Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR TIM
O'TOOLE AND
MR NICK
AGNEW
29 JANUARY 2009
Chairman: Good morning, everybody. Can
I welcome Mr O'Toole and Mr Agnew to the first meeting of the
Home Affairs Sub-Committee on Counter-terrorism. We are most grateful
to you both for your time and your co-operation in being here.
Can I ask the Members to declare any interests, starting with
Mr Davies.
David Davies: I would
like to declare that I am a Special Constable with the British
Transport Police.
Martin Salter: I have no relevant interests
to declare.
Q1 Chairman: Similarly, and we are
likely to be joined by Ms Karen Buck who is detained on another
appointment at the moment. I do not want to concentrate too much
on the Underground but inevitably there will be quite a lot of
focus just on the Underground, but a more general series of questions
first, please, if I may. Can you tell me how you see the current
threat to the transport system and how you think it might evolve
in the medium to long-term?
Mr O'Toole: Speaking for the Underground,
of course the threat has not officially changed. We look to the
Government to advise us as to the threat. We do not have access
to the intelligence to make that determination. However, I would
say that I believe, and this is my personal view, the performance
of the Underground in bringing the service back following 7/7
makes us more secure because if you do not reward these people
with the chaos they are looking for, they go and they look elsewhere.
I like to believe—and it is a rally drive with our employees—that
their very professional and effective service in some respects
and some unquantified way has reduced the threat to us.
Q2 Chairman: Yet we know from open
sources they are still intensely interested and there have been
at least two more failed attacks on the Tube since the 2005 attacks.
Mr O'Toole: People will always
be interested in the Tube because it is such an iconic institution.
It is so much a part of this country's identity that I think in
that respect it will never drop off the radar.
Q3 Chairman: Can I iterate a second
point of my question, how do you see the threat evolving? We have
obviously endured suicide attacks and a number of other attempted
attacks and foiled attacks, if you were able to gaze into a crystal
ball, what would it reveal?
Mr O'Toole: Again, I caveat my
remarks by saying I take my guidance from the professionals, the
people who are trained and have the information sources to express
that judgment in a useful way. Speaking only for myself, I believe
this madness will burn itself out. It has always done so in the
past and we will confront other things in the future. The only
thing that is different about this madness is the lethality, but
I do not believe suicide is a sustainable business practice. Baader-Meinhoff
went away, the IRA went away, this will go away, but we will always
confront the number one challenge, which I believe is what we
are confronting in society. It is not some clash of civilisations,
it is the fact that there is a massive transfer of power from
institutions to individuals largely made possible by the internet
and I do not think society has figured out a way to deal with
this. You can have a single person, Nick Leeson, take down a bank
which has been there 250 years, Matt Drudge had more power over
presidential politics than any 20 American newspapers and you
can have a few lone people with box cutters who can turn a plane
into a cruise missile and it is that phenomenon which in the long-term
society has to somehow deal with.
Q4 David Davies: Mr O'Toole, Mr Agnew,
good morning. Can you tell us insofar as you can what measures
in terms of equipment and training you have put in place to prevent
further outrage?
Mr O'Toole: We changed a number
of things but the most important thing we have not changed and
we are just continuing to perfect is the professionalism and attitude
of our staff. I have always said you have to invest in technology
but do not rely on it, but you should invest in your staff and
you can always rely on them. We have continued our training with
them, we have continued tabletop exercises, we have had multi-agency
training going on and our own staff will continue with the discipline
which every station staff member has to be involved in in an evacuation
or a drill every seven months. It is something we continue to
work on with the fire department. In addition to that, we have
added to our reserves technically with the expansion of our CCTV
programme. We had 6,000 all analogue cameras, we are now up to
8,500, a new digital system, and we will have 12,000 by the time
we rebuild all the stations. We have delivered the Connect and
Airwave radio systems and they are working very well. We were
able to deliver the Airwave on the contract to the Home Office
five months early. Working with the NHS, we have improved the
medical supplies which would be available. In some 170 stations
we have mass casualty kits, which were not there before, and on
30 stations we have these emergency dressing packs, very much
larger packs for the NHS, these special pods, they have been put
in place. I think it is this combination of trying to make ourselves
a little bit better positioned to deal with situations, adding
to our intelligence by putting in a more sophisticated CCTV system,
and finally putting in a terrestrial trunk radio system, a modern
system, which will allow us to have better communication should
we face a multi-site attack, which was what was so unusual about
7/7.
Mr Agnew: In the wider context
of other transport modes, we recognise, as, indeed, London Underground
do, that it is easy to focus on the technical side of the operation.
