
Very quickly, if it is a huge thing, it will become clear that they
might need extra resources for cordons or whatever it might be, or, if it is a
CBRN-type thing, actually for assistance in terms of work with contaminated
things, things like that. Then, just
digressing down that route, we have done some really good work there with
defence and we have a police unit down at Winterbourne Gunner who work very
closely and they do lots of exercises for gold, silver and bronze commanders
and at (?) they do similar work, so again over the last few months there has
been a huge amount of work there on preparedness for those sorts of
things. We would then have to ask for
help from the MoD in terms of a MACP request or whatever.
Q112 Chairman: Sorry, can you translate that please?
Lord West of Spithead: That is Military Aid, Civil Power. COBRA obviously would be established and at
COBRA would be MoD, plus all the various people, and it would become very
apparent that this was a very major thing.
There would be demands from the people who are set up to respond that
they needed extra resources and those bits would come in. Now, initially they might well think, "Well, we
can do this with extra resources and police from other constabularies", things
like that, but then they might rapidly say, "We need actually MoD assistance,
we need extra resources", as I say, for cordons, a helicopter, or whatever it
might be.
Q113 Mr
Holloway: Do you, for example, have a
system in place whereby you can suddenly generate beds for 5,000 seriously
injured people across the country or 10,000?
Lord West of Spithead:
I do not
know the exact numbers, but the Department of Health have in place plans to
take major numbers of casualties, and this is part of what we do across the
board, that we push the departments that they have to put in various
contingency plans, and it applies similarly to pandemic flu, it applies to
dealing with dead bodies from pandemics.
All of these things have to be looked at by that appropriate department
to set in place plans and have those sitting there to action, and we do then
exercise those as paper exercises and also some of them we exercise as actually
people ----
Q114 Mr Holloway: But do you have a rough idea of how many beds you
could generate over a very short period of time for a very, very large number
of civilians?
Lord West of Spithead: I have to say, I honestly do not, and it would
be the Department of Health who would be able to tell you that very rapidly
because they have things. For example,
if a major, wide-bodied jet lands and hits London, there are things in place for what we
do if that happens, and one would expect that there would be things in place
for that, but I cannot give you a precise answer to that, I am afraid.
Q115 Mr
Jenkin: Just on this helicopters
point, I represent an east of England constituency which is liable to flooding,
coastal flooding, and in 1953 there were very serious floods and a great many
people drowned, but, in these days of helicopters, one hopes the helicopters
would be available and, as a topical subject, one would hope they would have
winches because, in lifting people to safety from a flooded area, you require a
winch in your helicopters. Is that
something which is being addressed?
Mr Ainsworth: There are winches widely
available in the helicopter fleet and all of our helicopters in Afghanistan
are now fitted with ----
Q116 Mr
Jenkin: And on the training
helicopters that would be deployed in an emergency?
Mr Ainsworth: I cannot say that every
training helicopter in the United
Kingdom is fitted with a winch, no, I cannot
say that. There are not only military
helicopters available, but there are a lot of helicopters available through all
kinds of different organisations in the United Kingdom in the way that
there was not a generation ago.
Q117 Chairman: Again, we will come back to that in due
course.
Mr Ainsworth: All the search and rescue
helicopters have got winches of course.
Lord West of Spithead: If I could just say to Bernard and his very
valid question about flooding, what is a step forward is that this is now
actually identified in the National Security Strategy as an issue. That is why I say this is a step forward and
this means that, as it is in there, these will have to be addressed because the
National Security Strategy will sit there and it will affect all those
departments because, as it gets more comprehensive, it will start putting a
weighting on things and people will have to say, "Right, we've got to do
something about that", and it will force people to do things, so I think it is
a good thing.
John Smith: I do not think we should give the impression
that there is general concern about the ability to respond to civil
disasters. We had a major civil disaster
exercise in my constituency recently in Barry with an airliner crashing into
the big number one dock, involving all the services, and, I have to say, it was
a huge success and the professionalism displayed by both civilian, voluntary
and professional military personnel was exceptional. Why they chose Barry, I am not sure, Mr
Chairman. I think it was to protect the
next episode of Gavin and Stacey! It was a very successful exercise.
Chairman: Another tribute!
Q118 Mr
Holloway: Do you have groups of people
who sit around working up potential scenarios of things that terrorists might
do, areas that are vulnerable?
Lord West of Spithead: What you are talking about here is
'red-teaming'.
Q119 Mr
Holloway: Yes.
Lord West of Spithead: JTAC do a small amount of that, but of course
do very good analysis of the threat. It
is a very good point, we do not have red teams set up specifically. We do task within the OSCT and we say,
"Right, what ifs, what ifs, what ifs", and
I will not go into some of the 'what ifs' because it might tell, but I
can give you one 'what if'. For example,
as we have done a very good job of melting down our own financial systems in
the world, if I were an enemy, I would think, "How could I actually help them
along the route?" so I said, "I want a 'what if' for the things they might do",
and that work is going on, and they have come up with various options. Is that the sort of thing you mean, Adam?
Mr Holloway: Well, at a more sort of tactical level. Do you have people who sit around dreaming
how you might blow up an airliner by putting different chemicals together?
Chairman: We do not want to go into
examples, but do you?
Q120 Mr
Holloway: Are there people who play
that scenario at a very practical, technical sort of level?
Lord West of Spithead: We have people at very practical levels who
are looking at the details of how these things are done. I have got to be quite careful in what I say
actually.
