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I like the idea put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, about an exercise in Parliament. It could be quite an amusing day, or a half a day. I shall have to think about how such a thing could be done in terms of “Prepare” because we have done a lot of work on it. The noble Baroness referred to lack of mobile cover
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The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, talked about the money we are investing in Pakistan. DfID has put in something like £90 million and the largest amount of our CT foreign spend is in Pakistan. We realise how serious this is, and we are doing a very good job there.
I hope that has answered most of the points. My key message is that this is a good document. People around the world will be looking at it. In the “Prevent” area, with all the massive complexities that both noble Baronesses referred to, we have tried to tackle something that no one else had really got to grips with. Now lots of countries are beginning to follow us. In some areas, they are doing some things better than us, but in terms of an all-embracing policy, they are not. I hope that answers the questions.
Lord Jopling: My Lords, has the Minister had the opportunity of reading the report of the committee of House, of which I happened to be chairman, which reported within the past month on exactly the matters he has been talking about? Does he accept that a major CBRNE attack in any country in western Europe, including the United Kingdom, could completely overwhelm the resources to deal with it? He will be aware that NATO and the European Union have parallel command structures, resources and exercises to come to the aid of a stricken nation whose resources could not cope with an attack of this sort, and I include the United Kingdom in that. He will also be aware that, as our report demonstrated, NATO and the European Union barely talk to each other. They do not exercise together—indeed, the United Kingdom hardly participates in these exercises—and they run these parallel systems, which is ludicrous. Will the Minister explain why there is no reference in the Statement to the resources of NATO and the European Union? Now that France has decided that it will rejoin the central command structure of NATO, will the Government make renewed efforts to bring together those resources of NATO and the European Union to come to the aid of stricken nations, which should be done not separately but in unison?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, again, I go back to the point about not wanting to frighten the horses. The bottom line is that if one looked at CBRNE and came up with a worst-case scenario, it would be very easy to overwhelm any nation in the world, I fear. We have done exercises in this country specifically in relation to these issues. The Americans have done rather more complex ones than we have. We were very much involved in those exercises with the Americans. As I say, about 18 months ago we had perhaps not done as much as we should have done. We have done a great deal since, but it would be extremely foolhardy to say that we are there yet; we are not.
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As always in all these areas, we could spend our entire national wealth on CBRNE countermeasures. That would clearly be stupid, because again we would be doing the terrorists’ job for them and would have no money for anything else. One always has to balance risk with exactly what one can do. We have a project called Cyclamen, which we use to monitor the radiological and radioactive stuff that is coming in and out of the country. We have other things, which I cannot really mention, by which we are focusing on some aspects of this. We have done a lot of work in the “Prepare” area. We now have whole teams that are made up of volunteers from the ambulance services who can do triage and operate within the contaminated area when something goes on.
The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, is absolutely right; cleaning up after the murder committed with polonium took a huge effort. Cleaning up after something like a dirty bomb would also be terribly difficult. That does not necessarily mean that a lot more people will be killed, but the implications are huge. We do not underestimate this. We have taken a big cross-cutting measure across all the pillars. We are doing a lot. Yes, there is a long way to go. We have very close links with the EU. I have talked to Brussels about these issues. If anything, we are rather more prepared in some areas than it is, but we all need to be at that level.
I have not addressed the question of NATO and EU resources very closely, but I will ensure that my team does so after this debate. I am not sure at the moment of the exact status of those resources.
Lord Soley: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is important to reach out to the often young and vulnerable members of our society who fall for the argument that, just because bad things happen in a democracy, democracies are somehow no better than the often closed and authoritarian societies that they seek to criticise? Surely the real issue is not defining extremism, useful though that may be, although it can be a bit like chasing your tail, but how we reach groups that fall for that argument. Is it not clear that a democracy is not some organisation in which bad things do not happen but a situation in which, when bad things do happen, there are ways of getting redress through the courts, holding government or other institutions to account or many other measures that are not available in closed authoritarian societies? Surely that is the message that we have to get over to these people, who, as I say, are often young or from vulnerable groups. Members of both Houses have a real opportunity to lead on that. Perhaps we should try to find a way in both Houses of getting that message over.
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I agree. My noble friend has opened up an area that demands a very complex answer, but I am tight on time so I will not give one. I agree that we absolutely have to engage with these people. We have achieved things with our “Prevent” strategy. For the first time ever, we have started to identify what makes someone become a violent extremist and what causes radicalisation. We do not yet know all the answers, but 18 months ago we did not have a clue.
