Public Services: Economic and Climatic Challenges

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, this is turning out to be an extremely wide-ranging debate, as some of us thought it might be. I started by pitying the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, on the range of issues that he would have to address in his reply, but I am beginning to realise that he may be able to pick and choose to such an extent that he can stick to whatever brief he was provided with at the outset. The debate is so wide-ranging that I should probably declare a number of interests: my co-chairmanship of the All-Party Group on Policing and my role in the All-Party Group on Homeland Security; my chairmanship of the National Trading Standards Board; and my chairmanship of the advisory board on the City Security and Resilience Networks.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for his barnstorming introduction to this debate, highlighting the sheer range of issues where our resilience is under question and for which the Government must either have some responsibility or be taking some responsibility. This debate is about the fundamental duty of the nation state to its citizens: to protect their security and secure their well-being.

I was also grateful to my noble friend Lord Rooker for picking up an issue that I raised in the House yesterday about the Thames barrier. When it was first opened 30 years ago, the barrier was raised twice in its first four years. In the latest four years, it has been raised 24 times, which is 12 times the frequency and far more than ever originally envisaged. Yet the Government are happy to agree to reschedule its replacement from 2035 to 2070. I am sure that your Lordships will be reassured that the Front Bench opposite has this matter in hand. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, will himself visit to see that the Thames barrier is in fact resilient until 2070. We are all reassured by that news and look forward to him reporting back as to what state he finds the Thames barrier in when he gets there. However, resilience has to be an essential component of the state’s duty to its citizens. How well can society cope with and recover from adverse events? A breach of the Thames barrier would be a pretty adverse, if not catastrophic, event.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. One of our tasks on that committee is to consider the extent to which the national security strategy addresses all of the issues that it should, and whether the Government have in place appropriate responses to threats to the nation’s security and well-being. Much of this inevitably relates to our international standing. The extent to which the United Kingdom can deal effectively with economic changes is a potential consequence of that international standing and, highly contentious though it may be, the relationship of this country with Europe is of critical importance. Our Government’s willingness to give up their ability to influence events and policies across Europe by their constant hostility to all things European, their willingness to alienate our European partners and their happiness to foster uncertainty about our future relationship with the European Union is inevitably damaging to our national interest. I am sure that the Minister will want to defend the Government’s position on all those matters.

What is not clear is whether the Government have engaged in any serious consideration of the consequences of the endless concessions being made to the Eurosceptic tail of the Conservative wing of this coalition. Later this afternoon, your Lordships will debate the implications of the ill thought through opt-out of the EU police and criminal justice measures. Even though there is clear evidence that these measures are necessary to enable our police to tackle cross-border crime and protect our citizens, Eurosceptics are in practice undermining the security of the nation which they claim to be protecting.

This is part of a pattern: a blindness to national security and national resilience, and a worrying insouciance in all sorts of areas. For example, there is increasing foreign ownership of essential parts of our critical national infrastructure. Indeed, there is no evidence of any serious debate about what should or should not be red-lined. What is the level of our dependence on foreign powers in respect of our ports, our airports, our water, our telecoms or our energy? Do the Government care about any of those? What would they be prepared to see under foreign ownership, or is there something somewhere which the Government are not prepared to see sold to foreign Governments or foreign companies?

Let us talk about energy. Is our energy infrastructure sufficiently resilient against, for example, an electromagnetic pulse, whether delivered as a result of a solar flare or a deliberate attack? An intentional attack launched using a Scud missile from a small ship offshore, which could then be scuttled to make attribution difficult, and with that missile detonating a small nuclear device 25 miles above our land, would trigger an electromagnetic pulse over an area with a 100-mile radius. This would have the effect, irrespective of any other consequences, of disabling electronic equipment and destroying the cores of generators and transformers in the electricity grid.

Exceptional solar activity can produce similar effects. In March 1989, the Quebec hydropower network was disrupted by solar flares, causing a voltage collapse, a failure of transmission lines and a nine-hour blackout. That same solar storm led to a transformer failure in New Jersey and 200 less severe incidents across the United States. Effects like that happen on average every seven years, in line with sunspot activity, with much larger impacts resulting from more occasional massive solar storms such as those in 1859 or 1921. Arguably, if we do the maths, one is due. Where is the planning to combat this and to protect our electricity grid against those sorts of electromagnetic pulse interventions?

Is our energy infrastructure sufficiently resilient against a cyberattack? The Wall Street Journal recently reported senior US intelligence concerns about both Russian and Chinese attempts to map and put in place arrangements to control the US electricity grid. The Chinese, apparently operating from what is described as,

“a rather unimposing building in Shanghai”,

have been equipped to do just that. The former Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, has said that a cyberattack on the US power network is,

“a matter of when and not if”.