Q121 Chairman: Would you like more? The answer to that is always yes.
Lord West of Spithead: Like more?
Q122 Chairman: Would you like more people doing this
horizon-scanning?
Lord West of Spithead: I think probably we need just to tweak out how
the people there are doing it. Clearly,
when I go back and they say, "My God, you were offered more by somebody and you
didn't take them", but I think actually we can do it within our structures and
it is a question of just making sure it is done in exactly the right way, so,
for example, JTAC, I think, needs just a little bit more of that and they are
doing some really good work, but it just needs some slight tweaking.
Q123 Mr
Jenkin: Can I ask about the CCRFs, the Civil Contingency Reaction Forces,
which, I think, were mobilised in 2004.
Brigadier, you said that in Gloucestershire, for example, some Reserves
were deployed in Gloucestershire?
Brigadier Chapman: That is correct.
Q124 Mr
Jenkin: But were they the CCRFs?
Brigadier Chapman: No, they were not. The reason the CCRFs were not there, it is a
sign of success because we can force-generate quickly from the Regular Force
structure. Now, the difference between
them in a sense is that the CCRFs are something which you might need to
mobilise for Mr Holloway's high-end 10,000 people consequence management
scenario. We have used Reserves under
sections 22 and 27 of the Reserve Forces Act 1996. The CCRFs, if there were a high-end disaster,
would need to be mobilised, and obviously it is not for me to say, but that is
quite a high-end political decision to take, so the CCRFs have not been used as
formed units since they were formed under the SDR new chapter, and that is
because we have never met the threshold where we needed to use them because of
the increasing civil resilience brought about by the Civil Contingencies Act
and the other range of initiatives which have gone on since 2002.
Q125 Mr
Jenkin: Well, that is an extremely
good answer and one which you might have been thinking of before you came here
because, speaking to members of the TA at the 100th Anniversary of
the Essex TA celebrations earlier this month, they would like to be deployed in
civil emergencies, they would like to wear their uniforms on their home patch
and know that they were going to be deployed.
Are these CCRFs really deployable?
Mr Ainsworth: You cannot mobilise them
unnecessarily.
Q126 Mr Jenkin: I appreciate that.
Mr Ainsworth: They are there and we can
mobilise them. In every region there is
a CCRF, around about 500-strong from the Reserves, that can be mobilised. In the Gloucestershire case that you talk
about, we were asked for specific capability, we were asked for it very quickly
and we were not asked for large numbers.
We were asked for helicopter lift, we were asked for bodies to build
protection around some of the flood infrastructure and we were asked for some
logistics to get water distributed. Now,
we had Regular Forces and Reserve Forces available to us in order to be able to
do that.
Q127 Mr
Jenkin: But is it actually more
expensive to deploy the CCRFs from Regular Forces and is that why you still
draw on the Regular Forces, despite all the other commitments and cancelled
leave and cancelled training and all the other things they have to put up with
under the present circumstances?
Mr Ainsworth: Yes, there was no
request. There was a very urgent
requirement to make sure that the initial planning and water distribution was
done and the Army did that and had the capability available and did that and
then handed over to other people fairly quickly, so it was not an ongoing
necessity for us to carry on distributing the water, but we had other people
that were happy to do it, but who just did not have that ability to react
quickly.
Mr Day: I do not think this is an
issue of cost. I think that, if the
contingency were large enough, then these would be the people that we would
mobilise.
Q128 Mr
Jenkin: Do the CCRFs ever exercise as
formed units or are too many of them deployed on operations to exercise as
formed units?
Mr Day: Because they are based on
infantry battalions, they exercise within the framework of being a disciplined
body of men with a coherent C3 structure that can be used to execute
instructions most likely in an unarmed manner, so again, if you go to Mr
Holloway's example, you would probably want them to do a consequence management
task as generalists where they do not need any specialist training because we
would bring in specialists, like we did, for example, with engineers on the
Gloucestershire floods.
Q129 Mr
Jenkin: But one gets a bit depressed
to hear, for example, that Two UK Signals Brigade may be the next bit of the TA
to be axed in the general run-down of our TA and Reserves when that is a
crucial link between the blue-light services and the Armed Forces. One senses that these are not really a
priority area of present defence policy.
Mr Day: Two Signals Brigade were
used, elements were used on the Gloucestershire floods; they were the reservist
element I was largely referring to.
Q130 Mr
Jenkin: Can we have an assurance that
they are not going to be disbanded?
Mr Ainsworth: We have a Reserve Review
which is being conducted currently.
Q131 Mr
Jenkin: Exactly.
Mr Ainsworth: Well, you know and other
Members of Parliament know that that is ongoing and we will be reporting to
Parliament in due course. There is no
suggestion that a particular unit is going to be axed, nor has there been any
suggestion that that review is in any way finance-led. It is about making our Reserves more
appropriate to our needs today, and that is being conducted with that in mind.
Q132 Mr
Jenkin: But is it not the problem
that the National Security Strategy said that the Government was determined to
shift the overall balance of defence procurement towards the support of current
operations, and of course that means away from longer-term capabilities? We know that is happening on training and we know
that is happening on manpower. Is it not
the case that really these Reserve Forces for civil contingencies are quite far
down the list of priorities because of the pressures on the Armed Forces
elsewhere?
