Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
20-39)
MR TONY
BAPTISTE, MR
JOHN HIGGINS
CBE, MR DAVID
LIVINGSTONE MBE DSC, MR
HUGO ROSEMONT
AND MR
DOUG UMBERS
17 JUNE 2008
Q20 Linda Gilroy: Mr Baptiste, in
your memorandum you point out and in your opening remarks you
mentioned the importance of communication technology in enabling
a more joined-up approach and delivering interoperability. You
note that you are very aware, in common with much of industry,
of the capabilities of technologies available. Can you explain
that, put a bit more flesh on the bone of the importance of communication
technology to security and resilience? How does your company contribute
to that area?
Mr Baptiste: What we were trying
to do there was to put our finger on this interoperability issue
which can be just inter-communications or it can be wider than
that in terms of allowing these agencies that would all come together
in an NSR crisis to work together more effectively. This is not
just the emergency services, this is the plethora of agencies
that might get involved; category one responders and category
two responders can include private industry and can include utilities,
et cetera and could also include the military. To enable that
to function effectively you need technologies and capabilities,
you also need process, doctrine, training, et cetera, so that
people can effectively understand what they are trying to achieve
and can be directed and controlled in a vertical kind of command
and control sense but also in a horizontal sense in the sense
of communities who can still continue to be able to connect with
each other.
Q21 Linda Gilroy: You also talk in
your memorandum about the distinction between large scale resilience
crises and single point attack.
Mr Baptiste: Could I come onto
that in just a minute? What we are saying is that there are technologies
out there now which allow the individual organisations to talk
to each other, to communicate with each other both in voice and
data, but particularly voice. It is not about putting over a whole
new radio network or anything like that; it is about allowing
the existing communication systems within those organisations
to talk to each other and you do not have to have a new handset
not everybody has to have a particular handset you can use your
own telephone, mobile phones, ordinary landlines, PC phones, obviously
TETRA phones are mostly services based. Those can be connected
and you can deliver a service that allows all those to interoperate
with each other.
Q22 Linda Gilroy: In a secure way?
Mr Baptiste: It can be either
plain or it can be encrypted. In fact, in a domestic situation
probably speed of response is more important than encryption;
overseas encryption would probably be more important. You can
encrypt those parts of it that you would want to have secure and
those parts where it was more important to have speed of communication
then you would not bother, it would be a user decision. We draw
the distinction between single point and multi point and large
scale. We would define 7/7 as a single point crisis; I am aware
that there were three locations but in fact it was all within
London, it was all within one authority, it was the best trained,
the best hardened target that they could have chosen in a way.
If it had happened in London, Birmingham and Manchester at the
same time we know that is the al-Qaeda way of doing things or
it was large scale in the sense that it was pandemic or flooding
which covered a massive part of the country (which we have got
fairly close to) then you get a much greater number of agencies
involved in trying not just to respond to the emergency but to
deliver the recovery and resilience which is actually the acid
test the NSS makes that clear as well of how we do respond to
the NSR equation. In that case it makes the interoperability issues
much more complex and definitely you would not be able to give
everybody a particular handset; we have to be able to get organisations
that are siloed in their own right the ability to communicate
across organisational boundaries.
Q23 Mr Jenkin: Can we be specific
about where you believe there are still shortcomings in our communication
systems for resilience in this country? For example, the 7/7 inquiry
said that one of the problems was that there was no way for the
emergency services to communicate with the people underground.
Has that been resolved?
Mr Baptiste: I cannot tell you
whether it has been resolved in its entirety. I know London Underground
are putting radio bearers underneath the Underground. You will
not always know exactly where these things are going to happen
and certainly some of the art of the possible activity and capability
that we have been working on allow you to daisy drop wireless
repeaters down into any underground situation whether it is tube
or some other area. This was originally technology that was designed
for battleships or convoys so that you were able to communicate
along the convoy or down a battleship, but there is no reason
why you cannot just daisy drop these down into the underground.
We have demonstrated the ability to have real time video cameras
down there pushing pictures from the underground back up to the
surface and then if you want to you can push it across to a subject
matter expert who may be in a distant location.
Q24 Mr Jenkin: So this is a system
that would be deployed during the emergency.
Mr Baptiste: Yes.
Q25 Mr Jenkin: Has the Government
shown interest in that system?
