House of Commons - Science and Technology

Select Committee on Science and Technology Eighth Report

4 RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND PROCUREMENT

27. We have been keen to establish the existence of a thorough appraisal of the research requirements posed by the CBRN terrorist threat. Sir David King's CBRN Science Working Group has been brought to our attention, although its findings are classified. The Foresight Cyber Trust and Crime Prevention project was set up in March 2003 "To explore the application and implications of next generation information technologies in areas such as identity and authenticity, surveillance, system robustness, security and information assurance".[24] There is no reference to CBRN countermeasures but it is likely that there will be relevant technologies.

28. In 2002 the National Academies of Science in the US (the American equivalent of the Royal Society) published Making the Nation Safer.[25] It identified 14 technical areas which needed addressing (see Box 2). Indeed this is only one of several impressive studies conducted by the National Academies in recent years.[26]

Box 2: Fourteen of the most important technical initiatives identified by the US Academy of Science.

Immediate applications of existing technologies

1. Develop and utilise robust systems for protection, control, and accounting of nuclear weapons and special nuclear materials at their sources.
2. Ensure production and distribution of known treatments and preventatives for pathogens.
3. Design, test, and install coherent, layered security systems for all transportation modes, particularly shipping containers and vehicles that contain large quantities of toxic or flammable materials.
4. Protect energy distribution services by improving security for supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and providing physical protection for key elements of the electric-power grid.
5. Reduce the vulnerability and improve the effectiveness of air filtration in ventilation systems.
6. Deploy known technologies and standards for allowing emergency responders to reliably communicate with each other.
7. Ensure that trusted spokespersons will be able to inform the public promptly and with technical authority whenever the technical aspects of an emergency are dominant in the public's concerns.

Urgent research opportunities

1. Develop effective treatments and preventatives for known pathogens for which current responses are unavailable and for potential emerging pathogens.
2. Develop, test, and implement an intelligent, adaptive electric-power grid.
3. Advance the practical utility of data fusion and data mining for intelligence analysis, and enhance information security against cyberattacks.
4. Develop new and better technologies (e.g., protective gear, sensors, communications) for emergency responders.
5. Advance engineering design technologies and fire-rating standards for blast- and fire-resistant buildings.
6. Develop sensor and surveillance systems (for a wide range of targets) that create useful information for emergency officials and decision makers.
7. Develop new methods and standards for filtering air against both chemicals and pathogens as well as better methods and standards for decontamination.

29. It is regrettable that no such comparable study has been conducted in the UK. The Royal Society announced an inquiry in 13 March 2003 on the state of development of detection and decontamination technologies, which is due to report early in 2004. This is a valuable study, for which the Society should be commended. The Royal Society does not have the resources to undertake an inquiry on the scale of the US study. But this is something the Government could address, as it did in 2002 for the Society's inquiry into Infectious Diseases in Livestock and most recently by commissioning an inquiry into nanotechnology. Professor King's CBRN Science Working Group is no doubt well informed but its scale and its secret mode of operation make it unlikely that it provides an authoritative appraisal of the UK's scientific capability necessary to address the CBRN terrorist threat. SAPER may yet be able to fulfil this role but the secretive manner in which it operates is destined to constrain its work (see Section 8). Government Ministers, including the Prime Minister, are fond of extolling the strength of UK science.[27] Here is a prime example of how it could be harnessed for the national good through the Royal Society and the other learned societies, all of which are a valuable resource of scientific advice, as we concluded in our 2002 report, Government Funding of Scientific Learned Societies.[28] There has been no extensive effort that we can establish to identify the research needs to develop CBRN countermeasures and as a result there has been no clear statement of what is required. Without this, the research community is in no position to respond effectively and in a coordinated manner.

30. There are few issues in which access to the best scientific expertise is more important than in the fight against terrorism. We welcome the Government's willingness to commission and fund Royal Society inquiries and urge it to consider providing the resources to the Society to produce a thorough and public appraisal of the role that science can play in combating terrorism.