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We have done a huge amount of work, and to assess how successful this has been we have set up mechanisms by which we can learn key lessons. We have had the Pathfinder year, and the Audit Commission and the HMIC undertook a learning and development exercise. We are putting mechanisms into place to measure our success, but I would be lying if I said that it is easy to measure; it is really difficult. However, I am reassured by the fact that the vast majority of our Muslim population are absolutely on side with us on this. They absolutely abhor the violent extremists, and they do not like people who tend to lead people towards that route. That is very reassuring, and it makes me feel very sure about our success in the future.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine: My Lords, the Minister has slightly misunderstood what was said by the Front Benches about not having received the document a couple of days ago. The problem is not so much that we did not get to see it, although obviously that would have been very helpful, but that it was aggressively trailed by the Government through the media: the Statement was available on the internet several hours before the Printed Paper Office had it. That is the point we were trying to make.
I should say to the Minister that I am the daughter of an intelligence officer. As regards the strategy of 161 pages, I would think that if you are talking about counterterrorism strategy, which by definition is predicated on not knowing very much—that is what the gathering of intelligence often is and you cannot have absolute certainty in what you know—investing so much, as I see on the face of it, detail, particularly where the detail is rather confused and contradictory, only adds to the confusion.
I will stick to the points I want to make on confusion. What the Government can do confuses us. On the one hand they talk, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, said, about violent extremism and on the other hand they talk about ideology. This morning, we were completely confused as to whether the Home Secretary was against unlawful acts, which I would have thought we were all against, or whether she wanted to put a chill through expressions and restrictions on freedom of speech. I think she said she was going to launch “civilian challenges” against people who said things of which she did not particularly approve.
I have the scars on my back. I took up and challenged Hizb ut-Tahrir more than once and have gone through a campaign of intimidation by Hizb ut-Tahrir against me personally and very publicly. But I would argue with the Home Secretary that the people to take on the challenges in terms of ideology in the community are those from within the community itself. It is not the role of the state, a particular government department or a particular Home Secretary to decide that right thinking rather than wrong thinking can go on in communities, which, if I might say, are very socially conservative.
Finally, the strategy seems to want to be all things to all people, so it says that it will address the grievances which these ideologies exploit. If the Minister had been here on 26 February and had heard the speech on challenges to foreign policy, he would have heard
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Baroness Falkner of Margravine: My Lords, the Minister has said that he wishes—
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Baroness is the daughter of an intelligence officer. Just by that definition almost, she must be a good chap. In terms of how we approach the shared values, I would rather see this as promotion of the shared values, which were originally identified in the national security strategy and are now covered within CONTEST. It is very important that within that community those shared values are promoted, but it is incumbent on all of us to promote them.
On foreign policy and grievances—I will be short to let others ask a question—I am on record already as saying that foreign policy does have an impact. But when you argue and discuss this with people, which I have done, initially one gets quite a rough ride. But when you engage and talk about it, slowly people understand why we might have done what we did. They will not always agree with it, but it is not very helpful when we do not engage or get involved. We need to do that. This engagement, the understanding of some of those things and the promotion of shared values are all extremely important and I believe will move us in the right direction.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Statement, which obviously deserves further study. In the light of his answer to a previous question, is he aware that, perhaps by coincidence, the Department for Communities and Local Government this very day has put out a press release announcing an inter faith week to take place throughout the country in November? Does the Minister agree that good relationships between the faiths, and between each faith and the Government, is of supreme importance if terrorism is to be combated?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I was not aware of the inter faith week. Under the CONTEST strategy, all government departments are involved and linked into this effort, and I can tell the right reverend Prelate that that is no mean feat. I have been involved in trying to get things done on a cross-government basis since 1982, and sometimes it is like herding cats. But we have achieved it and the Department for Communities and Local Government is very closely involved. However, the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right to say that having all the faiths involved is crucial to what we are trying to achieve.
The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, I have two brief questions for the Minister, the first of which concerns the four “P” points set out in the Statement. On “Pursue”, while I accept quite happily that lawful
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My second question is this. Towards the end of the Statement it says that,
- “the challenge that all of us in this House face is to strike the right balance between measures to protect security and the right to life”.
Does this mean a shoot-to-kill policy, or does it mean what I think it probably does, a right to a private life? If the latter is the case, would the Minister take into consideration my first comment that lawful intercept is acceptable? However, data mining and communications data probably are not because we have the right to a private life and we need to make sure that that right is maintained. Also on the right to life, security measures mean that I often have to queue for hours in various places for security checks. That effectively deprives me of some of my life because there is nothing else I can do in those hours. An overreaction to the terrorist threat can actually be counterproductive.
