Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
220-236)
GENERAL SIR
DAVID RICHARDS
KCB CBE DSO ADC GEN AND
BRIGADIER JAMES
EVERARD OBE
27 JANUARY 2009
Q220 Mr Jenkins: Could I take you back,
General. You have said that in the last four years some of the
agencies that you would normally have supplied resources to stepped
up to the mark maybe because of the pricing regime. Is that correct?
General Sir David Richards: I
think it might have been a factor in their decision. I think there
were other factors, but that might be one.
Q221 Mr Jenkins: That would raise
a little bit of concern in my mind that we might be duplicating
resources now in that event, so are you saying, and maybe you
are, that at the present time it may be better for other agencies
to step up to the mark and take over those areas that the military
are now responsible for to allow the military to use their resources,
hard-pressed as they are, on its commitments elsewhere? Is it
possible that the domestic agencies could carry out those tasks
at the same level?
General Sir David Richards: I
suppose it is possible, but it would then raise the absolutely
right issue you have just mentioned of duplication. I think there
are certain key areas, like search and rescue and EOD specialists,
where to reinvent that wheel and get others to invest in a huge
amount of training and the resourcing of it probably would not
make any sense. I would just emphasise that the areas in which
we are mandated to respond are very small now and there are a
few niche capabilities that avoid the issues that you have just
raised very interestingly, and I do not see any of them now slipping
further towards the civilian agencies. I think the ones we have
got are about right, given that it takes a lot of time and effort
to become an EOD specialist, for example. It suits us, funnily
enough, to have a capability in the UK if for no other reason
than we can rotate people through operational deployments and
times at home so that they do not get too tired and fed up going
abroad.
Chairman: We may come back to this in
just a moment.
Q222 Mr Jenkins: I am now getting
to the point where I am thinking that, if that is the case, if
we have got now some residual component that is not met in any
other fashion, why is it not fully financed and resourced rather
than this charging between different departments?
General Sir David Richards: Which
one are you thinking of?
Q223 Mr Jenkins: Air sea rescue,
for instance.
Brigadier Everard: I think this
is a very good example where the police capacity in EOD has grown
certainly since the Civil Contingencies Act came out, probably
the result of 9/11 and other events like that, so, although we
do a substantial number of call-outs, and there were something
like 2,900 last year, it is less than we used to do because that
police capability has grown.
Q224 Chairman: I do apologise, but
`EOD' is explosive—
Brigadier Everard: Explosive ordnance
disposal. I think the point the Commander-in-Chief made earlier
in terms of what we can provide, at the moment we provide a car,
but we do not specify what car or for what duration and that is
what we need to drill into. We provide a very good capability,
but it is from our latent capacity, so do people need more than
that? That is what we are trying to drill into in these areas.
Q225 Mr Holloway: What impact have
our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan had on the readiness of
the Armed Forces to respond to a sort of domestic emergency?
General Sir David Richards: Well,
the niche capabilities which we are mandated to provide are not
affected by EOD, SOR and so on, which I think you are aware of.
Obviously, if there were a sort of catastrophic multi-city emergency,
the fact that we have got lots of people deployed would make our
response to that more difficult self-evidently, but, that said,
this is sort of what we train to do to respond to the unexpected,
that, at short notice, we have the command and control arrangements
in place. At the moment, there are roughly 12,000 deployed in
Iraq and Afghanistan together, therefore, there is still a lot
of Army left back here on which we could call if we need to and
of course that is why we have not actually called out the CCRF
before now, so I think it has an effect at the margins, but not
fundamentally.
Q226 Mr Holloway: Obviously, we have
heard what you had to say about A war and The war, but do you
think that now we are fighting a different sort of war where attacks
can take place on our soil where again we could have mass casualties
amongst the civilian population, and do you think we need to think
about restructuring or rebalancing our Armed Forces to deal with
that kind of challenge?