Mr Baptiste: Individuals have
shown interest but we then run into the same problem that there
is no single organisation that can actually say they would really
like to do that.
Q26 Mr Jenkin: Do you feel that the
Government is approaching this with sufficient urgency?
Mr Baptiste: Individuals are but
I think they run up against the organisational fracturing that
is the problem we have talked about before.
Q27 Linda Gilroy: Mr Umbers, in the
annex to your memorandum you talk about providing high frequency
communications to UK and NATO military units and secure links
to the Royal Navy's submarine fleet as well as the UK Loran navigation
signal which is a highly resilient terrestrial back-up to GPS.
Can you put a bit more flesh on the bones about the relevance
and the importance of that to security and resilience?
Mr Umbers: Depending on the degree
of event or disturbance of one sort or another, varying degrees
of communication infrastructure will go down. There is a reasonably
well-known tier hierarchy of communications that exists. The last
man standing, as it were, typically will be the high frequency
radio communications that we run on behalf of the military, which
also has access by the civil contingency body here in the UK.
GPS is quite jam-able; a biro as big as this can stop ships in
a port being able to receive GPS. The General Lighthouse Authority
therefore has invested in something called e-Loran which is an
update of a very old technology actually that is substantially
more unjam-able, ie you need a huge field of antennas and powerful
transmitters to jam that. It is highly resilient and mission critical
really for the maritime market. Clearly it could have uses elsewhere
within the country.
Q28 Linda Gilroy: You have described
how GPS can be interfered with and how you can help with that,
but at a more strategic level are you also being called on and
looking at providing back-up alternatives if there is a more strategic
attack on the GPS systems which presumably, looking further out,
is one of the things we need to be prepared for.
Mr Umbers: It is not something
that we as VT are currently engaged with.
Q29 Linda Gilroy: Did you want to
add anything to your previous answer?
Mr Umbers: Talking about technology
and communication is one part of that. I have a slightly different
take in the sense that a lot of what we might be aiming at, as
it were, within NSR is uncertain and will move considerably over
a period of time, therefore the traditional procurement methodologies,
for example, may be quite inappropriate. I think a lot of the
technologies that we have, as Tony was talking about, exist; it
is a question of how they are applied to the situation in hand.
I think it requires a much more agile and flexible approach to
procurement that allows perhaps lead integrators or contractors
to find intelligent suppliers who are then able to corral capabilities
to apply to particular situations as they occur. There is no way
today that we can write down exactly how the next problem is going
to occur.
Q30 Linda Gilroy: We keep asking
about whether we need a defence industrial strategy and whether
there is an equivalent to respond to some of the questions that
you are raising. That is dealing with very big procurements, with
sovereign capabilities, whereas the words and the frameworks you
are describing are a bit different. You have talked about champion
assets and network mechanisms. Is there a case for having something
that is a security industry strategy that tries to identify these
sorts of things but in a very different way perhaps from the way
in which this identifies sovereign capabilities?
Mr Higgins: I would have thought
it would be well worth doing the thinking, so thinking about what
the procurement challenge is, the unknown problems we might have
to meet, the re-use of assets. We need to think through all that
and say, "Well if this is the problem we are trying to face,
this is the fragmentation; how are we going to get the maximum
out of our procurement capability?" I think anything that
provides more certainty to industry so we can make the appropriate
investment choices, so SMEs can choose whether to be in the security
market or in the health market, anything that gives that sort
of additional confidence to the market would be very welcome.
To be clear, however, we are not necessarily saying, "Just
take the DIS and replicate it", but rather to do that thinking,
think what is the best procurement strategy to deal with those
issues and how does that engage industry to the best effect and
enable us to make the right investment decisions would be very
welcome.
Q31 Robert Key: Back in 2002 the
United States established a Department of Homeland Security. Should
the United Kingdom have a Department of Homeland Security?
Mr Higgins: You already have my
view on that.
Mr Baptiste: I think the feeling
is that it would not necessarily advance us a very long way. The
traditions in the UK are different from the States and we can
potentially achieve what that is seeking to achieve in the States
through the existing government mechanisms but with some changes
in the areas we are talking about. I think the fear of the idea
of a Department of Homeland Security is that actually everything
stops for five years while you actually organise it and then all
the funding goes into the organisation. What we are saying is
that there is a lot of technology out there that is not expensive
and can be used quickly if we can find a way to evaluate and employ
it. Re-organising a Department of Homeland Security would not
necessarily achieve that.