What we have focused on more recently is the benefits of the wider
partnership which we have access to in developing things like
training, techniques for our staff, communication and messaging
about threats in particular. If I use buses as an example, we
have in the London operation a wide range of separate bus contractors
that come together under the TfL banner to provide the bus service.
That in itself brings issues about the way in which we, as TfL,
with our contractors go about the process of ensuring we give
adequate training and guidance to the operators. There is a very
close working relationship with them. You may have been aware
recently of the public campaign which appeared just before Christmas
on warning and informing about threats, in this case using the
example of unattended bags. We use a similar approach when briefing
our operators. We explain to them the background to the campaign,
we have the ability to get right down through them to driver level
so that individual members of staff, as with the Underground,
are fully aware of what is taking place and the reasons for it.
We also monitor to make sure we see that things like, in the case,
again, of buses, checks of the vehicles and the destination of
the individual bus are carried out as we wish.
Q5 David Davies: What sort of criminal
record checks are carried out on members of staff?
Mr O'Toole: We do a criminal record
check on staff based on their position. If you look at the Stephen
Boys Smith review, we were named as the one that has model practice
which other transport companies should follow. Our approach to
reviewing staff background has now been adopted by the Infracos
and some other companies, so I was quite pleased that the review
of what we do was greeted so approvingly in that report.
Q6 David Davies: Do you take extra
measures where somebody has come to this country within the last
five years from a country where there might be a prevalence of
terrorist related activities?
Mr O'Toole: It is a problem which
as yet, to my knowledge, is unresolved because of the lack of
reliable databases and it is something which we do not have a
solution for yet. It seems like a logical thing to do but the
ability to actually do it effectively, you need a source of intelligence
and database you can rely on.
Q7 David Davies: If I may, Mr O'Toole,
it is not a personal criticism, of course, but there are some
people who say if you had lived in Britain all of your life, it
is relatively easy to check your criminal background, so the first
question is do you do a full criminal record check? The second
point of the question is if you have come here from a country
like—I hesitate to make an example because in no way am
I suggesting that all people from any country or even any more
than a small minority might be involved in terrorism—Somalia
or areas of Pakistan, there is a possibility that slightly more
people might be involved or know people involved in terrorism
than in the UK. We have to be very careful, of course, and we
must never ever stereotype, but one might expect that London Underground
or any organisation might want to do stronger checks on people
who come from areas like that. You are not able to do it, is that
correct?
Mr O'Toole: It is correct, we
do not have the facility to do it if that is what you are looking
for me to say but I will say, firstly, we do criminal record checks
but, secondly, two points would have to be made. One, of course,
criminal record checks would not have helped with any of the incidents
we have experienced, so in some respects it is a red herring;
two, the mayhem we have experienced has not come from our employees,
you only have to buy a ticket.
Q8 Martin Salter: At the risk of
injecting an element of dissention amongst my colleagues here,
I do not think it is our role to cast aspersions on the work of
your employees, in fact many of whom were heroes during the 7/7
attacks which tragically involved one of my constituents, so I
want to put that on the record. However, moving on from what David
was saying, the terrorist threat evolves, so the threats we were
dealing with two years ago, a year ago can become more sophisticated
next year and the year after. What mechanisms have you got to
liaise with counter-terrorist officers, Special Branch and others
to ensure you are as ahead of the game as you can be in your preparedness
for threats we may yet face, whether it is dirty bombs, more sophisticated
explosive devices or the use of bacteriological weapons?
Mr O'Toole: First of all, we have
a staff of professionals in the security area who liaise very
closely with the British Transport Police and we really rely on
their guidance, insight, connections and involvement in the various
areas you have just named. That is the primary way we do it. We
are also obviously a very active member in the London Resilience
Team, so we have the benefit of that working and study of how
we as a society need to prepare ourselves, whether we are a utility,
the Underground, a train operating company, et cetera. I would
say with regard to that, trying to anticipate the next move, it
is our security professionals working with the British Transport
Police.
Q9 Martin Salter: Mr O'Toole, are
you happy with the level of liaison and professionalism that your
people are witnessing and are part of? As Members of Parliament
we get the impression that it is a pretty impressive job and operation,
but we do not know, and we would like to hear it from the consumer
end, my God you are a consumer in this field.
Mr O'Toole: It is a bit presumptuous
of me to say this, and I would, would I not, but I think the Underground
particularly has the best and closest relationship with the British
Transport Police of any institution. We work very, very closely
together. Our operation centres are literally cheek by jowl, they
are separated by a single wall. There is this natural evolution
of teamwork which has gone on, so we feel very well represented
by them. Here is the really important point, you can have a lot
of discussions about security, you can dream up lots of scenarios
to frighten yourself, but you need a partner who understands how
the machine works and the British Transport Police does understand
it. They understand that certain measures can cause greater threats
elsewhere; if you stop trains here, there are other trains stuck
in tunnels. They understand how the machine works and so they
know how to bring proportionate solutions to us.