General Sir David Richards: I
do, and obviously you are aware broadly that I do. That is work
that has been accepted as to what is the nature of future conflict
and are we geared up for the right one, and this is a subset of
that. That work is going on and the Secretary of State has called
a meeting over the next two days specifically to examine it, so,
although, I think as ever, it has taken us time to grapple with
the implications of contemporary operations, I think we now are
firmly on the case and, as I said, the 2012 Olympics with some
of the more lurid things that the horizon-scanning process has
suggested could happen has been a catalyst to accelerating that
work, so yes is the answer. I do not know how it will come out,
but lots of people have strong views on it and it is a fascinating
thing to be involved in.
Q227 John Smith: Does that include
geographical restructuring and reconfiguration within the United
Kingdom so that our Forces are physically better-placed to be
able to respond to large-scale crises in the regions, Wales and
Scotland?
General Sir David Richards: It
has not got to that; it is quite embryonic. I suppose, if you
are one end of that type of thinking, that is the sort of thing
we would have to examine. My view is that that is not necessary.
We have troops and, if you look at London, for example, there
are troops in Colchester and Aldershot, all around it, but do
you want them actually in the middle where they could be caught
up in something? I think it will not be necessary, but there is
no reason and maybe we should examine it, particularly looking
at other cities, have we got enough up in the North or whatever
it might be, so it is a factor which will be played into the debate,
and rightly so.
Q228 Mrs Moon: You have talked a
lot about the gap between what is expected and what can be delivered
and about the need for a service-level agreement to be clearly
put in place, but I am wondering, and it is picking up some of
what Brian was trying to get at, could some of the capabilities
which the Armed Forces currently supply for domestic emergencies,
is there someone else that can actually provide it and perhaps
could provide it cheaper which would then free you up? The military
becoming the default position for support, is it actually the
best use of your resources financially and literally because what
you are talking about that you provide is a body of trained manpower,
so is there another body of trained manpower that actually the
civil authorities could go to which would free you up?
General Sir David Richards: The
most important large body of trained manpower is obviously the
police, but I emphasise that at the moment things have moved on
a lot in the last four years, so, whereas we were the default
setting for certainly the larger-scale emergencies, for example,
the foot and mouth emergency last year, we did not play a major
role in that at all, whereas, four years earlier, we ran it, as
Mr Jenkin said earlier, so I think things have moved on a great
deal. I think probably what we do provide, which no one else ultimately
can, is large numbers of very well-trained and well-commanded
people to respond to the unexpected. As I said earlier, that is
our core business, to analyse, plan and implement, and I think
it is a great strength with very clear command and control arrangements.
All the other areas conceivably, including the niche capabilities,
you could, going back to Mr Jenkins' point, give to other people,
but I think that probably the balance is about right because we
need those capabilities ourselves, I need to rotate people through
them for good harmony reasons and it is actually very good training
for them to get involved in EOD emergencies, closed ordnance device
disposal emergencies, on the mainland, so I think the balance
is about right, but it is something we could continue to explore.
Q229 Mrs Moon: Just going off piste
a little bit, how helpful actually is it for the military, in
terms of military learning and understanding, to actually engage
with civil authorities and how much is it also a quid pro quo
in terms of your staff actually appreciating some of the pressures,
strains and difficulties of responding within the civil emergency
organisations? How much has that also helped you?
General Sir David Richards: Well,
it is a very useful by-product. We are, as Mr Holloway was hinting,
in a different era now where the military does not do its stuff
abroad, and certainly never here, in some sort of discrete area
in which no one else lives; it is a war amongst the people, as
Rupert Smith said, so the more that our people can mix and become
used to other factors, whether it is prejudices towards the military
on the one part, which we increasingly do not come across because
the relationships are better, through to understanding other people's
points of view which are perfectly legitimate, this cannot be
a bad thing. I was with a regional brigade commander the other
day who had done two of these exercises last year and he said
to me that it was just like being in Iraq and working with the
civil agencies over there, so there is a spin-off which is another
reason we ought to remain engaged at the level we are.