What are the Government doing to protect the control systems of our energy supply and other utilities against attack or disruption?

More generally, where is our Government’s response to safeguard the country’s longer-term energy supplies, for example in response to Russian moves over oil pipelines and the increasing fragility of the Middle East? Closer to home, how concerned are we, or should we be, about foreign ownership of energy infrastructure in this country or about foreign powers controlling nuclear waste on UK soil?

This vulnerability on energy is a reminder that, only a few years ago, MI5 was warning that Britain was only four meals away from anarchy. This may be why, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, reported from today’s Daily Telegraph, investment in water cannon is seen as so urgent. That is how quickly MI5 assessed that Britain could be reduced to large-scale disorder, including looting and rioting, in the event of serious disruption to the critical national infrastructure and, in particular, the food distribution network. We had widespread rioting and looting only a couple of years ago, of course, without disruption of the food supply network. These are matters that should be addressed properly by Government. I am not sure that the solution is water cannon, although we will have an opportunity to debate that in this Chamber in a week or two.

More fundamentally—this relates to the remarks made by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley—how secure is Britain’s food supply? Other countries are buying up farmland around the world to safeguard their food supplies. Have our Government considered the consequences of this? Are we considering the same? If not, what is being done to safeguard our position and the security of our food supplies?

Are we ready for other forms of threat to the food supply, such as volcanic eruptions with severe effusions of poisonous gases? Have the Government considered the implications for food security of something like the 1783 Laki eruption in Iceland that pumped 14 cubic kilometres—think of the scale of that—of basalt lava and vast clouds of hydrofluoric acid and sulphur dioxide into the air, leading to a drop in global temperatures, crop failures in Europe, droughts in India and the deaths of 6 million people? The 2010 eruption that disrupted flights for six days was as nothing as compared to that. So what contingency plans are in place for a major volcanic eruption with that degree of impact on our food supplies, air travel and everything else?

And are we doing enough to protect food quality? We had the horsemeat scandal, which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred to. That was not, on that occasion, a major risk to public health, but it was a wake-up call for concerns about the food supply chain and the need for adequate monitoring. Yet local authority trading standards have already faced a 20% reduction, with much larger cuts in the pipeline in many parts of the country. Where is concern about protecting the interests of the citizen there?

Of course, all local authority services have been cut and much of that has a consequence on society and its resilience. Moving from food to the other end of the digestive cycle, if I may, one in seven public toilets have closed in the past three years as a result of cuts in government grants. In some large cities, such as Liverpool, there are no public facilities at all. The consequences for the elderly, in particular, are severe. Many of them may choose to stay at home rather than risk being caught short. It is hardly a vision of a resilient society if old people feel that they cannot go out because of the cutbacks imposed by this Government.

Regulatory and other services have been cut. Regulatory services have been cut as part of a drive to reduce the burdens on business. Is this really protecting the citizen?

What about the police service? Morale is at an all-time low, police numbers have been cut around the country and neighbourhood policing is disappearing. Ministers are contributing almost gleefully in a collapse in public trust. Why, for example, were Government Ministers so silent following the inquest verdict into the shooting of Mark Duggan? Where were the Home Office Ministers on radio and television saying that the verdict of a jury who had heard months of evidence in that case should be respected and that the police sometimes have to make difficult decisions—that may, with the wonderful benefit of hindsight, turn out to be wrong—to protect the lives of bystanders? Is it really in the public interest to run down our police leaders and our police service, as this Government have done? Where is the resilience in that? Our police will be the first responders when things go wrong and we need them to maintain public order, to intervene to save lives and to protect the public.

Is this not a Government who have forgotten what being a Government is supposed to be about? A Government should protect its citizens and put the resilience of our society first. That is what is missing. There is no coherence in what the Government are doing. There is no overall strategy as far as many of these issues are concerned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, some debates are more difficult to sum up than others, but this one is simply impossible. Let me start by thanking the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds for everything he has done as a Member of this House and for the many contributions he has made. I hope that he will not be losing touch with his diocese entirely, which I know well, having walked across substantial parts of it, and having canvassed in such different areas as the Gipton and Harehills estates in Leeds and the Duchy estate in Harrogate—to take two extreme ends of the social spectrum. Only those who have walked over the Yorkshire Dales know quite how extraordinary are the boundaries between the different dioceses of West and North Yorkshire: Bradford, Wakefield, Leeds and Ripon. I know that the retirement of the right reverend Prelate is partly an adjustment of the boundaries of those dioceses, which will relate more to the 21st century than to the early 20th century when they were drawn up.

