Speeches and Statements
Homeland Security - Cityforum opening address
Speech by Hazel Blears, Home Office Minister, in October 2004.
As today’s agenda illustrates, combating terrorism and building resilience is an issue for all of us and the communities we live and work in. It is one of the highest priorities for government and one I take personal responsibility for in support of the Home Secretary.
Will focus on the Government approach to terrorism, our counter-terrorism strategy, and for me, very importantly, the balance we must strike between combating terrorists on the one hand and supporting democracy, privacy and freedom on the other.
First I want to give you a brief general overview of the current terrorist threat.
Current Terrorist Threat
Since the September 11th attacks we and our partners have had some significant successes in damaging Al Qaida’s capability, and in thwarting potential attacks, but it’s one of those frustrating things that by their nature many of these achievements cannot be made public.
Despite these successes, the terrorist threat remains real and serious. This means the threat is not, at the current time, to specific targets. But we do ask everyone to be continually vigilant and to take responsibility themselves – report the unattended bag, watch out for any suspicious activity and, for this audience particularly, make sure you have considered the risk of terrorism to your organisation and have business continuity plans in place. So you can fulfil your responsibility not just to your business but also to keeping your staff safe.
Government Approach To Terrorism
Given the heightened state of alert for the UK, the expectations placed on government are that we will provide an effective first response and will demonstrate far sightedness and leadership. Let me then set out the Government’s approach to terrorism.
One Minister is responsible for counter terrorism and resilience - the Home Secretary. He has overall responsibility for the security of the UK or ‘Homeland Security’ overseeing the Government’s Counter Terrorism Strategy, with myself as his deputy. We are supported by Ministers across government who take the lead for their department’s area of expertise. For example, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister leads on regional resilience – and I understand Nick Raynsford came to your first forum – and the responsibility for transport security lies with TRANSEC in the Department for Transport.
We’ve got two Ministerial committees chaired by the Home Secretary to bring this work together, supported at official level by Sir David Omand – the Government’s Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator – who will also be speaking to you today.
We've frequently been asked why not create a department for Homeland Security as in the United States? The UK is not the same as the United States. Our institutions and organisation of Government is different. We don’t believe that a new department, superimposed, is the best strategy for combating terrorism and building resilience in the UK. Many of the skills used, and countermeasures needed, exist within departments and organisations where expertise and resources are embedded in the day-to-day work they carry out.
In this respect we have a virtual homeland security department where we use the knowledge and experience from those working across government, departments, agencies and the emergency services. These areas do not then lose knowledge and expertise by transferring everything to one department with one aim. I think this is important. Moreover, they may gain extra equipment, training and resources that can be used in to their day to day work. So, I genuinely believe that having people embedded in departments is important.
Examples:
Some of the medical countermeasures that are needed in case of a CBRN attack are relevant to and are available for accidents or the natural occurrence of disease.
Search and rescue equipment that would be needed in the event of a terrorist incident are already in use by the Fire Service for non terrorist related incidents. For example, in 11 May this year an explosion occurred in the Stockline Plastics factory in West Glasgow. A key component of the rescue of those trapped was provided by Fire Fighters who had attended specially designed courses on the consequences of structural collapse, and were equipped with urban search and rescue equipment capable of effecting safe rescues from collapsed buildings. Such equipment would be used when attending terrorist incidents. All of which is provided through a £132 million investment by the Government;
I went to Boscastle after the floods, to meet the emergency services. Again, they used the same new equipment.
The lead government department on counter-terrorism – from general policy and legislation through to operations and CBRN - is the Home Office.
One of the six aims of the Home Office is to counter terrorists and other threats to national security, crucially, in co-operation with EU partners and the wider international community. And this is what the Government is working to achieve through our Counter-Terrorism Strategy. Based on Prevention, Pursuit, Protection, and Preparednessand set out in the Home Office Five Year Strategic Plan. I’ll briefly go through the strands.
i. Firstly, Prevention:Addressing the causes of terrorism at home and abroad.
Working to resolve the international disputes which fuel terrorist organisations and recruitment. Seeking to ensure that all our citizens feel fully part of our civil society.
ii. The second strand of the strategy is Pursuit:Disrupting terrorist organisations.
We aim to understand better the capabilities and intentions of terrorist organisations, and to disrupt their ability to operate at home and overseas. Substantial increases in the funding of the security service have been agreed to enable us to take on approximately 1,000 extra staff by 2008, an increase of almost 50 per cent. So, a massive step change in the capacity of the Security Service to respond. The new staff will include linguists, surveillance officers, investigators and analysts, and those specialists who provide vital security advice to UK business and industry.
We’ve also strengthened Special Branch so they can help in this work.
A key part of disrupting terrorist organisations is breaking the link between terrorism and financial crime. Terrorism cannot survive without money to finance expenditure, if only for day to day living expenses.