Q10 Chairman: I would echo Mr Salter's
point about the heroics of a huge number of your employees, but
if we put that to one side for a moment, and we can never forget
it, how would you characterise the performance of Transport for
London during both the bombings of 7 July and then the failed
bombings of 21 July 2005?
Mr O'Toole: Putting myself aside,
I think the rest of the organisation performed magnificently.
There were some people who behaved heroically, that is true, but
you cannot rely on heroism, you have to rely on competence. Competence
is the real solution here because it is only by people being trained
to follow certain patterns of behaviour can you rely on the appropriate
response. The one thing about 7 July which I think is truly stunning
and testifies to this point I am making is once we went to Code
Amber at 9:15 that morning, we took almost a quarter of a million
people off of this network without a single injury. Chairman,
I know you are trained in military matters, you know what it means
to move that many people in a short space of time and that happened
within an hour. You can only do that if you have trained people
who are professionals who are competent because management cannot
intervene. Management plays no role at that point, it is people
following their training and doing the right thing. The fact that
they were able to do that further reassures Londoners that they
have trained people down there who can look after them if something
happens.
Q11 Chairman: Did you identify any
training gaps amongst your staff as a result of this which you
have since ameliorated?
Mr O'Toole: The concern they had
was getting information, they were as concerned as the public.
Because we did not have an effective radio system at that time,
there was the natural concern of, "Is management making the
right decision? Why is this happening?" When you have drivers
in depots who are sitting there waiting to take their turn and
there is a television on reporting something and they are not
getting information directly which gives them better information
than what they are getting from the BBC or Sky, you create problems
for yourself. One of the things we have created since then, which
happened on the 21st is a much more effective and thoughtful cascading
of information immediately to our frontline people so they are
not slowed by the indecision of, "Have I been told everything?"
Q12 Chairman: May I put the same
question to you, Mr Agnew, before I bring in Mr Salter.
Mr Agnew: Indeed. I would say
for the rest of the transport sector, and I go beyond Transport
for London in saying that, for example to our colleagues in the
National Rail network, it was, indeed, a magnificent response
and I think it brought home some of the benefits of the partnerships.
I am very conscious that "partnership" can be an overused
word, but from the very early days we have built up a cohesive
approach to the way we assist each other in times of crisis. On
7 July in particular I think we saw that very graphically in enabling
people in the evening rush hour to return home without the Tube
network being in place. The National Rail colleagues stepped forward
immediately and offered every assistance combined, it must be
said, by assistance from other authorities, for example local
authorities who obviously had a concern about volumes of people
who may have seen themselves as displaced, concerned or frightened.
The way in which that operation was completed right through to
the close of the day was very impressive. The other thing was
in terms of the operation and the role of the individuals, the
bus drivers, train drivers and the station staff of the National
Rail network, it would have been an understandable concern if
they questioned themselves and their managers as to whether they
should continue working after what had happened to the Tube that
morning. The fact that we saw the bus network recover, outside
the area of damage, of course, in Central London and the National
Rail network continue to operate was a tribute to all the individuals
involved and for me this said a lot about the relationship, for
example, between managers and staff. Managers were out with the
staff reassuring them, dealing with concerns, whether they were
theirs or the public, and by the close of that terrible day we
had got people away from London and home.
Q13 Chairman: I am asking you to
speculate now, but supposing the 21 July attacks had been successful
and there had been a similar or higher level of casualties, do
you think there would still have been the same level of confidence
in the staff after a second wave of attacks?
Mr Agnew: Undoubtedly I think
there would have been a reoccurrence of the questions which were
perhaps largely in people's minds on the 7th; they may have been
more vocal on the 21st had those attacks been successful. It is
difficult to speculate quite what would have happened, but during
my career in transport we have lived through the previous era
with the IRA campaigns which did show evidence, not just of repeated
attacks but in at least one case a fatality involving a member
of the transport staff, a train driver. Again, without overusing
the word, the "resilience" of the transport community
was such that concerns were addressed and they were dealt with.
London did not come to a stop and the process of recovery brought
us back into a position where we were maintaining the network.
Again, that brings back this word "partnership" where
in more recent years we have seen the undeniable benefit of the
wider partnership, our colleagues in the emergency services, London
Resilience, the group which has been set up for reinforcing resilience
in London, right down to the voluntary sector. We are very engaged
with all those groups now on this whole process of addressing
not just the incident but the recovery from it, including the
human factor side.
