Biological Threats
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Harris of Haringey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what arrangements they have in place to protect the residents of the United Kingdom against biological threats; and what measures they are taking to promote the international regulation of biological weapons and to ensure that security standards are sufficient in laboratories engaged in biological research around the world.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken an interest in this debate and I want to express my thanks to Julian Elderfield, a master’s student at the London School of Economics last year, who has prepared for me some very interesting notes on this topic. They inspired me to put forward this Question for Short Debate. Admittedly, I tabled it last May, so we are considering it a few months later, but I am none the less sure that the issues have not moved on significantly during that period.
We are all aware that the National Risk Register places in tier 1 a number of significant threats to the United Kingdom. Those include a major natural hazard which requires a national response, such as an influenza pandemic. Also included in the tier 1 category is the threat of international terrorism, stating specifically:
“International terrorism affecting the UK or its interests, including a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack by terrorists”.
That is the context within which this debate is framed.
We need to consider why biological threats have the capacity to be potentially so catastrophic. Of course, there have been a number of developments over the years, not least the rapid growth in international travel, which means that a virus emerging in one part of the world can travel round the world extremely quickly. We saw that with the SARS epidemic and other phenomena over the years. The changes in the way in which the world operates have had significant consequences.
The other context for all this is that viruses can, entirely naturally, change rapidly. They can mutate. They are comparatively simple organisms, if indeed they can be defined as organisms, and their mutation will often throw up viruses that have different effects or impacts, are more easily spread or are more virulent when they are ingested.
There is a whole group of issues around natural hazards and biothreats. In addition, of course, 50 years ago many countries—including, I rather suspect, our own—were experimenting with or thinking about biological weapons. Most countries would now deny that they have such a capacity but the fact that many countries considered this research and experimented with it raises the issue of what happened to those programmes and their products. In some instances, they were stockpiled and in some instances we do not yet know what happened to that material.
So far, one virus has been effectively eliminated in its natural state: smallpox. However, there are, I think, two stocks of the smallpox virus that have been retained for research purposes, presumably because of the possibility that smallpox might recur in some other way in the future. We have to consider the security of those stocks and whether there are similar issues around them.
The other big change that has happened, really quite dramatically, in the past 10 to 15 years is the speed of technological advance and the ability of scientists now to undertake genetic manipulation. As I said earlier, viruses are very simple. They are simply a capsule, often with perhaps 10 or 12 genes within them. The changing of just one gene within a virus can have a very profound effect on what that virus does: how easily it is transmitted, the extent to which it can be transmitted from an animal to a human being or between humans, and the consequences for the organism that is infected.
In fact, in 2001 the Journal of Virology published a research paper that demonstrated a whole number of ways of modifying the mousepox virus. This new virus was so effective that it overwhelmed the immune system of the test mice, causing massive liver failure and eventually killing the subjects. That reaction occurred even if the mice had been vaccinated against the mousepox virus. That was a legitimate scientific experiment— an effort to control the mouse population in Australia —but it demonstrated that a quite small change in a single gene with comparatively simple techniques could have major consequences.
These techniques are becoming more straightforward and all sorts of legitimate research is taking place in these areas around the world. Some of this could have the consequence of rendering a vaccine ineffective; some of it could confer resistance to therapeutically useful antibiotics and antiviral agents in pathogenic organisms; it could increase the virulence of a pathogen, or make it easier for that pathogen to be transmitted; or it could perhaps alter the range of hosts for that pathogen. A whole number of things are now technically possible that were not easily doable 10, 15 or 20 years ago. Entirely legitimate research on genetic manipulation and modification is of course going on all over the world for entirely benign purposes.
The question that I want to pose is: how well regulated around the world is that research? How confident can we be that other countries are applying the sorts of restrictions that we would wish to see? Some pharmaceutical companies may have an interest in carrying out experiments and developing their techniques in countries where the regulatory regime is far less intense than it might be in our own country.