Q230 Mrs Moon: I was wondering about
your comment that something that keeps you awake at night is 2012
and, in terms of the new technology and equipment that you are
using in Iraq and Afghanistan, do you think that new equipment
has any potential for homeland security, for resilience and indeed
for use in 2012? Obviously, I do not expect you to go into details,
but is there new equipment that you are using now that actually
you can see being useful in assisting the security and defence
issues of 2012?
General Sir David Richards: I
do not think I could go into details, as you have kindly suggested,
but undoubtedly there are things that, in certain of the scenarios,
are being looked at rightly, and you would expect it, that that
sort of equipment particularly that gives an intelligence and
understanding of what is going on would be very usefully used
over here.
Brigadier Everard: In relation
to that question, again I have brought something else which I
think speaks for itself. This is a secret document which is signed
out to me for the day, but this is the database of those sorts
of capabilities that exist within the military which could be
used by civil authorities in the UK, and again I will pass it
round because it gives you a flavour of those things that we flag
up to the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism, for example,
to say, "You can think about using these because we have
them".
Q231 Chairman: Well, if it is secret,
make sure you get it back!
Brigadier Everard: I will, sir.
Q232 Mr Holloway: What sort of support
do you think you might provide to the Olympics and when do you
think you will know what is going to be required of you?
General Sir David Richards: Well,
I think it is a very open-ended question depending on what one's
assessment of the risk is. We do not expect to do a great deal
routinely because the MoD again are primarily involved, but I
did ask this question in preparation for your session today and
they have it pretty well buttoned up. I would like, as I said
earlier, to accelerate the decision-making so that we know more
precisely not necessarily what areas we might be required to help
in, but the scale, how many EOD teams and all those sorts of things,
but that work is—
Brigadier Everard: In the autumn
this year, we are told, we will be given a statement of requirement.
General Sir David Richards: We
can live with that, and I know people are aware that we and others
need to get on with it because we need to then exercise in it
certainly by no later than 2010 and James has then got to factor
that sort of thing into the overall programming of military activities,
so at the end of this year will be okay, but not much later.
Q233 Chairman: The final question
and a hypothetical one: if you are faced with a fire brigade strike,
do you think it is appropriate for you to join in?
General Sir David Richards: Well,
you are all politicians, so you will know this is rather political!
I think my honest and best answer is that we will do as we are
told and, if it is lawful, which I assume it would be, then we
would have to help.
Q234 Chairman: You see, we have had
two different experiences of that over the last decade or so.
In one circumstance, the military were called in and, in another
circumstance, the military either were not called in or said,
"We have so many people in Iraq and Afghanistan that we simply
can't manage it". What would be your response now?
General Sir David Richards: It
would depend on the scale. If it were a nationwide fire strike
and clearly lives were routinely being put at risk as a result,
my own personal view is that we would have to do something to
help, although one would be reluctant, but no one, nor would my
troops and officers, stand by watching people being burned in
their houses for fear that we get caught up in some sort of political
contagion.
Q235 Chairman: Does that not make
it easier for the authorities to fail to reach agreement with
the fire brigade, and this is all completely hypothetical, to
avoid that contingency arising in the first place?
General Sir David Richards: I
can see that it might, although our ability to help will be pretty
limited, so there would still be the imperative from a humanitarian
perspective alone, I would hope, to not put us in that position,
but I do recognise that may be a factor. Would you not think that
we would have to respond because, one, we could not do as we are
told and, two, we could not stand by and watch people die while
Rome burned?
Q236 Chairman: I have never heard
this before; I am meant to be asking the questions but my answer
is, yes, I would.
General Sir David Richards: Good.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed;
that is very helpful from both of you and I am delighted that
the delayed session was eventually able to take place. We are
most grateful.
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