Q32 Robert Key: Are you saying that
there should perhaps be a Minister for Homeland Security somewhere,
a focus within Government?
Mr Baptiste: If that helps Government
to get its mind around a more agile and focussed engagement point
then yes.
Mr Livingstone: I would agree
if there was a minister who is an effective rallying point, who
will stand up when things are going either well or badly on the
day of the next disaster and say, "This is what we are doing
as a nation" then surely that would be sufficient. I would
also like to back up what Mr Baptiste said. I think there would
be some five years of turbulence while we put a Department of
Homeland Security together. I am not sure if it would achieve
much; I think a lot of money would be lumped into it and there
would be cultural arguments about who is in charge. I am not sure
if it would prove anything. The better way to do this is probably
get more coherent messaging coming out of the plethora of the
stakeholders in the national security stakeholders set; that surely
suffices as well, but probably led by a minister.
Robert Key: I agree with you on that,
actually.
Mr Jenkin: Mr Umbers talked about the
whole procurement process having to have more teeth. We all know
that a second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office who does
not have a department, does not have a budget can only be a persuader.
Rather than have a whole, fully fledged department, how about
that person being a cabinet minister who is the secretary of state
for security or national security, having control of a budget
through the Cabinet Office which reaches into the other government
departments in order to give the procurement process those teeth.
Chairman: I we should leave that because
I think Robert had suggested he wished to ask that but probably
in a different structure.
Q33 Robert Key: It would be very
good if you could answer Bernard's question because it was exactly
what I was going to say.
Mr Umbers: VT would welcome that
kind of approach. If a minister is going to have teeth they have
to have the ability to reach into people's departments to affect
the connecting thinking and the strategy that he is trying to
impact and therefore ultimately affect the funding lines.
Q34 Robert Key: In practical terms
do you actually regard the Cabinet Office as in the lead on this?
Who do you talk to about these issues?
Mr Rosemont: The National Security
Strategy falls across all the departmental activity and outlines
the roles and responsibilities of each individual department.
Within that of course the Home Office is principally responsible
for UK security and resilience within its shores. Principally
through RISC we are engaging the Office for Security and Counter
Terrorism as a principal lead on those matters, pulling together
the different agencies where it is relevant. I think that is the
appropriate channel. There is a security minister in place in
Lord West and certainly there has been some high level dialogue
between RISC and the security minister. In terms of who owns the
National Security Strategy more broadly, that is the Cabinet Office
that is true. Where it gets interesting for industry is the mentioning
of the National Security Forum within that and how does industry
play a role in that. I think there are some unanswered questions
around that so that is something that, certainly from SBAC and
I hope from the RISC point of view, RISC is the most appropriate
mechanism for that. In terms of wholesale reform of the government
machinery, as I mentioned before, I think OSCT should be the place
where it is leading on domestic matters or that is certainly a
political judgment. That is where industry is engaging.
Mr Baptiste: Picking up the point
that the object of the exercise is to find a way of Government
pooling some of its resources so that it can act in the common
good and act cooperatively, if you were to identify a place in
Government that could own a budget it might have to negotiate
with all the other departments and say, "Can I have some
of your funding for the common good that will enable the joining
up process that we want to happen?" We feel that part of
the problem at the moment is that the Government is not joined
up enough to do the things that will enable it to get joined up
in this sort of area of capability and technology. If you could
achieve that mechanism of liberating some budget into a central
pot that was for the common good then I guess the Government would
achieve its objective.
Q35 Robert Key: Mr Rosemont, you
said that SBAC had welcomed the establishment of the four industry
advisory groups, but is four appropriate? Would it not have been
better to have one?
Mr Rosemont: I think it is a judgment
for Government on that in terms of where should industry be engaging.
Part of RISC is to work in partnership with the Government and
the appropriate agencies and it is true that pulling together
the cross-departmental agencies informing that process is a good
move, and reflected in the strategy, and how do we build on that?
I think that is really important.
Mr Higgins: There is an over-arching
steering group as well. There is the one steering group and it
collectively decides what are the areas for the IAGs.