We have the Biological Weapons Convention, which is extremely well supported. I think that in excess of 150 countries around the world have signed it. However, as I understand it, although countries have said that they accept that they should not be developing biological weapons, the world has not set up what we might consider to be any effective system for monitoring compliance or verification. Some of the biggest and most powerful countries—the United States of America, for one—are extremely dubious about setting up any external system to monitor their own compliance and do not necessarily see the need for a supervisory body.
The US, for example, clearly has no official bioweapons capability but has constructed a huge research base, in many different centres around the United States, under the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures programme. That is undertaking, no doubt quite properly, genetic research, development and testing. However, if the United States says, “We are not happy with our compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention ever being tested by anybody else”, it is very difficult to see how that could be enforced on other countries.
Scepticism also persists about whether Russia’s offensive bioweapons capabilities have been completely dismantled. There are, I think, five Russian military bioweapons facilities which remain closed to outside inspection. Many of the officials linked to their current defensive programme are the same officials who developed Soviet offensive capabilities during the Cold War. There is a question again about how secure those facilities are, particularly as we know that regimes change and that certain parts of the world become less stable as things move forward.
There is clearly a risk that stocks of materials developed for one purpose could be misused or fall into the hands of terrorist groups or, potentially, rogue regimes. There is also a question of where scientific research is going. There have obviously been discussions over the years, particularly in the United States following the September 11 attacks, as to whether certain areas of scientific activity should be properly reported and appear in the scientific journals. I do not think that is a very positive route to go down but it recognises the levels of concern that exist in this.
In responding, can the Minister first say what is being done to improve supervision of these matters? Secondly, what is being done to regulate the security of scientific establishments, including those that hold stocks of pathogens? It all ends with a fundamental question. We are at risk, as a nation, from a pandemic of whatever sort and from whatever origin, whether naturally or unnaturally occurring. Are we really satisfied that our emergency and health services are able to withstand that?
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for initiating this extremely important debate and being kind enough to let me have sight of that excellent research paper from Mr Julian Elderfield. Without that, I would not have been able to speak in this debate; such is the paucity of my knowledge of these matters. There are important broader considerations, many of which I engage with regularly, so I decided that it was important to hear what was said today.
It seems that the concerns on this issue fall into three broad categories: public information, international co-operation and regulation. In the context of the report by the Defence Select Committee in the other place on cybersecurity, we heard yesterday from General Jonathan Shaw, former head of cybersecurity at the MoD, about the lack of preparedness. He made the point that one of the greatest weaknesses in the system is the lack of awareness of the public, enterprise and companies as to what can happen to the infrastructure around us and of the potential breakdown of day-to-day technological systems on which we all rely. He called for a public awareness campaign similar to the HIV/AIDS campaigns of the 1980s, when every household in the country received a leaflet informing them of the background and their options in terms of behaviour change and so on. That is the extent to which he considered public information to be critical.
Although it is a very different threat, that could equally apply to the threat from biological warfare, which may potentially be more serious than cyberwarfare in the context both of an indiscriminate bioterrorist attack could affect densely populated areas, and of serious leaks from laboratories that could cause multiple fatalities. There would then be questions of identifying what created the emergency and dealing with the fall-out from it. The awareness and preparedness of the emergency services was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. He is a great expert on that so I will not particularly dwell on it, but it will be critical to how the emergency is dealt with. For example, identifying the nature of the attack would itself be a challenge, as well as dealing with potential mass casualties.
The aftermath of the sarin attack on the Tokyo underground in 1995 is instructive. That was the most serious attack on the Japanese mainland since World War Two. It killed 13 people, seriously injured 50 and created temporary problems with vision for about 1,000 people. Immediately after the attack, ambulances transported nearly 700 patients and hospitals saw nearly 5,000 patients who got there by one means or another. Most of those reporting to hospital were the worried well—in other words, people who thought that they might have been affected. As it turned out, many of them were not but they were a drain on hospital facilities in an emergency.