Mr Ainsworth: We have to give appropriate
priority to our current operations and any government would do that. We have got to make sure that we are giving
them that appropriate priority, but that is not to say that we can forget about
tomorrow's threat and all of these other issues, and we have no intentions of
doing so.
Mr Jenkin: So overstretch is not affecting ----
Q133 Chairman: Before we get on to that issue, can I come
back to the Civil Contingency Reserve Force.
You are drawing a distinction, are you not, between mobilisation and
deployment?
Brigadier Chapman: Yes.
Q134 Chairman: How long does it take to mobilise the Civil
Contingency Reserve Force?
Brigadier Chapman: Within this forum, all I can
say is that they are extremely high-readiness forces. I would not like to go into specifics.
Mr Day: Again we can write to you
with the details.
Q135 Chairman: Could you?
Mr Day: Yes.
Q136 Chairman:
Is
that something that is sensitive?
Mr Day: Yes, it is.
Q137 Mr
Jenkin: We know that the Armed Forces are stretched in the infantry
departments, but you are able to give me and the Committee an assurance that
the degree of stretch in the Armed Forces, which we know is very intense at the
moment, is not affecting the readiness of Civil Contingency Reaction Forces,
even though many of those personnel are actually deployed themselves on
operations?
Mr Ainsworth: The fact that the Army is
working hard and, yes, is stretched has had no bearing on any decision not to
mobilise the Civil Contingency Reaction Forces.
Mr Jenkin: Well, you
cannot put it more starkly than that.
Mr Hancock: In our predecessor Committee
in 2002, we were discussing, in our report then, the ability of the Royal Air
Force to respond to a rogue aircraft coming into the UK and we were given
assurances at that time that the MoD were satisfied on the legal basis for
shooting down an aircraft, and we were told that there was a procedure in place
where the final decision would be taken by a minister, not necessarily the
Prime Minister, but by a minister. Has
that policy changed over those five or six years and, if so, in what way?
Q138 Chairman: This is one of those areas where you might
feel it difficult to answer some of the questions.
Mr Ainsworth: All I can say, Chairman, is
that since the Committee's report we did look at the issues that were raised by
it about the capability of our people and we satisfied ourselves that we had
the appropriate systems in place and appropriate protections in place. I cannot go into the detail of who gives
approval, but we have satisfied ourselves as well as to the legal basis of that
capability.
Q139 Mr
Hancock: But the decision presumably
would still be taken by a minister as opposed to a civil servant in the Cabinet
Office?
Mr Ainsworth: Yes, the decision would be
taken by an elected minister, yes.
Q140 Mr
Hancock: If you have read that report,
you will know, Minister, that one of the issues was about the psychological
effects of doing this would have on pilots, in particular, and whether or not
we were giving them adequate preparedness, not after the event, but before the
event, to make sure that they were psychologically equipped for doing it. The Committee did actually visit the bases
and we did speak to pilots who were involved in this process and at that time
there was very little pre-training and support for pilots who were engaged in
this, and I would be grateful if you could update us on what procedures are now
in place to ensure that the aircrews themselves and their support are given the
right sort of help.
Mr Ainsworth: We have, since that, looked
at the preparedness of the aircrew, the support that is in there ahead of the
task that might be applied to them, but also what would need to be provided
after such an event, should it ever come about, so we have looked at all of
those issues to try to make sure that we have got appropriate support systems in
place for our people.
Q141 Mr
Hancock: Well, I am more concerned
about in advance of the process because that is the very real difficulty. That is the real problem, is it not?
Mr Ainsworth: There is an issue of
aftercare as well, but I am talking about preparedness as well.
Q142 Mr
Hancock: In advance?
Mr Ainsworth: Yes.
Q143 Mr
Hancock: If I can just ask one
question relating to what you have said previously, are you all satisfied in
civil preparedness that local government is in a position to be able to respond
because, whilst they were given powers, they were once again devoid of
resources to support the powers they were given? With responsibility for civil preparedness,
are you collectively sure that local government is in a real position to be
able to respond in the way that you would expect it to?
Lord West of Spithead:
Well, I
think now because we have, as I say, the Civil Contingencies Act, the National
Capabilities Programme, we have the various groups like the local resilience
forums, regional resilience forums, I think stemming down from our NRA, the
National Risk Assessment, which of course is the restricted version which
became the National Risk Register, which is one that local councils and the
public can see, people are aware now what things they have to prepare for and I
think that, within the amounts of money that local government have, they set
aside the right sums and the right training to achieve that.
Q144 Mr
Hancock: But no extra resource was
given to local government. I am still a
member of local government and I know from my own city's point of view that it
is very difficult to manage, the responsibilities that have been given against
the resources that are available. I
think this was classically, in the civil contingencies legislation, an issue of
passing the responsibility, but with none of the supporting resources which
would be necessary to bring it to the level that you, as a government, would
expect local authorities to provide.
Mr Ainsworth: Resourcing is an ongoing
friction between local government and central government. You do know that local government always say
that they want resources for particular allocations and responsibilities and
the last thing they want is a levering in of all of the monies that are passed
to them.
Q145 Mr
Hancock: I understand that, but, when
new powers are devolved, particularly powers which involve them in taking on
some very big responsibilities and co-ordination and even research of what is
available, etc, they are very expensive and the Government did not pass to
local authorities the resources necessary.
I am interested to know, are you satisfied that your response from local
government to what you have asked of them is sufficient to give you confidence
that they can deliver?
Lord West of Spithead: I think, as I say, what now they are very
clear on is what is required.