Let me start by talking about the Government’s response to issues of resilience. I stress that it is not just about this Government’s response because we have inherited a lot from our predecessors. I hope that we have improved upon it, although as has been said, we are all conscious that Governments tend to think about the period between now and the next election. However, good government apparatus needs always to think about the long term. The Civil Contingencies Secretariat of the Cabinet Office, with the horizon-scanning that various members of the Cabinet Office undertake, always tries to look 15, 20 and 30 years ahead. That did not start with this Government; it is something that any Government should be doing.

When this Government came into office, I was struck by the list in the national security strategy—a document produced mainly by the Ministry of Defence—of what were thought to be the major threats to Britain. What was most striking was how few of the threats identified were primarily military. The first was international terrorism affecting the UK, with hostile attacks against UK cyberspace listed as the second of the really serious threats. It cited a major accident or natural hazard such as flooding affecting three or more regions or an influenza pandemic as the third threat, and an international crisis between other states which might draw in the UK and its allies, as well as non-state actors, as the fourth. Under tier 2 were listed the risk of major instability, insurgency or civil war overseas that might create a surge of terrorists or asylum seekers, a significant increase in the level of organised crime affecting the UK, and severe disruption to information received, transmitted or collected by satellite either as the result of deliberate attack by another state or through the impact of space weather. So the Government do try to think ahead, but the idea that any Government could ever be entirely coherent in their response to every possible contingency is asking for the moon, and possibly even for the sun as well. As I struggle to come to terms with the many different things that the Cabinet Office does, and which I find I am responsible for reporting on to this House, I have to say that this Government are doing a fairly good job.

On two occasions I have been briefed on the question of cyberdefences and the threat of cyberattack. I told my wife that when she visits Beijing in a few weeks, she is certainly not taking any phone other than one she might buy to go there and come away with. Again, the Government are well prepared for many of the risks that we face in this new world: the government structure is in place.

Of course, the Cabinet Office works in collaboration with the DCLG, Defra, DECC and a number of other departments, and in co-operation with local government because many local issues, particularly flooding or other weather events, are dealt with much better in the first instance by local responders at local level.

Incidentally, I am struck that no one has mentioned national or global population increase as a long-term source of insecurity. It evidently is a matter of concern to our population. It is certainly a source of potential problems if there is climate change in other parts of the world or, perhaps, due to the declining effectiveness of antibiotics in controlling disease, which is a problem with which the Government are already actively engaged.

I will make what is perhaps the party point that very few of these threats—indeed, almost none of them—can be dealt with by national action alone. National security requires international co-operation, both European and global. The defence of national sovereignty, about which some newspapers in particular seem to go on at great length, does not fit in well with protection against external, regional and global threats.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked whether or not foreign ownership of key national assets is itself a potential source of national insecurity or threat. That is a very large question, which perhaps he would like to promote an entire debate on. All I will say is that it is very odd that the anti-European right does not focus on that issue when it is talking about the defence of national sovereignty.

The right reverend Prelate asked about UK policy on climate change. Again, UK policy on climate change has to contribute to European and global policy on climate change. We are engaged in an active negotiation within the European Union about how we and the other 27 member states adjust to climate change. The discovery of shale gas in the United States has not made that any easier because the higher price of energy in Europe compared to the United States is clearly a very major issue here.

I say in passing to the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who doubts that we should depend so much on renewable energy from wind, if you walk around Yorkshire, you are always conscious that there is an awful lot of unused hydropower available. I have just had to keep my head very low in an argument within Saltaire village about whether or not you could put in an Archimedean screw on our weir, which we are now doing, which will provide a small amount of local hydropower. There are about 100 other weirs on the River Aire and if one were to harness all those weirs that we used to use in the 18th and 19th centuries for power in Yorkshire, we would provide a small additional contribution to renewable energy from land-based fresh water, which incidentally would be most effective at the point where wind power was likely to be least effective.

While I am on the international theme, I will quote the Peer Review Report from the European Commission, OECD and UNISDR on the United Kingdom’s resilience:

“Since the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) was enacted in 2004, the UK has continued to increase the resilience of society to disasters. Sophisticated mechanisms have been put in place to coordinate the actions of various levels of government and its agencies at national and local levels … In many respects, the UK resilience approach shows state-of-the-art innovations, including: large use of science to support policy … attention to business-continuity issues and full partnerships with the private sector … flexible institutional mechanisms and partnerships focused on delivery through voluntary approaches … professional and dedicated co-workers in the field of DRR”—

disaster risk reduction—

“throughout the country … national commitment to continue improving policy-making and pushing further implementation”.