The Government’s strategy for countering terrorist finance has two main aims.
Firstly, to deter, disrupt and cut off terrorists sources of funding, wherever it originates from. The objective is to create a hostile environment for them to work in by reducing their capacity and weakening their position by attacking their resources through investigation, seizure and the freezing of assets. Since the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was brought into force, we’ve seized nearly £0.5m. The amounts involved do not necessarily have to be large to be significant.
Secondly, to use intelligence to identify and track terrorists and their activities. This is useful to help identify financial support structures, and also because it can open up alternative lines of enquiry (relating to the identity of both individuals and organisations).
It is important to recognise that legitimate business organisations can, without knowing it, be used by those seeking to raise funds through racketeering and extortion, for example where people collect money for legitimate charities and it gets siphoned off to fund terrorist activity before it gets to the charities. So I’d ask you to have this in your mind. Combating the financing of terrorism therefore requires collective and co-ordinated international action by all those who may be affected.
iii. The third strand of the Government’s Counter-terrorism strategy is Protection
Protecting the UK and key sites
Protection of areas at particular risk will continue to be improved. We will continue to focus our efforts with key sectors to protect the critical national infrastructure and sites which are at particular risk. In order to achieve this, we are working closely with other government departments, agencies and businesses that all have a part to play in reducing vulnerability to terrorist threats.
Any computer system is at risk if it is connected directly or indirectly to the internet or public network. As with other security measures, it is worth assessing whether you might be at particular risk of such an attack. To help protect yourselves it is important to:
- acquire systems from reputable manufacturers and suppliers;
- ensure that those who maintain, operate and guard your systems are reliable and honest;
- seek regular security advice from system and service advisors;
- ensure the proper destruction of confidential material;
- and always ensure that your information is regularly backed up.
iv. The fourth and final element of the strategy is Preparedness:Response and preparedness.
We are overhauling our contingency arrangements right across Government to ensure we are as prepared as possible to deal with the consequences of terrorist attacks, including the possibility of a deliberate release of chemical, biological or radiological material.
The CBRN Resilience Programme aims to ensure that the right training and equipment are provided – for example, over 5,000 police officers have been trained to deal with a CBRN incident to give security and confidence to the public. We are continuing to ensure that responders, whether they have a role during emergencies or in recovery, have good opportunities to train and practice through multi-agency exercises at a national and local level.
Underpinning these four elements is perhaps the most challenging strand of work within our Counter-Terrorism Strategy: that of communication and information.
Only through working together through effective communication can we continue to develop and strengthen our counter-terrorism work and ultimately the resilience of this country.The public expects and needs to feel secure and there are huge demands for public information. People feel they have a 'right to know' about risks – and undeniably there are challenges in communicating the concept of risk, particularly in the context of an impatient fast-paced and 24/7 media machine.
We want to keep people informed and treat the public as adults. But we don’t want to frighten them. If it’s the first thing you think of when you get up we’ll have failed. I’ve heard on US TV they have a strapline giving the threat levels. I don’t want to be in a situation where you read the threat levels while watching Coronation Street. But I hope you’ve all seen the recent ‘Preparing for Emergencies’ public information booklet. The campaign went well, and involved the business community, without being ridiculed for asking people to buy tinned food.
This brings me onto the last substantive part of my speech: we must successfully strike a balance between maintaining an open and democratic society and protecting national security so the British Public can go about their daily lives as normal.
Balancing Democracy, Privacy and Freedom with Combating Terrorists
Following the September 11 2001 attacks, it became clear that terrorist legislation needed to be updated to respond to the new threats that Britain now faced, and so the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was passed to allow the Home Secretary to certify and detain pending deportation, foreign nationals who are suspected of involvement in international terrorism, who cannot be deported on Human Rights grounds.
It’s been controversial. But it’s subject to oversight by SIAC. We have consulted on it, though at the moment there is nothing obvious to replace it, unfortunately. It also created new powers to seize cash and other terrorist assets, and to freeze the assets of terrorists, to disrupt their activities and stop them from mounting attacks.
Naturally no one living in Britain wants to see the rights that the British people have fought for over the centuries become eroded through fear of terrorism, as this would help the terrorists achieve their goals in disrupting the running of the country. Nor would we like to see a terrorist attack – people would never forgive us if we didn’t do all we could to prevent one, so we therefore have to debate and decide as a society the balance we wish to strike between being free to live our lives and the intrusions we are willing to accept to protect our security.
The Government is doing all it can to ensure that a fair deal is struck between security and liberty, and ensuring a successful fight against international terrorism demands we all play our part in getting the balance right. The UK is a tolerant country, but we are living in now a different world. The landscape has changed.
Conclusion
I leave you with a plea to all of you, as businesses – to play your part in dealing with the terrorist threat. You are big players in this. It’s not just what the Government can do, but also what every one of us can do – and that includes business. Thank you.