Witnesses reported afterwards that subway entrances resembled battlefields. In many cases, the injured simply lay on the ground, many with breathing difficulties. Many of those affected by sarin went to work that morning despite their symptoms, most of them not realising that they had been exposed to it. Most victims who sought medical treatment as the symptoms worsened got the information that led them to report to hospital via news broadcasts, so there was a considerable lag between the incident itself and the information on what had happened and what people had to do about it if they were affected.
In the aftermath, emergency services were criticised for their handling of the attack. For example, the Tokyo subway authority failed to halt several trains despite reports of passenger injury and the platforms were inundated. Sarin poisoning was not well known at the time, and many hospitals only received information on diagnosis and treatment because a single professor at Shinshu University’s school of medicine happened to see reports on television. He had experience of treating sarin poisoning after a very small incident, recognised the symptoms and had information on diagnosis and treatment. He then led a team who sent the information to hospitals throughout Tokyo via fax machine.
That was some considerable time ago, although frankly 17 years is not that long. Technology has moved on and, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, after the attacks of 7/7 here in the UK, we have put into place a significant number of protocols to ensure that a joined-up response can be effected in the event of a major emergency. The question still arises of how quickly we can identify the cause, given the plethora of different types of pathogens that can be used and, indeed, the natural variants that can exist. Another question is whether we have sufficient antidotes to treat the victims.
Information campaigns may also be useful in deciding what not to do. In the Tokyo attack, significant numbers of people were exposed to sarin only because they helped others who had been directly exposed. Among those passengers on other trains were subway workers and health workers, who immediately set aside everything else and got stuck in to helping people. We know from this that even basic guidance such as where to look for information would itself be helpful.
The second principle to deal with is international co-operation. Before I move to the UN framework, it is worth commenting that—according to today’s New York Times—the first General Assembly of the United Nations was convened in London for its first meeting on this date in 1946. What a happy day it is for our country.
Multilateral diplomacy aims to regulate biotechnology and to prevent bioweapons. This is, of course, of limited use when it comes to terrorists, and that is the problem. Traditional diplomacy on its own is not enough. As we know from bitter experience, international law is meaningless to terrorists. Given that the Biological Weapons Convention is nearly universally ratified— 165 states have ratified it and 12 have signed it—the treaty offers a sound platform for developing further policy in this area. We need to build on the BWC and not let unilateral measures undermine the treaty. One method of strengthening the BWC is to institute greater confidence-building measures in the regular meetings which take place in between the quinquennial reviews, the last of which took place in 2011.
The lack of enforcement and verification of the BWC is a further problem, but it does not invalidate the treaty. It has contributed to the national policy development and is therefore a key source of policy diffusion and information sharing. While we would want to see a global verification regime, I suggest that while the US continues to be an obstacle we should not hold out too much hope and should do what we did with the ICC, when partners of the US moved forward without that particular ally, while encouraging it to participate from afar.
We also need to recognise certain limitations of global Governance. We are not going to eliminate bioweapons research; major powers will always want to create a security margin for themselves by doing defensive research to develop bioweapons in order to understand how they work and how they may be able to develop measures to fight them if they are released by enemies. There will always be a suspicion that other countries’ defensive research could potentially be used for offensive purposes, but it is our responsibility to our citizens to continue to do that research.
Given the boundaries between pure and applied research, defensive and offensive, civilian and military uses are unavoidably blurred. It is also important to better integrate biosecurity considerations into current public policy on biotechnology, nanotechnology and synthetic biology. I suspect that this is largely missing from current policy initiatives in these areas, not least within the European Union framework. In responding, is my noble friend able to tell us what work is ongoing within the EU to advance this?
I conclude by turning briefly to regulation. From the literature it appears that more could be done to increase security in the institutions that deal with these matters. Better controls are required. Can the Minister tell us in summing up what requirements are put on laboratories in the UK to conform to standards, as well as international bodies that engage in this work, particularly those which sub-contract to research laboratories abroad?