Mr Rosemont: Absolutely. I think
industry, through RISC, would see itself as responding to the
requirements from that direction. Certainly, through the RISC
council and other mechanisms, help inform that as called upon
to do so.
Q36 Robert Key: Do you think the
arrangements are working as far as industry is concerned?
Mr Higgins: From my point of view
it is early days but we have seen from the Office for Security
and Counter Terrorism a willingness to try to engage, to understand
the capabilities, to share common problems. At the moment we are
intending to get behind them and make that system work to the
best of our ability.
Mr Livingstone: I think industry
would still like to see what the overall programme looks like
and where the big chunks of money are. In the end you have to
follow the money because industry has to pay people's mortgages,
our employees have mortgages. If they cannot understand how it
works then industry is going to go into another market; it is
not going to devote its resources into national security and resilience
if it cannot sense where the resources are coming from.
Mr Umbers: As highlighted earlier
on, VT operates quite a lot in tactical areas with particular
departments of which there are a number in relation to NSR and
its particular activities. As part of the National Security Strategy
there are a number of other bodies that have been set up and/or
will continue to exist. It is very, very difficult to work out
how to engage at that strategic level and have a sensible conversation.
I think there is a risk that there are just too many people to
point at and the risk is that at some point industry will lose
interest.
Q37 Robert Key: Of course we see
all this from the point of view of the defence department, but
in your opinion is the Ministry of Defence doing enough to work
with other departments and agencies as you look at it from your
industrial point of view? Is the MoD fully engaged in this, talking
to other departments?
Mr Baptiste: Without trying to
alienate our current customer, I think there are two aspects to
that problem. There is a lot of contact between the MoD at operational
level and obviously the security agencies and Home Office and
things like that and the army have the counter-terrorist groups
around the country. That is happening but I think the issue is:
do the civil responders want the military to be involved? I think
there is a bit of a divide there. They certainly do not want the
military to come in and take over and they do try to establish
a lot of the capabilities that previously the military may have
provided but they are in the civilian sector now. On the other
hand they do not want to forego the benefits of the military.
The military are saying that they want to concentrate on Afghanistan
and Iraq and do not actually want to put a lot of effort in the
UK. I think there is a dialogue which, certainly from the outside,
we see is not really connected and there needs to be some fundamental
thinking about that.
Q38 Robert Key: We also have a problem
at Parliament because of course the parliamentary select committees
reflect the structures of Government and we are also heavily compartmentalised.
Do you think Parliament is scrutinising adequately the way in
which this is all developing with the security industry in a cross-Government
way or should Parliament be doing something different to talk
to you?
Mr Rosemont: Within the National
Security Strategy there is a commitment to increase Parliamentary
oversight across the whole broad spectrum. I think that is a consideration
and one of the things SBAC put in our submission I think the MoD
did exactly the same is that we assume that this particular inquiry
is based on UK based security and resilience. We also take the
view that operations overseas affect the national security and
resilience agenda and how does that link up to it? That is a key
consideration. It is possibly not very helpful but certainly the
SBAC and I am sure RISC would also want to contribute to anything
that was formed around that particular outlook.
Q39 Mr Havard: You talk about industry's
interface and there are all these committees and things. I think
it was in Mr Livingstone's paper where you say that it has to
involve academia as well. You sponsor research; there is a relationship
between academia and industry in this regard. Presumably academia
is involved in that sense, but how else is it is involved? I think
this is Robert's point, what we do in terms of fundamental science,
what we are doing in university policy has nothing to do with
the military as such but everything to do with the military in
terms of science. We are not joining it up, are we? Do you represent
that as well?
Mr Higgins: I think you have put
your finger on a very good point. In RISC we wanted to involve
think tanks and academics but it has been quite hard to get academic
involvement at the right level. We are all aware that the people
who are conducting the research and the people who are making
the choices about research grants need to be more involved. We
see some evidence of it, for instance the Technology and Strategy
Board have sent representatives to some of our meetings and they
are in that gap really between research council funded research
and industrial research. We have seen some evidence I think from
the EPSRC attending some of the meetings. You are absolutely right,
more could be done to make sure that academic research is following
those same signals; I think that is what we need to try to achieve.
Chairman: Mr Higgins, we have had the
same problem with this inquiry so if you have any suggestions
as to how we can energise academia to take part in this inquiry
that would be very helpful.
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