United States citizens have been warned not to use public transport in Britain, following a new warning from the State Department.  This is presumably a response to the raising of the threat level to “SEVERE” by the UK Government last month.

It will be interesting to see whether American tourists take any notice and whether it eases the problems of overcrowding on London Underground and on London’s buses.

In House of Lords Question Time earlier today Baroness Neville-Jones, the Minister of State for Security, was asked what discussions the Government have had with the police about the use of undercover operations in relation to environmental protest groups.  Her initial answer was:

“My Lords, decisions on intelligence gathering are operational matters for chief officers working within the relevant legal framework. The Government do not discuss with the police the use of undercover operations in relation to environmental protest groups. The Home Office has spoken to Nottinghamshire Police about the next steps in this case, which has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It is talking to ACPO and HMIC about which body is in the best position to undertake a review of the wider lessons to be learnt.”

Later, however, I asked:

“Can the noble Baroness confirm that all such operations would require RIPA authorisation, and what level of authorisation is required? Can she also tell us whether there is an expectation that such operations would be subject to regular internal review at a senior level regarding whether they were still appropriate and proportionate in the light of circumstances?”

This elicited the following response:

“RIPA—the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act—specifies how that should be done. The authorisation has to be by a senior officer. There has to be a regular instruction and record kept and there are various other procedures in the Act which are designed to manage and control the operation. I do not think that it is the framework that is lacking.”

So the message was clear: the Government sees no need to change the rules governing such operations.

Footnote:

It is interesting how Baroness Neville-Jones seems to try the patience of the House.  The answer to another supplementary question was interrupted by cries – from the Government benches – of  “Too long”.  This was recorded by Hansard as follows:

“Baroness Neville-Jones: My noble and learned friend makes a very important point. As I mentioned, governance in this area is a very important element. I must say that the police agree. The chief constable of West Midlands himself has said that the line is not to be crossed between infiltration to gather intelligence and the agent provocateur. He is quite right.

As to the codes of practice, the legal framework is provided for by regulations contained in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. There is also a code of conduct and practice, which has been published by the Home Office under the previous Government, on how covert human intelligence sources should operate. The independent Office of Surveillance Commissioners has also provided procedural and interpretational advice.

Noble Lords: Too long!

Baroness Neville-Jones: I am telling the House what I think that it would like to know: what the governance arrangements are.”

This follows an earlier incident on 21st December when the House was so dissatisfied with her answer to points made in debate that it agreed by 156 votes to 112 to adjourn “to allow the noble Baroness the Minister to seek further advice so that the House may be allowed to hear the response that she should have given to noble Lords”

I spent a large part of today sitting in on a table-top exercise designed to see how London’s police and other services and agencies would respond to a developing emergency on the streets of London.  It would be inappropriate to go into more details. However, it did bring home to me the importance and value of such exercises.

I will readily admit to once having been something of a cynic about such “war-gaming”.  The idea of bringing together quite a large group of people to act out how they would do their jobs in an imaginary set of circumstances at first sight could appear rather absurd.  Yet the evidence from de-briefs after real emergencies convinced me long ago that these sorts of exercises and practices have a real benefit.  Organisations or parts of organisations that only work together occasionally or only do so under normally fairly clearly-defined situations need to understand each other’s capabilities and practices in the very different circumstances that would apply in a major emergency.  Exercises mean that key individuals get to know each other, procedures are tested and worked through and – most importantly – potential problems are identified and can be resolved.

Although some of the reports from the inquest into the deaths of those killed in the July 2005 bombings have inevitably focused on those things that did not work as well as they might have done, much of what the witnesses have described has demonstrated how well London’s emergency services performed under the terrible circumstances of that day.  I know from those I have spoken to who were intimately involved how important previous exercises had been in planning for what unfolded five years ago and improving the collective response of the emergency services.

I am sure today’s exercise will have been similarly valuable, even though one hopes that the procedures tested never have to be carried out for real.  Several issues emerged where it was clear existing plans were inadequate or required further consideration.  And it has to be better to discover such problems in an exercise than in the middle of a full-scale emergency.

