Downing Street Says » Counter-Terrorism

» Monday, October 24, 2005

Counter-Terrorism

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with the Delivery Unit that the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy was immature, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that first of all we should recognise what action had been taken on counter-terrorism in the period since 9/11. By 2007 we will have doubled expenditure to over £2billion. We have already introduced a range of counter-terrorism legislation and were currently introducing more counter-terrorism legislation.

Without wishing to talk too much about leaked documents, in counter-terrorism there was a constant need for procedures to be constantly reviewed and updated to make sure that they were equal to the threat, a threat which constantly changed. We would constantly review the procedures to make sure that the response was correct. Put to him that he hadn’t responded to the criticism in the report of the Government’s strategy, the PMOS said that in terms of the way that the Government managed counter-terrorism we should remember that it was this Government that introduced the post of security co-ordinator and therefore it was this government which had driven through the process of co-ordination. Did that mean that we had to keep the process under constant review? Yes, but that would be the same in any counter-terrorism response. It had to be constantly updated. You could not stand still. It was in that light that these reports should be seen.

Asked if we therefore recognised the specific criticisms of the report, the PMOS said that he recognised that already we had developed the counter-terrorism capacity a lot. What he also recognised was the whole reason why reports like this were commissioned was because we were well aware that we had to be constantly self-critical and that we continued to constantly develop our response. That was what we would do. Questioned further the PMOS said that this was a serious piece of work commissioned for a serious purpose and it was part of the constant process of review.

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