Lord Giddens
My Lords, this is a cosy and intimate debate given the seriousness of the risks that we are discussing, but I still want to congratulate my noble friend Lord Harris on having set it up and on his excellent introduction. There are three sets of factors which make biological threats far more menacing than they were for previous generations. The first of these, as my noble friend has said, is work in scientific laboratories that is designed to unpack the basic building blocks of nature but which can have spin-offs of a dangerous kind. I shall say a little more about that later. Secondly, there is the disruption to or destruction of the world’s ecosystems, releasing pathogens from their normal hosts. The process is normally known as zoonosis and it is one that is fraught with implications for human beings. Thirdly, as my noble friend also mentioned, we have globalisation which can transmit pathogens almost immediately from one side of the world to the other.
This is an extraordinary package of innovation for us to have to live with. As the science writer David Quammen notes in his book, Spillover, the consequences appear,
“as a pattern of weird and terrible new diseases emerging from unexpected sources, raising deep concern and deep foreboding among the scientists who study them”.
Such diseases can spark global pandemics which are all the more dangerous because they feature pathogens for which there is no known cure or treatment. Just as ominously, they can be used in warfare or in terrorist activity. The emergence of terrorist groups willing to inflict damage upon millions of people and who may be indifferent to their own survival is a chilling thought.
The SARS outbreak of 2003 was contained partly because of quick diagnostic work—there is something to be learnt from that—and partly because rigorous quarantine measures were taken in the key cities involved. But there was also a large element of luck. SARS is unusual in that the symptoms appear before a person becomes highly infectious; in other words, there is a space of time for detection and intervention that does not occur in most other diseases. The nightmare scenario for the UK is what would happen if a new strain of disease should form the basis of a terrorist attack, especially a disease with no known cure.
I have three questions for the Minister. The first concerns the Biological Weapons Convention. It seems to be only obliquely relevant to stopping such an eventuality, while more generally it is a relatively weak mechanism. So-called confidence building measures are supposed to be crucial to its operation, providing for the sharing of knowledge and strategies, but since the late 1980s only eight states out of 116 signatories have supplied CBMs every year. How could the BWC be further beefed up?
Secondly, we know that scientists are our guardians in this area. We cannot depend on political leaders because only scientists can calculate where diseases are likely to emerge and identify new types of bio-weapons. Scientists work in a variety of national and international organisations such as the WHO and scrutinise emerging trends in the production of pathogens. However, as was said earlier, at some point the public must be involved in relation to public understanding of the risks and threats. What role do the Government see for public education here?
Thirdly, what do the Government make of the interesting controversy over research involving H5N1 influenza—in other words, bird flu—which has been much debated over the past couple of years and to which it is difficult to seek a resolution? This research led to a strain that could be transmitted between humans through the air. In January 2012, the New York Times published an article called, “An Engineered Doomsday”, imploring scientists to abort their research and destroy the strains produced. In the view of the Minister, should there be some controls on the dissemination of scientific studies, or even on such studies themselves? If so, where should the lines be drawn and by whom? As the noble Lord will know, this controversy continues in the scientific community without, so far, a clear outcome—although there seems to be some progress. This is a prototypical case; that is, the more new diseases emerge from zoonoses, or as the by-product of scientific research, the more we are going to face this dilemma over whether there should be limits to research and the publication of research. These lines are extremely difficult to draw.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey has made clear in his powerful speech, the issue we are debating is one of considerable importance and, indeed, worry for the world in general and our own nation in particular. We should be grateful to my noble friend for giving us this opportunity to discuss the issues and potential issues involved, and I hope my noble friend will receive specific answers to the points he has raised from the Minister, not least his points about the effectiveness of our current defences against biological threats and a bioterrorist attack.
The question we are considering refers specifically to biological threats, biological weapons and biological research. I hope that I will be forgiven if in my remarks I refer to the broader heading of the threat from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material, which of course includes biological threats. Scientific advances, matched by the rapidly increased and increasing ease with which knowledge can be shared, makes it more and more difficult to keep chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material away from those with malign intent and a disregard for international law, whether they be state actors, some highly unstable and repressive, or non-state actors, some driven by contorted religious fundamentalism. In a situation where weak and failing states outnumber strong states by two to one, globalisation is driving a major redistribution of power and threats, and demographic change is placing pressure on the world’s increasingly stretched natural resources, with the potential that has as a source of conflict, a stable security landscape is certainly not what we have at the present time.