Q146 Mr
Hancock: On what they have to do, yes.
Lord West of Spithead: Some local authorities have been given extra
funding and maybe I could get back to you in writing on that to actually
identify what it has been. Also, there
are certain things that are provided centrally, so, for example, aspects of
CBRN equipment for police forces are provided centrally and provided to these
groups, so, whilst, I am sure, always one would like to have extra money to do
things, I do not think it is quite as bleak maybe as you are saying.
Chairman: Before you move on from that, it would be
helpful if you could give us an assessment of how well-prepared you think local
authorities are.
Mr Hancock: Absolutely.
We had a whole session dedicated to it and we actually visited local
authorities, and one of the issues, I would say to you, is the failure of the
communication system which allowed the local authority to be able to talk
direct to the police or fire who were actually on site and they would always
have to be going through a third party and sometimes the third party was not
equipped, so you had four different systems in place in some instances, the
Police, the Army, the Ambulance Service and local authorities. They had no way of communicating on a shared
system.
Q147 Chairman: So we are back to mountain rescue again. Perhaps you could do us that assessment.
Lord West of Spithead: Absolutely, I will do that. Just on the communications, you are absolutely
right, that there are these differences, but we are correcting those
things. Airwave was no doubt a big step
forward and the fire brigades will be moving across that, and we are getting
better at getting people on the same frequency, but it is not good. For example, there are 43 police forces and,
with those 43 police forces, you have to knock heads together to make them buy
equipment that is compatible, and that is something that I am putting some
effort into because that is clearly a nonsense.
These are things that one has to work at and we are getting better at
it. I go back to the National Security
Strategy and everything that comes down from that, that we are better at
identifying these things and we are able then to equip them and start doing
something about it, but I certainly would not give the impression that we are
there yet. Certainly you will have
people on different radio frequencies, but that is something we are working at
trying to resolve, and I think we will get there.
Mr Havard: I do not want to make the point about
voluntary organisations again, but, when you do this about local authorities,
here speaks an English local councillor, but there are Scots and Welsh and the
arrangements are subtly and slightly different and, if you can take that into
account when you do it, that would be helpful.
Mr Jenkins: Can I get back to air defence please. There was a well-recorded incident recently
about a civilian aircraft flying into British airspace and our fighters went up
to intercept it. They could not contact
it because the blinds were all drawn on the flight deck and it took them nearly
half an hour to raise the crew who were asleep.
It is true, is it not?
Mr Havard: It was in The
Sun, so it must be true!
Chairman: I am not sure where we are going with this
though.
Q148 Mr
Jenkins: Well, I am. Was the Minister totally involved, so they
knew when they were going to give the order and how were they going to give the
order to shoot that plane down? Why is
it that an aircraft can come into British airspace with the crew asleep and not
log in to say, "We're now coming into your airspace", because, otherwise, one
day someone is going to shoot down a civilian plane?
Mr Ainsworth: I do not think that we came
close to shooting the aircraft down, I am not sure.
Q149 Mr
Jenkins: Why?
Mr Ainsworth: I am not aware of the
incident that Mr Jenkins is talking about.
There are infringements of British airspace all of the time that the RAF
are responding to and not everything that you read in the press is true. I read in the press of how a Russian aircraft
managed to reach our airspace and the RAF totally failed to respond to it, but,
when you actually look at the facts, it was nothing like what was actually
reported, so I will have a look into what you are raising with me and I will
come back to you with an answer, but it certainly was not raised with me.
Q150 Chairman: It may be that, for one reason or another, the
aircraft was not judged to be a threat.
Mr Ainsworth: Well, if it were judged to be
a threat, then certain operations would have gone into place.
Mr Hancock: It must have been a threat to send two
fighters up to intercept it. Someone
must have made that judgment.
Chairman: We move on to the maritime world.
Q151 Mr
Hamilton: Perhaps I might ask a
question and the original question was asked by Mike and others about being
mentally prepared for a potential disaster coming up. One of the things that happened in New
Orleans in the floods was of course there was a desertion by the police of about
25/30 per cent and the police actually went over the wall rather than do the
job they were employed to do, so, when you are doing mental preparedness for
the various authorities, surely that must be something that you will look right
across the board at, especially with the voluntary sector and especially those
who are not in the Armed Forces. Could
you report just on how that has been dealt with because that is a big
issue. It is one where we have practical
experience where a flood took place, and everyone knew it was going to come,
and yet there were major desertions in the various organisations that were
meant to deal with that flood, so could I ask that question and maybe see how
we could deal with that.
Lord West of Spithead:
I do not
know whether that has been taken into account by the groups that are planning
that, but, for example, when we are doing the pandemic work, we make
assumptions about quite large percentages of people not appearing, up as high
as, I think, 40 per cent we are talking about, as high as that on occasions, so
work is done there, so I would imagine that it is included, but maybe I could
get back to you on that to confirm that it is.
Q152 Mr
Hamilton: In terms of maritime
security, could you explain where the responsibility lies between the Home
Office and the participation of Armed Forces units? Who has the primary responsibility, and how
are other agencies engaged?
Mr Ainsworth: We are required to hold
forces at readiness, but we do not have prime responsibility for the maritime
environment.
Q153 Mr
Hamilton: Who has the prime
responsibility?
