New funding
22. Gordon Brown announced new money to fight terrorism
in his Budget 2003 speech:
"At home, our responsibility is to safeguard
our communities from terrorist threats and here our resolve again
is absolute. It is therefore right also to set aside in this Budget
an extra £330 million for additional domestic counter-terrorism
measures. The Home Secretary will therefore take forward measures
to improve detection work at our ports and enhance our response
to a range of terrorist threats".[18]
23. In the area of health, Minister of State John
Hutton told us that "We have made a significant amount of
money available. I think that over a four-year period it is something
like £260 million of dedicated additional spending. Most
of that is to do with counter measures - vaccines, needles, antibiotics,
and other supplies".[19]
Other health spending is difficult to disaggregate since it is
held in primary care trust budgets and other budgets in the NHS.
It is not clear whether this is "new" Treasury money.
We suspect that it has been found at the expense of other parts
of NHS spending.
24. The UK's budgetary response to CBRN terrorism
compared to the US is modest to say the least. The US Department
of Health and Human Services has increased its annual budget to
the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
to from $2.3 billion $4 billion.[20]
According to its Director, Anthony Fauci, NIAID will spend $1.5
billion on research into bioterrorism countermeasures.[21]
25. Any investment must be related to the level of
risk, or at least the perceived level of risk. The US response
reflects the impact of the attacks of 11 September 2001 on US
society and politics. Indeed, despite the high level of US investment,
some there argue that it is insufficient. A newspaper article
by two senior public health professionals accuses the US health
authorities of going "wobbly on biodefense".[22]
Government spending must reflect the resources it has available
and what impact it could have if spent on, for example, increased
healthcare spending or transport infrastructure. It has been difficult
to establish new spending precisely in this area in the UK. This
is not necessarily a problem since subtle shifts in priorities
may not easily be costed. In some areas greater investment
in CBRN home defence is required, either for research or to reflect
that many parts of Government have been expected to expand their
role. This must be reflected in their budgets.[23]
26. Our efforts to establish how much new money has
been allocated to the CBRN response have not been wholly successful,
and the R&D component even less so. Announcements of new Government
money are often greeted with a degree of cynicism owing to a lack
of systems to prevent double counting. The Government might argue
that new investment only gives a partial picture of the change
in its policy and priorities. Nevertheless, we feel that a highly
sensitive issue such as this requires the publication of a headline
figure which gives an impression to a concerned public of the
seriousness with which the Government takes that threat from CBRN
terrorism. We recommend that the Government publish figures
on its spending on CBRN countermeasures, before and after 11 September
2001, with an indication of how this money is being spent.
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