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the Government’s aim wherever possible is to take people through the courts in the judicial process. Sadly, that is not always easy to do because a lot of what we have is based on intelligence, which is not evidence and therefore cannot be used in the courts. I turn to the right to life. The nature of the threat means that these people wish to kill as many innocent people as they possibly can, and it is interesting to note that they have killed far more Muslims than they have those of any other faith, which shows how random and extraordinary they are. However, that is what they want to do. Therefore under the right to life, people have a right to be alive and not to be killed. It is a very important right. I see things pass across my desk which show that these people have every intention of killing large numbers of the innocent. I believe that the right to life is very important and one of the rights that any Government should hold dear. Sometimes that impacts on other judgments.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I have been listening to the responses of the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, with great interest, but I do not think he has replied to the question put by my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones about releasing documents to the press before they are made available to Parliament. Will he answer it now if he has not done so already?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I can only apologise. Perhaps I may look a little further into how that has occurred.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, has the Minister read the Prime Minister’s article in the Observer last Sunday which trailed this Statement? If so, did he notice that the Prime Minister said that UK support for conflict prevention and stabilising fragile states was an integral part of our counterterrorism strategy? Does he believe that when he wrote that, the Prime
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Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I read the article by the Prime Minister, and I was at a Cabinet meeting on Monday about Afghanistan and Pakistan. In all these areas—conflict prevention, support for fragile states, how DfID money goes in—there are a number of routes through which money goes. All those things are looked at in balance. While some bits might have been cut, we are still putting a large amount of money into those areas. Whether we need any more is something we have to decide all the time on the basis of the work we do there, but we are not talking about a straight cut so that less money is available to help in two areas that are crucial to us. Pakistan is a great worry—of course, the Fatah—and we have Afghanistan. We are looking constantly to see how we can best utilise the resources we have.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, control orders have so far caused the greatest concern of any anti-terrorist power. They do not even require the probability of involvement of the defendant in terrorism, only grounds for suspicion, and they have not been very effective because of the number of absconders. When control orders were first introduced, the Government said that they were interim provisions and would be reconsidered. Nothing has happened, however, in the intervening four years. Have the Government therefore abandoned attempts to modify the control order system to make it more acceptable?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, we had a long debate on control orders only recently and I made it clear then that the Government do not like control orders—that they are the least worst option. We use them where we are not able to put someone into prison because, as I said, intelligence is intelligence and not evidence and much of it is hearsay; however, that does not mean that it is not pointing clearly at a person who is going to try to do something horrible to us. If we cannot deport that person with assurances—either because they are a British national or because we could not safely send them to the country to which they would need to go because they might be tortured or killed—then we have to have another way of monitoring them. Within that context, we try to put in as much judicial cover as we can and senior judges consider the issues involved. It is the least worst option but we do not like it. There are 17 people under control orders at the moment, all of whom, I am assured by the Security Service and by Special Branch, need to be monitored for the security of our nation. I am willing to accept that. Work is going on to see whether there is another way to provide the same security, even if it costs a lot more money. We do not like control orders but they are necessary for the safety of our nation; that is why, at the moment, I support them.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, while accepting the rationale and the thrust of the Statement, perhaps I may ask the Minister a question about torture, which was referred to in one of the last paragraphs of the Statement. While appreciating that ongoing inquiries
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Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, our position on torture is clear: we absolutely condemn it. We do not torture people and we do not ask others to do it on our behalf. The Prime Minister has said that we will publish our guidance to intelligence officers and service personnel concerning the standards to apply during detention interviewing of detainees overseas. We will ensure that standards of practice are maintained by inviting the former Lord Justice, Sir Peter Gibson, the Intelligence Services Commissioner, to monitor compliance with that guidance and to report to the Prime Minister annually.
Postal Services Bill [HL]
Committee (1st Day) (Continued)
4.48 pm
3: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Provisions for employee ownership scheme
Any issue or disposal of shares in the original holding company, or any of its subsidiaries to a party other than the Treasury, the Secretary of State or any nominee of either of them, must include making some of those shares available for purchase by employees of the original holding company or any of its subsidiaries.”
Lord Hunt of Wirral: The amendment seeks to create a scheme which I know has the support of many Members of the Committee and, I detect, does not meet with total opposition from the Secretary of State. The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, has tabled an amendment in this group which offers a slightly different model of employee participation to my own and I look forward to hearing him speak on the subject.
The incentive of giving employees a stake in the success of their own company is well understood. Royal Mail has, of course, set up ColleagueShare, a phantom share scheme giving employees the opportunity to receive dividends if the company hits its targets and to sell the shares back at the end of five years, presumably at a profit if the modernisation process goes through and goes well. The scheme set out under the heading “Provisions for employee ownership scheme” attempts to mirror the incentives that apply in an equity-based share scheme. Does the Minister feel that the real deal would offer many more rewards for employees?
As my noble friend Lord Fowler mentioned at Second Reading, there are a range of views about whether or not to give employees more of a share in the company for which they work. Historically, there are some in the trade unions who do not like giving employees that power, and he has set out some examples in the past. However, there are others in the trade union movement, truly representative of the workforce, who I have always found have great popularity among their members because they advocate employee share ownership. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe,
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