A very immediate source of concern is Syria, where the fourth largest stocks of chemical weapons in the world are held. President Obama has rightly said that deployment of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be a “tragic mistake”, but of course there is also the issue of what might happen in a post-Assad era, when these stocks would presumably come into the possession and under the control of others currently unknown, including in their intentions.
We agree with the Government’s recognition in their 2010 national security strategy that,
“International terrorism affecting the UK or its interests, including a CBRN attack”,
is the top tier 1 threat. This continues the approach of the previous Government since the 2008 national security strategy outlined measures to tackle the CBRN threat, based around dissuading states from acquisition, detecting acquisition attempts, denying access and defending our borders.
On the military side, the Government intend to expand the role of reservists in our Armed Forces, which will provide an opportunity for greater use of niche civilian skills and expertise in this field in a military setting. However, we will not improve national response and mitigation capacities through small specialised units but through a broad spectrum of capabilities, working across agencies and borders. We support the work of the National Security Council working across government, but any response would need to go beyond Cabinet co-ordination, and co-ordinate the military, specialist rapid reaction teams and public health and civil emergency services.
As our technology develops, and in the light of the extent to which CBRN materials can be found in legitimate commercial or civilian sectors, it is important that we make full use of all those with the relevant scientific know-how. We also encourage education among the medical and scientific communities about the potential for abuse in areas of dual-use. It is not simply those on the frontline or in the higher echelons of the world of science, but those who on a more daily basis handle agents that can be used for malign and hostile purposes who should be the focus of government-led awareness-raising campaigns.
However, of course, it goes beyond governments. We have to share threat information between business, scientists and government, especially since 80% of the UK’s critical national infrastructure which would be a possible target of any CBRN attack is in the private sector. We need to ensure compliance with export regulations and see that there is information exchange on proliferation activity.
In respect of the scientific community, the Institute for Public Policy Research has found that insufficiently secure government laboratories around the world remain a worry and recommends improved international data and knowledge sharing, as well as harmonisation of national standards, and regulatory and best laboratory practices. There is an ongoing debate about how we increase confidence in compliance of existing international regulations, in particular, as has already been mentioned, with regard to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, which unlike the Chemical Weapons Convention does not have a verification system in place, making implementation and monitoring of the treaty’s provisions difficult. Neither, unlike the Chemical Weapons Convention, does it have the equivalent of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. However it is also important to have a discussion on how existing and new threats of proliferation can be tackled, including stockpiling of vaccines.
As has already been said, the threat posed by CBRN—including biological threat—is very real. At best it can cause panic; indeed, the threat of a panic can cause something approaching panic. At worst, the threat posed by CBRN can result in something much more serious. In the UK we have had the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210 in London. We saw the sarin attacks in Tokyo, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, has already referred, and we can appreciate the havoc that there would be should something similar be tried on the London Underground, which carries millions of people a day.
As I understand it, in New York there is a “Securing the City” strategy under which local and regional agencies are equipped with world-leading radiological detection equipment. New York has established a permanent radiological defensive ring through the installation of fixed detection equipment to monitor traffic at all bridges and tunnels that lead into the city. The sensors have been networked to enable them to provide real-time radiation data, so at all times experts can take a reading and know instantly about threat levels or, indeed, the nature of an attack. New York City operates more than 4,500 radiation detectors across the metropolitan area. The deputy commissioner for counterterrorism of the New York City Police Department has called this effort “unprecedented”. While I appreciate that it relates to the radiological side, nevertheless perhaps the Minister could say—if not now, then later—if there is something along these lines that we are looking to develop for detection to help protect our major cities.
