Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
180-188)
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
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, COBR will meet and locally they
will start saying, "This is bigger than we thought. Therefore,
we need this other assistance", and COBR 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% 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% 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% 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% not turning
up so the 60% can operate the plan. Otherwise, the wrong message
goes out again to the public when you have built in the contingency
of 40%.
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.
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