Lord West of Spithead: I think it sort of slightly depends on what we
are looking at. If it is to do with
shipping and ship safety, it is TRANSEC, and I understand, Chairman, that they
are coming to talk to you at some stage and, if they are not, they ought to if
you are particularly interested in maritime security, and there are certain
aspects of maritime security and our ports and harbours. If it is to do with illegal immigrants and smuggling,
then it is UKBA, the UK Border Agency, and HMRC, so that would be a Home Office
issue. If it is to do with pollution and
things like that, then it is MCA. I
think what I am slowing going down the route of saying is that this tapestry in
those offshore waters is highly complex, highly complex. Now, there are groups that meet to discuss
this, including the MoD. There is the
NMSC, the National Maritime Security Committee, there is SDAC, which I used to
knew well when I was in the Navy, which is the Shipping Defence Advisory
Committee. In those, all the key players
actually meet, but it is a highly complex area.
Indeed it is an area in terms of the issue of illegal immigrants, in
terms of could terrorists come in that way, in terms of other aspects of
terrorism and things like that where I have asked Chief Constable Hogan-Howe,
who is the Merseyside man, he is the co-ordinator within ACPO for these
maritime issues and we are doing some work looking at that. As I say, the co-ordination at the moment is
done through those two groups. The
primary one, safety for shipping, is to with TRANSEC, it is a transport
issue. There is a specific where the
military would be involved. For example,
I do not know if you remember the MV
Nisha incident, but clearly then what swung into operation was our maritime
counterterrorism group which is highly trained, always available, and my
colleague would be able to talk about it in more detail, but that is a classic
example of how this is done. I think the
other thing is that, in our territorial seas and then beyond that into our
economic zone, actually the police force which abuts on to it, the Chief
Constable has a responsibility for that area in policing terms, but he has very
few assets with which to do something and, therefore, again often one would
have to use the Royal Navy to achieve that because, even though it might only
be a couple of miles, you only need a force seven or something like that and
the chap in a rowing boat cannot do very much, so the Navy has to be involved
and that is the niche where it would be involved and they would be called for
assistance. I know that sounds a rather
complicated answer, but it is very a very complicated thing.
Q154 Mr
Hamilton: The second part was that
nobody has direct responsibility for the waters around the UK.
Is that what you are saying?
Lord West of Spithead: No, I am not saying that.
Q155 Mr
Hamilton: Who is responsible for the
waters around the UK?
Lord West of Spithead: In what respect?
Q156 Mr Hamilton: Who takes direct responsibility for
monitoring the waters around the UK?
Lord West of Spithead: For the monitoring of all movements then? Well, what we are able to do is that anything
of about 50 metres in length has to have an AIS - I have forgotten what it is
called - but anyway it has to be monitored so that you know where it is. Anything below that size, the answer is that
you do not. One of the issues I have
asked the question of TRANSEC is that, if you look at the Channel of a summer,
there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of boats that go backwards
and forwards across to the Continent or along the coast and actually we do not
have a handle on all of those.
Everything has to be effectively intelligence-based. To actually have a handle on all of that
would be very, very complex and extremely difficult. When I was First Sea Lord, I was looking at
possible options of could one put the sort of chip that you stick in your Coke
can which tells the people who are distributing Coke cans that it is actually
empty, could we have something like that on these and we were looking at
various options. I do not believe that
work has got any further, but maybe my colleagues from MoD know that answer,
but we are not able to monitor all traffic in our waters, but, as I say, the
work that we do, whether it is HMRC, illegals, whatever, it is
intelligence-based and that is often very successful.
Q157 Mr
Hamilton: So which agency co-ordinates
all of that work that you have just referred to? What is the agency that would deal with
that? Is it separate agencies?
Lord West of Spithead: Saying that this is the offshore picture of
shipping, that is not something in the Home Office that we at the moment feel
we have a need for.
Mr Ainsworth: Different people have
different responsibilities in the maritime environment. The Department for Transport, Customs and
Excise, the local police looking out to sea in their own area, they all have
their own responsibilities for their own threat, but they do not have a
comprehensive responsibility for the maritime environment.
Chairman: Is that not a bit of a worry?
Q158 Mr
Hamilton: So we have not got one
organisation that co-ordinates all of the areas that have just been referred to
by the two of you?
Lord West of Spithead: There is not one. As I say, TRANSEC look after all the
transport things, shipping safety and things like that. When it comes to the picture, I know the Navy
keeps a picture of offshore traffic which is things above 50 metres and all of
this sort of stuff and other shipping stuff, and that is for big shipping, and
the Maritime Coastguard Agency keep monitoring that sort of thing. When it comes to these small ones, there is
not really any monitoring at all other than by maybe people within a port area
or something, and certainly in the Home Office we do not feel we have a need
for that. Now, do we feel there is a
national need for that? Well, I have to
say, this is why I have been talking with the Chief Constable and looking at
maritime security in the round because I think it would be quite a useful thing
to have. Who actually pays for it and
who actually then says, "Right, I'm the people who would like to run this" is
rather more difficult, so the tapestry which is there at the moment, which is
very complex, and, as I say, there are these groups which need to look at it, I
believe it works pretty well, but it is not what I would call ultimately
satisfactory. I would love to know where
all of these things are. When you look
into the sky, generally, and you have confirmed my concern about aviators, that
they are all with the blinds down, fast asleep, but we pretty well know what is
moving, pretty well, though some of the little light ones are a bit more
difficult, but we do not know that in our waters around the country.