Government

Military

31. The Ministry of Defence has no formal role in the scientific response to terrorism, yet through its research agency, Dstl, it is the primary source of Government-funded technologies with application to CBRN countermeasures.

32. Dstl contains three operating divisions: Science, Technology and Analysis. The Science Division, at Porton Down, has four operating departments: Biomedical Sciences, Detection, Physical Sciences and Environmental Sciences. The largest part of the income of each department arises from CBRN work.[29]

33. Although Dstl clearly has expertise of relevance to CBRN terrorism, Dr Richard Scott, Director of Science at Dstl Porton Down, told the Committee his work focused on the military: "The MoD does not have a lead role in homeland defence, it supports the Home Office, it supports other Government Departments, and as such the research programmes at Porton Down have not changed because they are there post-9/11 in response to homeland defence. They are there purely to support the servicemen".[30] Only around £5 million of Dstl Porton Down's £80 million income comes from other UK Government Departments.

34. Some Dstl technologies, such as vaccines and chemical and biological detectors, are of clear benefit to civilian countermeasures. Dr Scott stressed, however, that military technologies could not be simply applied for civilian use. Military research was targeted towards particular environments and for use by trained personnel. Dr Scott said "MoD has a strategy for producing vaccines but the strategy for producing vaccines in a military context is totally different from that which it would be in a civilian scenario".[31] He went on: "the systems have been developed for a military environment and military use … would need to be tuned, modified and engineered to operate in that [civilian] arena, and it needs to be developed against a specific role and context so we are then specification-led rather than just technology-led".[32] For example, on detectors: "They are engineered out in a military environment. If you put that detector into a civilian environment, it would have alarms you were not expecting." He said "I still think you have to work out the concept of use. … superficially it looks like it buys you an awful lot but it may not buy you as much as you think".[33]

35. The transfer of military technologies to industry was the basis for setting up the Defence Diversification Agency (DDA) in 1999. According to its website, "It does this by offering access to the UK's defence science and technology knowledge base and aims to:

strengthen the UK's economic and industrial performance;
improve UK competitiveness and thus; and
help businesses to grow through innovation".[34]

36. It would be appropriate for the DDA to be active in this area. Since the principal purchasers of any commercialised technology in this area are likely to be civil Government departments, their involvement at an early stage would be necessary. We were pleased to read in Dstl's 2003 annual report of a successful joint venture company called Acolyte Biomedica Ltd, which is developing the BacLite detector. This is derived from military bacterial detection technology developed to detect biological warfare agents.[35]

37. Dstl Porton Down is a great strength and an important asset to the UK. During our visit there we were impressed by the range of technologies being developed. In the US, the respect with which the laboratory was held was unmistakeable. Our concern is not what Porton Down is, but what it is not: it is a military research facility not a home defence facility. The Government's basic research capability needed to change after 11 September 2001. Dstl is the UK's most important repository of scientific expertise in the science of CBRN countermeasures yet Dr Scott told us that there has been little shift in Dstl's research strategy.[36] In our view, UK home defence is too reliant on Dstl's military-derived technologies. We need a substantial and clearly focused research programme driven by the specific requirements of civil defence.

CIVIL

Home Office

38. The Home Office is taking the lead on CBRN issues. It would be logical for it to develop a strong research capability of its own. The first Chief Scientific Adviser at the Home Office, Professor Paul Wiles, was appointed in November 2002. His job title is Director of Research, Development and Statistics (the research arm of the Home Office) and he works closely with the PSDB and the Forensic Science Service. He is currently reviewing the way in which science is managed and used in the Home Office. Professor Wiles is a welcome addition to the Department. We hope that this view is shared by the Home Secretary and he is given encouragement and resources to build a research programme and enhance the scientific culture in the Home Office.