We are told that there will be a revamped National Cyber Security Strategy published in the next few months.  This will explain what the £650 million of new money allocated for cyber security in the spending review will actually be used to deliver (I understand that Whitehall Departments are still bickering over who will get their hands on this money - the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office both believe it should come to them rather than the Cabinet Office).

However, I wonder whether it will also propose legislation.  In the United States a number of members of Congress are putting forward what they are calling the “Homeland Security Cyber and Physical Infrastructure Protection Act of 2010”.  This will give a statutory basis to the Office of Cybersecurity & Communications based in the Department of Homeland Security and would, in particular, create a new Cybersecurity Compliance Division to oversee the establishment of performance-based standards responsive to the particular risks to the .gov domain and critical infrastructure networks.

This is an interesting model.  In the UK, the Government bodies that are responsible for protecting the critical national infrastructure do not have a statutory basis and do not have any formal powers.  In my view, this hampered the effectiveness of the old National Infrastructure Security Coordination Centre, which is now incorporated into the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure and falls under the ambit of the Security Service.

I have long advocated that underpinning the “voluntarist” and consensual framework Government needs to have a statutory frmaework that – in extremis – can be used to require Government agencies and those private companies that supply much of the national infrastructure to meet certain minimum standards and can direct action effectively in the event of some major problem arising.

The British are supposed to be a nation of animal-lovers, so I suspect the report in Le Figaro about the use by al Qaeda of “kamikaze ” suicide dogs to attempt to blow up airlines will produce more outrage than the use of printer cartridges in the recent unsuccessful attack on cargo planes.

I have just heard Theresa May deliver her first major speech as Home Secretary on the challenge of terrorism. It was thoughtful and measured. After a sober – and sobering – outline of the disparate threats the UK faces, she delivered two important messages: first, that the absence of attack is not evidence of the absence of threat; and second, that the Government’s goal is to reduce the risk – it is not possible to eliminate it.

The Home Secretary’s statement on airline security was repeated in the House of Lords by Baroness Neville-Jones, the Security Minister.

I asked her whether the device found at East Midlands Airport would have been detected by existing scanning arrangements had it been checked in as hold baggage by a passenger in a UK airport (and also whether this would be true in other countries given the differing nature of security regimes around the world).

Her answer made it quite clear that while this incident has raised important issues for cargo flights, it is also apparent that there are important issues for passenger flights as well.

The full exchange is below:

“Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I declare an interest as the Home Office appointee on the Metropolitan Police Authority, with responsibility for overseeing counterterrorism and security. I, too, am grateful to the Minister for the full account that she has given. With what degree of certainty does she feel that these devices would have been detected had they been in checked-in passenger baggage on a flight embarking in the United Kingdom? Given the variations in standards of airline security in different parts of the world, what degree of certainty does she have regarding incoming flights that such baggage would have been detected at airports elsewhere in the world? What will her answers mean in terms of current levels of aircraft security for passenger airlines in this country?

Baroness Neville-Jones: The noble Lord asks some pertinent and, I have to say, extremely difficult questions. My honest answer to his first question must be that we do not know the answer. This explosive is extremely difficult to detect. Technologies are known for detecting PETN and one consideration that we will have to take advice on is whether we should extend PETN testing to cargo going on board aircraft-most particularly passenger aircraft, but also other aircraft. We have to do this in a way that is consistent with assuring the public that they can travel safely, while not crippling the country’s economy and international commerce. Therefore, an international effort will be needed and we shall talk not only to other operators but to those who may be able to help us technologically. Part of the Transport Secretary’s review will consist of talking to the companies. Many of them are well advanced in increasing-and we will be increasing-the screening processes, including capabilities that are not necessarily at the moment distributed as a matter of course.”

One of the lead stories on the BBC News this morning was “Police in training for ‘Mumbai-style’ gun attack in UK“.  This reported that:

“UK security chiefs have ordered an acceleration in police training to prepare for any future “Mumbai-style” gun attack in a public place.

A series of counter-terrorism exercises are being held with police marksmen training alongside units of the SAS.

Police armed response units are also being given more powerful weapons.”

