Olympic Games: Security
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord overstates his case, and overstates it rather badly. There is no question of privatising the police force, as he claims, although obviously there are certain parts of police work that can be done by private sector companies. That does not mean we are privatising the police force, which is a separate issue and nothing to do with what is happening here.
We are talking today about the security of the Olympics and different bits of security that will be carried out by different people. As the noble Lord knows perfectly well, private companies are always brought in to provide most of the basic security at any major sporting event in terms of checking bags and checking people as they go in. This is what happens at Wembley, at test matches, at Wimbledon and on many other occasions. The Olympics are no different, except they are bigger.
We entered into a competitive process with a number of companies—G4S won and it has not delivered as it should have done. We have made this clear today and in earlier Statements. We have appropriate contingency plans in place to make sure that if G4S failed in part of its job we could meet our obligations to have an appropriately secure Olympics. That is what we are going to have, so I think the noble Lord going on a rant of this sort is not helpful and does not do any good. We had made sure that we have answered all relevant questions—that is what we hope to do to as well as providing a properly secure Olympics.
Lord Dannatt
My Lords, I am sure that the Members of this House want to see a safe and secure Games, and that the last-minute increase in the size of the Armed Forces participation in the security operation will help to guarantee this. It is sad that we have had to have these sharp discussions in advance of the Olympics, attracting negative publicity, but that is life. I am sure the Minister would agree that there should be an investigation after the Games as to how we got into this position. Not wishing to prejudge that, I would like to place it on record, as the Minister did in his Statement, that when the Games were awarded to London in 2005 it was said that they would be civilian-run. However, that defies recent history about very large sporting events such as other Olympic Games. Was it not complacent of the Government of the day not to have planned from the outset for considerable use of the military, which has experience of dealing with large numbers of people and of using a clear chain of command, and might well have prevented the situation that we find ourselves in now?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his words, particularly when he says that we should not at this stage be making negative comments about the Games. We want them to be a good set of Games—we want them to be secure, but not to be seen as “the security Games”. I am also grateful for his comments about what happened at earlier stages when we were not in government in terms of the original plans for the Games and how they were set up.
It is quite right that we are making use of contingency plans to bring in extra military service personnel to help out on some aspects of the Games, and that earlier on we brought in an extra 5,000 specialists from the Armed Forces to address security matters that only they could ever have dealt with, as we see from HMS “Ocean”, moored in the Thames, and other things that the private sector obviously cannot produce. We are talking here about providing some extra military personnel to deal with the problems created by the issues that G4S had. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments.
Marriages and Civil Partnerships (Approved Premises) (Amendment) Regulations 2011
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, could speak, we could then hear from the Labour Benches.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, we will hear from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and then from the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, could speak first and then my noble friend Lord Cormack.
Lord Dannatt
My Lords, had I spoken earlier in this debate, I would have made a lengthy speech, much of which has been overtaken by the course of events, which would have been in support of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain. I maintain my support for her today.
Much legal opinion has been expressed on both sides of the argument and a fair consensus would appear to have emerged, but I am left with a residual feeling of ambiguity. Ambiguity can give rise to unintended consequences, and it is unintended consequences that I am worried about. Those consequences arise from regulations that are not crystal clear and have worried a lot of ordinary decent people up and down this country, who have filled noble Lords’ postbags and mine in the past few days.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, circulated his letter, which we received yesterday, in which he states—and we have heard it repeated already today—that,
“if a successful legal challenge were ever brought, I would like to provide reassurance that the Government would immediately review the relevant legislation”.
If we think that there is some doubt or ambiguity in this case, and if we think that ambiguity could lead to unintended consequences, there is an obligation on the Minister to activate that sentence in the last paragraph of his letter and, for the avoidance of doubt, to make it crystal clear—an expression that we have heard many times in this Chamber today—to people up and down the country, whoever they are, that they have nothing to fear from these regulations. Until I hear a commitment to the avoidance of doubt, I maintain my support for the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I have some sympathy with the points just made by the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, but I should like to focus the House’s attention on one specific point: the particular and peculiar—and I use that word properly—position of the Church of England.
The Church of England is the established church of this land. There is not a town or a village in England that does not have a Church of England parish church. The people in that parish are entitled to the services of the parish priest and of the church. Let us be in no doubt that, if this regulation is passed as it stands, great pressure will be put upon incumbents of parish churches throughout the land, and that pressure will be very difficult for them to withstand, even though, for them, whatever it may be for the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, or others, it will be a supreme issue of conscience.