Downing Street Says » Security and Terrorist Committee Meeting

Asked for further details about the Security and Terrorist Committee meeting, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) told journalists that as people knew, this had come about as a result of the package of measures announced on 29th March to strengthen our ability and capabilities to deal international terrorism. The Committee would meet monthly, and it would be chaired by the Prime Minister, and attended by the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, as well as senior police and other agency representatives. It was obviously a way of ensuring that we responded across the board in the right way to the ongoing serious terrorist threat. Today’s meeting would receive an assessment of the current threat from the new Director General of the Security Service, and it would agree a work programme to look at international terrorism and linkages to the UK, as well as the struggle of values and ideas. It would keep under review the need for any new legislation. The PMOS said that obviously given the nature of the work, there would not be a running commentary each month.

Asked for further information on the future work programme, the PMOS explained that this Committee was a recognition of firstly the seriousness of the threat, secondly, that that threat was both international in character, but for a small minority, domestic in character as well. Equally, it had to be looked at from both a security point of view as well as the idea of winning the argument in communities in the UK and abroad. Therefore it was bringing together all those diverse elements and creating a forum where they could be discussed between Ministers and the practitioners once a month.

Asked if we were saying that the Prime Minister had not had similar meetings between 2001 and the present, and also, where did this leave Sir Richard Mottram, the PMOS replied that as we had said on 29th March, the Prime Minister would continue to seek advice from the Cabinet Office, and that position remained. With regards to the overall structures, yes, it was true that there were diverse elements which provided the advice, but what this Committee did was bring them together in a monthly forum, and that was of value

Asked who else would attend the monthly meetings, for example, would various community leaders attend, the PMOS said they were represented through Ruth Kelly. There would be other Ministers and senior police as and when necessary. The important thing was that the "top heads" of the key administrations were there.

Asked if the Committee’s function was not a monthly audit on where we were on terrorism, but rather, for forward thinking discussions or the tactics on where things were going, the PMOS said that the new Security Office that was being created within the Home Office would be chaired by the Home Secretary on a regular basis. This Committee was about more strategic direction, but obviously, the two could not be divorced completely.

Asked if anything was agreed this morning, the PMOS said that this was much more about setting forward a future work programme. The PMOS said that journalists should not anticipate a regular update of things that had been agreed at the Committee meetings, given the nature of the work.

Asked if the split of the Home Office would be discussed at the meeting, and was there any chance of a rethink regarding a split following Lord Falconer’s recent remarks, the PMOS replied that Lord Falconer had dealt with that during his interview on the radio today. The decision had been taken, and there had been ongoing work consulting people about that decision. It was one of those decisions where a decision was taken and then implemented, because if it was left for a long period, then you risked paralysis in the system while people waited to see what the result was.

Asked if there were any grounds for optimism as a result of the meeting this morning, the PMOS replied that in this area, he would avoid getting into optimism or pessimism. Rather, what was important was were we seeing successful operations being carried out against terrorism? The answer was: yes. Was the hard reality that the level of threat remained high? Answer: yes. Therefore, what had to be done was constantly review a strategy, and update that strategy in terms of experience, and this Committee provided a forum to do so, and to share both assessments and analysis from across Government.

Asked if the Security or police chiefs warned about any specific threats, the PMOS said that with regards to warnings or threats, we had always said that we would let the public know if there was reason to do so. The PMOS said that he was not going to get into briefing on a regular basis about the Committee’s information.

Asked if the Security or police chiefs tell the Government about any operations they were thinking of, the PMOS repeated that he did not want to get into giving a running commentary on details of the meeting.

Asked what kind of strategy was there for countering radicalisation, the PMOS said that Ruth Kelly and her department were very much in the lead on this. We had talked in the past about working with Muslim communities to counter extremist voices, demands and the spread of extremism within that community. That work had produced tangible results, and if people went to the department, they would be able to find out precisely the measures that had been taken. The PMOS said that we had set up a forum for countering extremism in the Muslim community and we were working with local authorities to bolster that effort.

Asked if there were any links this morning to Abu Izzadeen, the PMOS replied that operational matters were entirely a matter for the police.

Asked how the success against terrorism could be measured, the PMOS said that they could be measured in terms of terrorist operations that had been stopped before they came to fruition. They could also be measured in terms of countering the influence of terrorist and extremist voices within communities. This was not something that one operation was going to deal with. Rather, this was a long, drawn out process, and there had to be the right structure to deal with that threat, not just in the short term, but in the medium-to-long term as well.

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» Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Security and Terrorist Committee Meeting

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