Q159 Mr
Hamilton: If that is the case, and you
have referred three times to the Chief Constable and how you keep the dialogue
going with him, I assume that is English chief constables that you talk to, or
do you have a responsibility which goes across devolution position and do you
talk to the chief constables also in Scotland also? Is that another discussion you have?
Lord West of Spithead: Yes.
Well, in counterterrorism, clearly I do, so, as Home Office in
counterterrorism, we do.
Q160 Mr
Hamilton: But that does not calculate
the number of ships that are around the British seas.
Lord West of Spithead: No, but I go back to my point, that the Home
Office would not say, "We want to know that".
I was giving a general response.
I think it would be quite a good thing to have a very good picture of
what is moving around our place, but I think that is not a requirement
specifically for the Home Office for counterterrorism.
Q161 Mr
Jenkin: In the event of a maritime
incident, which is basically civilian, but might require military assistance,
who has gold command?
Lord West of Spithead: You are going slightly beyond my remit in the
Home Office. If it is something like a
spillage or something like that, I imagine the MCA, the Maritime Coastguard
Agency, would be responsible, but, as I say, I am stepping outside territory
that I have deep knowledge of, I am afraid, so I do not really know. What I would say is that, for example, the
2005 Fleet Review for the bicentenary of Trafalgar, the gold command, which I
think was run by someone sitting in this room, was for the first time ever set
up properly, involving all of these mass of agencies to make sure that we had
security of the Solent area, and what amazed me was the number of people who
had to be involved in that, and it was exercised and it ran very well and I
think it set a template for how we do these things in our territorial
seas. As it goes beyond that, it becomes
a little bit more complex.
Q162 Mr
Jenkin: How many vessels are
available to Her Majesty's Government, Royal Navy, Coastguard and other
government agencies, for coastal protection?
Mr Ainsworth: We have two frigates
effectively, one fleet-ready escort available at short notice, and we then have
another frigate that can supplement that, which is a patrol ship which is
available at any one time. Then we have
got three river-class offshore patrol vessels and there is always one
minesweeper.
Chairman: That is about six ships!
Q163 Mr
Jenkin: That is just the Royal Navy,
is it not? There must be other government
agencies, the Coastguard and so forth?
Mr Ainsworth: Yes, absolutely.
Q164 Mr
Jenkin: Could you write to us with a
more sort of comprehensive answer about all the government agencies?
Mr Ainsworth: There will be other vessels
available at any one time, but those we are required to maintain.
Mr Jenkin: That is what the Ministry of Defence is
required to maintain, but I am asking what is generally available to a gold
commander in an area, and I would echo the Chairman's point that six ships does
not seem very much.
Q165 Chairman: I must say, I am listening to these answers
with increasing horror!
Mr Day: On any one day, there will be
other ships available. This is
guaranteed availability, but on any one day, there will be ships available in
the UK
waters that will be able to contribute.
Mr Ainsworth: That is a requirement to
maintain on patrol six, but there is more than that at any one time.
Mr Jenkin: Could you write to us with details of what is
available from the other government agencies because, I appreciate, that might
not be in your knowledge at the moment.
Q166 Mr
Havard: So, if we have a super-tanker
coming into Milford Haven and it has been taken over in some fashion or
another, it is going to be used as a weapon and it is within three hours of getting
to the place, a ship is not necessarily going to get there in time, so you
would call on other assets to help you deal with it or do whatever?
Mr Ainsworth: We have a maritime
counterterrorism capability.
Q167 Mr
Havard: Part of which would come. Anyway, that is a different
matter. The question of ports, I think,
is clearly important. The USA are having
a debate amongst themselves and a great struggle about their declaration that
they want to check everything that is going in and out of their ports and
coming on to their land and going off it.
I am not quite sure if they know how they are going to do that, in fact
they do not know how they are going to do that, but we have the same problem,
do we not? Is that co-ordination work
being thought about? Yes, it is going to
be somewhere, but is the lead on that transport?
Lord West of Spithead: TRANSEC, yes.
TRANSEC lead on the security and safety of ports.
Q168 Mr
Havard: So the dirty bomb in a
container coming through Dover
is their responsibility?
Lord West of Spithead: They will lead on the security aspect of what
security measures should be in place to try and either stop something coming in
or whatever that might be. Now, they
will clearly talk to the experts we have to see if there are easy ways of identifying,
and clearly agencies and others will feed in intelligence, but it is a TRANSEC
responsibility, as it is for the security of the ships, the British-flagged
ships, and it is the flag states for those ships coming to the United Kingdom,
that is their responsibility, but I think TRANSEC are the best people, in all
honesty, to go into the detail of these answers.
Q169 Mr
Havard: So presumably the merchant
fleet in some fashion are involved in that discussion and then the operators or
the commissioners of them and then presumably the Reserves from the Navy as
well in some fashion, they are linked into that through the Navy
presumably? We have people in the
Merchant Navy and elsewhere who are reservists who are called upon and
presumably they are represented by the Navy in that discussion.
Lord West of Spithead: Again I think TRANSEC are the people to really
answer the detail of this. They set the
standards of security and safety on board the British-flagged ships, so, say,
on a British-flagged ferry leaving from Harwich going across the North Sea, and
I had a case of this, someone wrote to me and said, "Look, I notice that people
are allowed to walk on so-and-so decks", I was able to say to TRANSEC, "Well,
how the hell did this happen?" and actually the ship had been told not to allow
it. These ships had very clear
instructions, but they were not being met and, therefore, they got a rap over
the knuckles and told, "You must make sure this happens". If it ships coming from other countries, it
is that flag state, but, as I say, the real detail you would be best to ask
TRANSEC about.