The ease with which new technologies can be attained and developed into sophisticated means of alarm and destruction, and the implications which that has, must be regarded as a priority issue for all developed nations, and not least for this country. While the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks involve the use of conventional weapons, the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials threat transcends national boundaries and should unite nations by necessity as well as in shared interests. Our collective response to the threat should have at its core good intelligence, determined detection, strong international agreements deeply implemented in national policies, robust defences and well-organised response capabilities. As we know, new technologies promise enormous benefits for humanity, and we have a duty to promote scientific advance and exploration. However, that imperative must be coupled with the knowledge that new technologies are also now an inescapable part of our national and international security challenge.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for introducing this debate. As he may know, I did not expect to answer this debate until about 11 o’clock this morning and I much regret that I have not been able to phone my son who works in the systems biology group at Harvard on patterns of mutation in transferable RNA—a topic that I am not entirely sure I could explain to the noble Lord. If I had known last week, I would have talked to members of the Bradford peace studies department, most of whom live in or around Saltaire and some of whom share the allotments on which I work at weekends. I understand that Bradford does a lot of extremely good work on some aspects of biological weapons and their control.
This is an important subject, and both a domestic and international one. We are concerned with the potential of a terrorist attack and the very distant potential of a global state attack—that potential has clearly retreated since the end of the Cold War. We are also concerned with the possibility of accidental release from badly secured laboratories. This is an area of domestic and international overlap. I would not discourage noble Lords from pointing out, as we deal with the intensely emotional issue of the defence of British sovereignty from European and other interference, that this is one of many areas where you cannot have entirely different British and foreign issues. We have to have international co-operation and, as far we can, regulation. The Government are deeply committed to protecting the United Kingdom from biological threats. That requires us to have strong measures at home and co-operation abroad.
The British approach is set out in the UK’s counterterrorism and counterproliferation strategies and we have a cross-government programme to prevent terrorists gaining access to the technical expertise and specialist materials needed to carry out biological attacks. Overseas, we are leading efforts to strengthen a rules-based international system, provide technical and financial support to minimise the risk that sensitive science is misused and improve the security of hazardous materials. As noble Lords know, this year the United Kingdom will chair the G8. The global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction is part of that and we will take a major role in that area.
There is resistance to a strong international compliance programme. On the point made by the noble Baroness, it is not simply from the United States, let alone from the American pharmaceutical industry, but from a range of other countries that I will not go through. For many of them it is a question of sovereignty and, for one or two south Asian countries, of suspicion of the West. There are limits to what we can achieve and we have to work as far as we can through education, co-operation and providing assistance. I also note that we are working with our partners inside the European Union through the establishment of centres of excellence with regional centres around the world to build this level of co-operation.
Noble Lords will be aware that this is a low probability but very high impact threat. It is a particularly difficult threat for us to measure. Since it is a very diverse threat, what detection systems are really effective and how far they are effective against every single potential threat are not easy questions either, but we take the threat extremely seriously. We have built capabilities to lessen the impact of a biological attack. We have focused on measures likely to have the greatest effect in reducing deaths and illness and, where possible, which provide the highest utility for other emergencies.
The national chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear response centre, run by the police but available to other emergency services, has a range of CBRN response equipment at its disposal and has trained more than 10,000 police officers to respond to CBR incidents. The noble Lord is, I am sure, highly familiar with all this. In addition, the MoD Technical Response Force provides specialist surge support to the UK police in the event of this sort of emergency. I assure noble Lords that the UK will continue to build capabilities to respond to and recover from a wide range of terrorist and other civil emergencies; improve the ability of the emergency services to work together during a terrorist attack; and enhance communications and information sharing on terrorist attacks.
Working at the international level is of course a great deal more complicated. UN Security Council Resolution 1540 requires states to adopt and enforce controls to keep materials held secure and to maintain effective national export and border regimes to prevent the smuggling of such materials. The UK was active in negotiating the renewal of UNSCR 1540 last year. We have provided the relevant committee with status reports which go beyond the resolution’s reporting obligations and strongly encourage implementation and reporting by all UN members. However, 23 UN member states have yet to implement the resolution, and my noble friend is right to say that the number of states that provide annual reports remains desperately low. We are doing our best, with our partners, to raise that number. If you are dealing with a whole range of other issues—I have just been talking to my niece, who has returned from Southern Sudan, dealing with a whole range of epidemics out there—biological threats do not appear to be so high to a large number of other countries as perhaps they do to us. There is enough out there in the natural world for others to worry about.