Chairman: Thank you.
Q14 Martin Salter: Mr O'Toole, you
mentioned the Airwave network and there was some criticism after
7/7 about the extent of reach of the Airwave network. I understand
it was implemented for the police in January of this year, so
this month, but it is still not fully issued to the London Ambulance
personnel. There has also been speculation in the media that the
2012 Olympics could put an undue burden on the system which could
lead to it crashing. I believe very little of what is written
in the media most of the time, with due respect to our colleagues,
but perhaps you can confirm for us how far advanced the roll-out
of Airwave is and if some of this speculation has got any basis
or fact?
Mr O'Toole: The actual roll-out
to other blue light beyond the police is not something we are
really involved in and that is a contractual matter.
Q15 Martin Salter: But you would
know about it.
Mr O'Toole: I do not know the
status of that. I do know that fire and ambulance all have access
to radios via us if they come on to our system, so that is not
an issue for us. With regard to the system "crashing"
from overload, I think that is a bit of a misunderstanding of
how the system works because the system and the priority of calls
is controlled by software. There are a number of channels available
and the software designs a priority for taking calls. It takes
the most important calls first, depending on how the talk groups
are designed, and if there is not a channel available for you,
you are simply queued up and then the call goes through when the
channel is open. Also I think there is some exaggeration with
regard to this phenomenon because there seems to be this resonant
assumption that you want a system where everyone is talking to
everyone, which, of course, you do not, what you want is very
controlled channels of communication. I do not want my people
talking to the policeman around the bend in a tunnel because these
people have to know where they are getting their information from
and then it carries a certain imprimatur with them. You have to
have very disciplined ways of communicating where it is policemen
to their control point and then over to their counterpart in the
Underground and then us back to our people, so the actual need
for many, many, many channels is sometimes exaggerated.
Q16 Martin Salter: That is very helpful.
Mr Agnew, have you got anything to add on this point?
Mr Agnew: Only the point about
2012. In our planning, which clearly in some areas is at a very
early stage, we recognise the critical importance of communications
and Airwave is part of that philosophy in terms of our planning
programme to make sure we do have recognition of the fact that
we need capacity in 2012, not just to deal with the situation
we have now.
Martin Salter: Chairman, rather than
pursue this, because certainly both Mr Agnew and Mr O'Toole have
been very helpful, can I suggest in the course of our inquiry
we return to probe a little deeper with other agencies the robustness
of not just the Airwave system but the communication system in
general?
Chairman: That is a very fair point.
Thank you.
Q17 David Davies: On the Airwave
point while we are discussing it, as you will be aware, Mr O'Toole,
British Transport Police officers working on the Underground have
until recently been carrying two radios, one Airwave and one on
the Underground system. I have noticed that although the Airwave
radio appears to be working, at least in some parts of the Underground,
there still does not seem to be the confidence that it is working
everywhere because I have noticed that most BTP officers are still
carrying two radios.
Mr O'Toole: I cannot respond to
the anecdote but I can assure you it works everywhere. It worked
very well on New Year's Eve and we have had no reports of gaps
or failures in the system.
David Davies: I shall take my second
radio off immediately and let you know how I get on!
Chairman: Just out of interest, the British
Transport Police have a radio system—I appreciate it is
not your direct responsibility—which will communicate from
servers to tunnels for some several years now, yet the—
The Committee suspended from 10.40am to 10.43am
while it was inquorate
Q18 Chairman: The radio system that
the BTP have had for several years appears to have worked extremely
well. Why was the decision made not to take that radio system
and distribute it more widely either, preferably, after the threat
became very, very clear, to the best of my knowledge, in 2003
that the Tube was going to be attacked and, if that was the case,
then after the bombings in 2005?
Mr O'Toole: The British Transport
Police did not have a separate radio system, they were just using
the old, somewhat unreliable system we have on our stations. They
were just equipped with our radios, the exact one the station
supervisor would have had or a CSA would have on a platform.
Q19 Chairman: Sorry, a "CSA"?
Mr O'Toole: A Customer Service
Assistant, the people down on the platforms, I beg your pardon.
There was a protocol for people who needed access to our system
to do just that, for the British Transport Police to know that
there actually was a way of communicating which was always available.
It was replaced because actually it was a radio system that was
in parts all over the network, it was very unreliable, very spotty,
and we wanted to go to a modern system that was expandable and
could address these increasing needs, including eventually being
able to move video signals about the network, so we were just
moving on to a more modern technology, but what the British Transport
Police had available to them was simply the old thing that we
were using to run the stations.
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