Q170 Mr
Hancock: But the overwhelming number
of ships coming into the UK
are from other states, many of them states which would share no responsibility,
Liberia, Panama. The popular flag states are not ones that you
would readily associate with being careful about what is going on on their
flagged ships. My real question is about
the danger, and we went through this before on the maritime side, not so much
of a ship at sea, but a ship when it is alongside in port. The example you gave previously on this
Committee was of the super-tanker at Fawley alongside with a quarter of a
million of tonnes of oil on board with this huge number of pleasure-boats going
up and down Southampton water and any of them could be there, yet nobody seemed
to have responsibility to prevent them going alongside the super-tanker. We were told they had CCTV cameras which were
ineffective and nobody was stopping people going close to these huge
ships. Why is that allowed to continue?
Lord West of Spithead:
I have
not been down there sailing for a while, but all I would say is that TRANSEC
are responsible for the security of the UK port and the ships in that port and
the ships leaving that port, so, if there was a feeling that there was a
security risk, they should make sure that they establish the right security
checks to ensure that does not happen.
Q171 Mr
Holloway: If there were a major
incident, presumably one would need additional hospital beds, ships or
helicopters, whatever it is, from the private sector or wherever which was
needed in that period. Is there any sort
of legal framework for taking over assets that do not belong to the State and
using them in an emergency?
Lord West of Spithead: There certainly is in terms of a military-type
emergency because one can take up ships in trade. I am not aware of any ability to take up ----
Q172 Mr
Holloway: In the aftermath of this
hopefully unthinkable sort of 10,000-plus casualties, have you got any sort of
legal basis where you could take over a private hospital and have every private
helicopter in the country working towards the effort or whatever it is?
Lord West of Spithead: As I say, I have not thought through what
exactly might be required, but we can use the Civil Contingencies Act and, in
using that, we can actually take over things.
Q173 Mr
Hamilton: Chairman, the last question
will maybe put some light on that and you have to respond about the coverage we
have in British seas and the Royal Navy's role in that and the other agencies
which would be involved, but can I say that one of the things that concerns me
is that there is not an accountability as far as I can see from all the
evidence we have taken today and it worries me that, if a disaster did happen,
I could imagine one phrase being used all the way through this, "Not me,
guv! I'm not responsible". Now, somehow or other it is about public
communication and people having public accountability. I have been in this Parliament for seven
years and I did not realise that we were not aware of what was going on around
the waters of the UK and that a certain department had one identification and
another department had another identification, so could I plead with you that,
when you have these discussions which are taking place, the communication
position to the public, and there are 60-odd million people out there, that
that be looked at very seriously and that you should really consider someone
taking the responsibility, and not necessarily your Department, but someone
taking responsibility for co-ordination.
It seems to me like a patchwork quilt we are looking at here.
Mr Ainsworth: You need to think about
whether or not you actually divvy up those responsibilities in terms of the
land environment, the maritime environment and the air environment or whether
or not you divvy them up in terms of particular areas of responsibility
because, if you talk about particular areas of responsibility, then people do
have responsibilities, do they not, but it is just that we have not divided
them up in that geographical way. Her
Majesty's Customs and Excise have their responsibilities, the Department for
Transport have their responsibilities, we have responsibility to deliver particular
capabilities and, if we do not deliver those capabilities and if there is not
that force ready as promised, then we are responsible, so there is
responsibility, it is just not divided up in that way. It is not divided up in that way in the land environment
either. The Department of Health have
certain responsibilities, the Department for Transport have certain
responsibilities and we have our own responsibilities with regard to the
protection of nuclear establishments, so we do not divide it up by land or
maritime or anything else.
Q174 Mr
Hamilton: Minister, I do understand
that. What I am saying is that, on the
communication level, I think it leaves a lot to be desired and I do think that
consideration should be given to some person or a number of people who take
responsibility to make sure that that communication can go through.
Mr Ainsworth: For every threat in the
maritime environment?
Mr Hamilton: Not for every threat, no. It is not just a responsibility of the last
man standing, the Prime Minister, he often is responsible and everyone
understands that he will be the person who comes in, but I seriously believe
that the Prime Minister needs one line of communication to get that information
to him rather than a whole host of organisations, which seems to be the case
that is coming through, and at some point in the future I am just asking if you
can consider that.
Q175 Chairman: Further on David Hamilton's question just now,
getting back to the first question I asked of who owns the National Security
Strategy, the impression seems to be, "Well, it's the Prime Minister", but, if
it is the Prime Minister who owns it, then in reality nobody does. Is that not the problem because, in order to
get up to that level, you have got to have an extraordinary catastrophe to
bring in the Prime Minister?
Mr Ainsworth: Each contributor, each
department, each organisation owns its own area of responsibilities and they
are laid out.
Q176 Mr
Holloway: But it does feel like no one
is in charge.
Lord West of Spithead: But I do not think that is right, Adam.
Q177 Chairman: If that is not right, in what respect is it
not right?