There is no doubt that this issue is one of the current preoccupations of those concerned with security on the British mainland (and indeed elsewhere in Europe).  There is also no doubt about how difficult this would be to cope with given the current style of British policing.

Most police officers here are unarmed.  Even in London, where the Metropolitan Police has a higher proportion of armed officers than elsewhere (mainly because of static protection responsibility around embassies, Government buildings, Heathrow airport etc), only around one in ten officers are authorised ever to carry guns and the areas where there are routine armed patrols are very limited.

In Mumbai, over a three-day period in November 2008, ten terrorists operating in pairs with automatic weapons, improvised explosive devices, equipped with GPS and apparently communicating with a remote controller by mobile telephone, killed 173 people and wounded 308.  They applied hit and run tactics, were opportunistic, took hostages and established defensible positions.

By contrast,earlier this year in Cumbria, a lone individual, Derrick Bird, armed with two non-automatic weapons went on a killing spree which left twelve dead and a similar number seriously wounded before he killed himself.

Gross that tally up with more gunmen, automatic weaponry in a more populous area and the scale of what is possible becomes apparent.  For any Western democracy, planning a strategy to deal with a ruthless heavily armed coordinated attack in a populous city is no easy task.

Current training does not equip the police to deliver the sort of response needed to deal with Mumbai-style insurgents.  And it would be the police that would be likely to be the first on the scene.

For those who think Special Forces are the answer, it is worth remembering that the time for any conventional armed forces to be mobilised would be measured in hours –  and this would inevitably mean a very high casualty rate before any intervention could succeed.

It is no surprise therefore that the BBC reports that “David Cameron has taken a personal interest in the problem ever since his first threat assessment given to him when he took office in May.”

And there are real dilemmas.  Even in London – with more armed police to draw on – dealing with multiple mobile attacks would be extremely difficult and police tactics are focused on containing an incident – usually involving a single gunman.  Exchanging fire with heavily armed ruthless gunmen requires military-style engagement and different weapons and ammunition.  Police officers have not previously been trained in this way and not all of the currently armed officers would be suitable for such a task or willing to engage in it.

Such training will take time.

And even when units of suitably trained officers have been created, having them on continuous standby will be expensive and having such units on regular patrol will mark a massive movement away from the traditional vision of unarmed British bobbies-on-the-beat.

Today’s BBC report will no doubt start a public debate on the implications of all this, but the reality is that the face of British policing is likely to be changed forever as a result – particularly if the public expenditure review means that more conventional “traditional” policing has to be cut back to pay for it.

The Conservative Coalition has just won a vote by a majority of 275 in the House of Lords on an amendment to the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc Bill.  Yet, they are still insisting that they need to appoint another 30 Conservative life peers and an extra 15 Liberal Democrats to give them more foot-soldiers …..

According to The Observer today, David Cameron has personally vetoed the appearance of the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Baroness Warsi, at the Global Peace and Unity event this weekend.

David Cameron’s decision is apparently a response to the presence at the event of a number of hard-line speakers who have justified suicide bombers and terrorism, promoted al Qaida, and encouraged homophobia.   Warsi, who is of course the first female Muslim Cabinet Minister, was planning to use the appearance to confront those advocating extremism and argue against fundamentalism.

A refusal to engage in this way merely allows unacceptable extremist views to remain unchallenged.  If no alternative is presented, those seeking to persuade people of the validity of that extremism are given a clear run.

The Conservative Coalition’s compromise is to send Andrew Stunnell MP, a junior LibDem Minister at the Communities Department to put the case against extremism, hatred and intolerance.

I don’t want to upset Mr Stunnell’s friends and family, but he is hardly a household name.  Nor is he a Muslim.  And nor is he as senior in the Government as Baroness Warsi.

So the Government is not actually boycotting the event, which might at least have made a point – in absentia – about its distaste for some of the views being expressed.  Instead, it is missing the opportunity to deploy someone who might at least to have been listened to when she put an alternative viewpoint.

Am I surprised?

No, not really.  It is a typically wimpish and ineffectual abdication of political and moral leadership.