Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
160-179)
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
21 OCTOBER 2008
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 not 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. COBR 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 COBR, 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: COBR will form in
a particular format based on the circumstances.
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