Lord West of Spithead: Well, when you say that no one is charge, is
there no one who can take executive action when something occurs? The answer is that there is, and it will be
based around that department that is doing that. The overall National Security Strategy, as
it stands at the moment, is co-ordinated through a National Security
secretariat which is based in the Cabinet Office. There is a senior official who is in charge
of all aspects of that, including civil contingency. It goes up through Cabinet committees and,
ultimately, to the Prime Minister. Part
of the reason for that, I think, is because of these difficulties about saying,
"How can we get someone in that position who can have responsibility and
everything else?", but executive decisions can be made straightaway, they can
be made straightaway. COBRA will form
and all the departments will be there and that particular incident will then be
handled with reactions being made, and quite often maybe the Prime Minister
might attend COBRA, not always, but certainly you will put someone there to
co-ordinate and make sure actions happen.
Q178 Mr
Holloway: But you are the Security
Minister, and this is no reflection on you, this is the position you are in,
but I am staggered that the person that I thought, in my ignorance before
today's meeting, was in charge actually does not know roughly how many beds we
can generate in the event of a mass casualty attack. It really surprises me.
Mr Ainsworth: But the Department of Health
will.
Q179 Mr
Holloway: Yes, I know, but that is my
point.
Mr Ainsworth: COBRA will form in a
particular format based on the circumstances.
Q180 Mr
Holloway: Well, that is reactive, but
who is actually joining it up? If we go
back to unity of command and unity of purpose, the comprehensive approach,
joined-up stuff, it all sounds very good, all this process and paper-pushing,
but who is actually in charge?
Lord West of Spithead: It is not process and paper-pushing.
Q181 Mr
Holloway: It is an easy answer, it is
not complicated.
Lord West of Spithead: As I say, in the Department of Health there
will be in place plans to generate numbers of beds going up to certain levels
for certain incidents.
Q182 Mr
Holloway: But who is in charge?
Lord West of Spithead: Well, when the incident happens, as I say,
COBRA will meet and locally they will start saying, "This is bigger than we
thought. Therefore, we need this other
assistance", and COBRA will say, "Right, clearly we're actually talking here of
a 10,000 death thing, so we will need to have extra places for bodies to be
stored, we will need extra hospital beds because of the numbers involved", and
all those statistics and figures are all there.
They will say, "Implement plan so-and-so" and, bang, up they come with
certain numbers.
Q183 Mr
Jenkin: My question follows on from
this which is that we all know from the polling evidence that the public does
not really like being stirred up about this subject. It makes politicians get accused of trying to
frighten the public for some sort of political reasons and it is regarded with
great suspicion. Is there a danger that,
because we all want to avoid doing that, we are actually not giving this the profile
in government that it really deserves and that we do not want to have a
national security minister in the Cabinet because that would add to the anxiety
of people and raise people's suspicions more, but have we actually not got to
face it and have we also not got to recognise that the public need to be made
aware of these dangers because, the more aware the public is of these dangers
and risks, the more alive they are to those risks and in fact the safer we will
be?
Mr Ainsworth: And that is the whole reason
for publishing the National Security Strategy and all of the work that will
flow from that in order to put the necessary departments in place and then to
take that out, as appropriate, into the public domain and to warn people
appropriately so that they could help and contribute.
Q184 Chairman: I also think that we have perhaps been
pursuing a question of whether there should be a Cabinet minister involved in
national security which is beyond your and our pay grades.
Lord West of Spithead: It is certainly beyond my pay grade, that is
for sure!
Chairman: Not beyond ours, but probably beyond
yours!
Q185 Mr
Jenkins: Based on Lord West's answer,
in a pandemic we plan for maybe 40 per cent illness.
Lord West of Spithead: Not illness, no. We are talking about non-shows because some
people, we believe, will not come in.
This is what this was referring to, that some people might well say,
"I'm not going to come in because my family are ill", so we are making an
assessment. We also make an assessment
of how many are actually ill as well, but this is on top of that.
Q186 Mr
Jenkins: So we have got a situation
with 40 per cent non-shows in our strategic and vital industries of health,
water and power. Do we have power or
will we need to create power for the direction of labour so we can put people
in, and maybe this is civil contingency?
Lord West of Spithead: Well, I think if things got that bad, we would
use the Civil Contingencies Act to ensure that we could do what was necessary
to ensure that things happened. I said
40 per cent and I do not want to be quoted exactly on that because I am not
sure exactly.
Q187 Mr
Jenkins: But do we have the authority
within the Civil Contingencies Act to redirect labour in this country?
Lord West of Spithead: Yes, we do.
Q188 Mr
Hancock: You need to say that your
plan takes account of the possibility of 40 per cent not turning up so the 60
per cent can operate the plan.
Otherwise, the wrong message goes out again to the public when you have
built in the contingency of 40 per cent.
Lord West of Spithead: Absolutely.
We built it, or when I say "we", this is down at quite local level and
within departments, that they should have in place, and it is things like
running prisons, there is a whole raft of things, all of which have to happen
on the basis that there will be a reduced number of people doing it because
they will not be there, those people, and there is a whole mass of things which
need to be taken into account. Going to
Bernard's point, some of these, when you develop them, do frighten the horses
and you then get accused of saying, "You're doing this, you're frightening
everyone", so we have to be very careful and do it in a very sensible, measured
way because actually it is incumbent on any government to make sure that they
are in place, the right measures, to look after the safety and security of our
people, and I believe that is what we are trying to do.
Chairman: Well, thank you very much indeed all of you
for giving us evidence and helping, even those of you who did not speak; it is
much appreciated. This has been a very
interesting, in some ways reassuring, in some ways alarming, morning's
evidence, but I think that is the end of it.