Noble Lords all understand, I hope, why, regrettably, there are no effective provisions to verify compliance of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. A range of other states has inhibitions about accepting an intrusive compliance regime. In the absence of an international consensus, we are working with international partners to strengthen elements of the current regime such as national implementation measures, annual confidence-building measures and assistance in cases of actual or alleged biological weapons use. The UK was active in supporting the EU Council decision of July 2012, which provided nearly €2 million for continued EU assistance with implementation of the BTWC.
We provide practical assistance to other nations seeking to reduce the threat from biological weapons, for a range of different programmes. The Ministry of Defence’s UK biological engagement programme funds a number of projects to strengthen international biological security. Again, when we talk about international biological security, we are talking about things from the ground up, from basic work to help laboratories in central Asia improve their security techniques, all the way up to much more complex proposals. We work very closely with international organisations—including the World Organisation for Animal Health, the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation—to promote the highest practicable standards of safety and security for biological agents.
Lord Giddens
The noble Lord will forgive me, but what he said before moving on my point seemed like a bunch of truisms. We are dealing here with issues that are going to be extremely hard to control. For example, we have had no success in controlling the current flu norovirus. If it had been a really noxious virus, one would have seen how vulnerable we are. That is a long way from saying, “We are going to try to persuade other nations to help us”, which, of course, we are. It is a situation of much more extreme vulnerability, one that we have never been in, to a whole range of new global risks. I would like to be convinced that the Government are taking the uniqueness of these risks seriously enough, especially those of which we have no experience. They could come from anywhere.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Briefly, I can only assure the noble Lord that we are acutely aware of how rapidly pandemics can spread around the world and how rapidly a potential biological attack might spread from one country to another. We have seen this with the flu virus and we are certainly aware of it. A lot of research is now under way. The biology profession itself has paid a great deal of attention to it. However, there are tremendous holes in what we are capable of doing. Much of the world is governed by regimes that do not wish to co-operate with this. It is part of the gap between the global governance that the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, would like to see and the national sovereignty under which we have to operate. Her Majesty’s Government in no sense underestimate these risks. Several government departments are putting co-ordinated efforts into combating this risk, and we are working with others through the global partnership.
Lord Giddens
I do not want to keep the debate going too long, but it is a short one. The general population and many political leaders are not really aware of the radical nature of new dangers that never existed before because we could not do many of the experiments that we can now do in altering the genetic make-up of human beings. We have never interfered with animal life in the way we are now by destroying their natural environments and forcing viruses to look for a host, the most available of which is human beings. Truisms are not enough; we have to do a lot of thinking about how we handle risks. The obvious thing for the ordinary person to say is, “Well, it has never happened yet”. It only has to happen once, and then it is too late. There are so many new risks around, of which nuclear weapons were the first, that handling them is going to be very puzzling and problematic. We should be thinking very carefully and in depth about how to do so.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we have already seen the Ebola virus and a number of other potential pandemics coming out of Africa. What I should say to the noble Lord is that this is the sort of topic into which it would be highly appropriate for a sessional Lords committee to undertake a detailed inquiry. There is a certain amount of valuable expertise in this House which could look at it and that is a way we could go forward. If a sufficient number of Members of this House would like to have a Government briefing, I daresay that could be arranged, but let us discuss that further. Having, I hope, given a response which in no sense wishes to close the subject—it is something which the noble Lord, Lord Harris has previously brought attention to—I shall finish by saying that we need to keep on challenging our Government and even more so other governments. I thank the noble Lord for opening the debate and I am happy to go on discussing how best we might continue to raise public awareness of this issue.