Again, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that of course none of that started in 2010 but we are continuing to pay active attention to this extremely important issue.

It is not only the Government; there is a role for Parliament and for society as a whole in all of this. We talk about government resilience but of course there is also economic resilience and social resilience. There is a role for Parliament in promoting public awareness of challenges to resilience and of the need for the public as well as government nationally and locally to play a part in response. I suggest that Parliament could do more, through debates and committee activities, to scrutinise government on these long-term threats.

The noble Lords, Lord Touhig and Lord Brooke, talked about local communities, local government and the involvement of the public and charities. The revival of local government is one of the things that this Government have begun to make some progress on, although I have to say that we have been frustratingly slow in doing it. Clearly the city deals and getting people back into local engagement are part of the way in which we have to improve social and political resilience. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, on the extent to which charities should be as dependent on government funding as many became in the 13 years of the Labour Government. I have occasionally been shocked in Yorkshire by just how intensely overdependent some charities are on government funding. It is an unnatural dependence. That is a question that we will need to discuss with the charity sector.

In many ways, civil society more broadly has become too passive in Britain. I am a fan of the big society partly because it says, “Government cannot do everything for you. You have to help to do some of these things yourselves”. I remember the shock that my wife and I had when, during a very heavy snow storm some winters ago, one of the many young people who have stayed in our house in London over the years—because it is too large for us and we are away at the weekends—said, “Why haven’t they cleared the paths?”. We both turned on him and said, “Why haven’t you cleared the paths?”. This is part of the problem that we have across too much of our society. We need to get people back into the sense that they share in citizenship and in their local and national community. I will flag up a number of government programmes which help with that. The national citizenship service scheme pilots, as they still remain, have done a very encouraging amount to show to some young people from the deprived sectors of our society that they can, and would be happy to, help and work with others in building local community initiatives. I have also watched the arrival of the apprenticeship programme and have seen in Leeds and Bradford the extent to which young people who thought they were never going to work, have got themselves back into work and are finding that it is an enormously valued part of their life within the community.

The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, remarked how we have a coherent and cohesive society and have never had a revolution. As he spoke, I thought of what my father told me many times. When he was a sergeant in the Gordon Highlanders in 1919 during the miners’ strike and was sent off with a platoon to guard a Nottinghamshire mine, he was sure that the Sherwood Foresters were probably there guarding a mine in the Scottish lowlands—I think we got pretty close to it in 1919. The question of social cohesion and social resilience is one which we cannot neglect in Britain at present. A topic for another debate would certainly be whether the growth of the extreme inequalities which we see in our society, as well as the increasing ethnic diversity, weakens social resilience.

The ageing population, to which a number of references were made, also raises considerable problems. For example, I would say to the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, that it tends to make society more resistant to change and innovation. As we have seen, it also increases the pressure on all Governments to spend more on the old and less on the young.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am sorry to interrupt, and I know it is a timed debate, but did the noble Lord imply that increasing ethnic diversity would reduce society’s resilience? If so, could he explain the point?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I merely said that it is a risk. It is a risk that we have seen over the past 20 or 30 years. On the whole, we have managed the diversity of British society extremely well, but it is not something—I say this again from my experience in West Yorkshire—that can be entirely ignored. It is one that we all have to be aware of. My noble friend Lady Eaton, a former leader of Bradford council, is actively engaged in Near Neighbours, which works across West Yorkshire in bringing those different communities together. We have to work on these things.

Animal disease was mentioned. Defra and the veterinary agency are dealing with scanning surveillance capability on the threat of animal disease. I assure the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, that a large number of scientists in universities, in government laboratories and in the private sector are working together on this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and others spoke about spending on flood defences. The noble Baroness was absolutely right: spending overall is going up, which is partly because, under partnership arrangements, private providers are increasing their contribution as the Government have squeezed the rate of their contribution. Those who say that there has been a reduction and those who say that there has been an increase are therefore both right depending on whose figures you take. We are all conscious that flood defences are a highly emotive issue. I would contradict those noble Lords who suggested that the Government are not thinking about the future of peatlands and tree-planting in the uplands. We had a Question on peatlands from my noble friend Lord Greaves the other day. These are matters where the Government, local authorities and water companies are working together.

I am conscious that time is running out. I have mentioned the flood mitigation measures which are already under way; clearly, more needs to be done. I was looking up what an earth bund was this morning— perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, already knows what that is—but experiments are under way to prevent heavy rainwater on saturated land going immediately downstream by holding it in artificially created water meadows. The Government are experimenting as far as they can in all this.