39. The PSDB was established to:

Provide technical advice to police and Ministers

Improve the operational effectiveness and efficiency of the police service

Support the Home Secretary's responsibilities for counter-terrorism

40. Although the main customer is the police, the PSDB also deals with MoD, the Prison Service, DfT, and Customs and Excise. It has sites at Sandridge in Hertfordshire, and Langhurst in Sussex. Its budget in 2002-03 was £22 million. There is not much evidence of a research function and its role seems to be to assess existing technologies rather than to derive its own. It is not clear to us that the PSDB is contributing much beyond training and in any case, we are not convinced that the PSDB would be the appropriate vehicle for a CBRN research programme. Despite regulating animal experimentation for many years, sponsoring the Forensic Science Service and having powers through the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 over the security of laboratories, we are strongly of the view that there is a weak scientific culture in the Home Office. The Office of Science and Technology has set up a Science Review Directorate to assess the scientific endeavours of Government departments. We recommend that it consider the Home Office a priority.

Health and Safety Executive

41. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), an agency of the Department for Work and Pensions, has been involved in the Central Government-led work on general civil contingencies issues, and specifically on the response to CBRN terrorism. This involvement falls broadly into three areas:

To ensure that measures taken to deal with CBRN are not inappropriate on health and safety grounds
To ensure that aspects of health and safety law do not impede effective contingency planning and emergency response
To provide expertise and expert knowledge in major hazards, nuclear and biological and chemical agents, employing its experience of identifying, assessing and managing risk.

Other Government Departments

42. Other departments with a research capability in CBRN countermeasures are the DoH (including the Health Protection Agency (HPA)) and the ODPM. These will be considered in the sections on medical technologies and the Fire Service below, respectively.[37]

COORDINATION

43. The Government's evidence states that the Home Office and MoD fund research into CBRN counter measures in support of the operational response and that the Home Office sponsors and makes use of MoD research programmes in the assessment of the threat, detection, physical protection and medical counter measures.[38] In the US the Department of Defense is working very separately from the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as we learnt.

44. An obvious avenue for cooperation is at Porton Down, where the HPA (formerly CAMR) and Dstl can watch each other "over the fence". Both are engaged in vaccine work and other potential medical countermeasures. There have been suggestions that the collaboration has not been as enthusiastically explored as one might imagine. Our evidence is anecdotal. The organisations will point to the joint publication of research, yet this proves no more that that there is some collaboration. Greater collaboration between Dstl and HPA at Porton Down could be very productive and would avoid duplication. We recommend that greater efforts are made to explore synergies and joint projects.[39]

45. We sought evidence from TRANSEC, which advises the industry on security issues. We were told that it had nothing to say: CBRN security in the transport system was a Home Office issue. Eventually, it provided a short memorandum which was vague and uninformative and yet nevertheless it was classified restricted. The establishment of a CBRN Team in the Home Office is important, and it is desirable that a single Department takes the lead, but there needs to be appropriate expertise within and available to other Departments. We are not satisfied that the Department for Transport has such expertise, or that it has a clear understanding of the route by which it could attain the information it would need to respond to a CBRN emergency.

46. SAPER is a welcome initiative which we hope will succeed in improving the coordination of the scientific effort across Government. We have been offered scant evidence that, as a result of the working group, departments have managed to initiate change and now provide better resilience. There is also negligible evidence that there is any long-term strategy to employ scientific and technological solutions to the CBRN terrorist threat, which we infer is a sign of the weak scientific culture in many departments. We are concerned that SAPER, as an advisory panel, has no resources to drive through change or initiate research.

A UK DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY?

47. The US Administration's decision to create the DHS has raised the question as to whether the UK should follow suit. The Government has insisted that this is not necessary and that the measures taken to improve cross-Government coordination are sufficient. The Home Secretary has stated:

"The massive department with a multi-billion pound budget for which Congress is now voting in relation to the homeland security facility is way beyond anything that we in this country could contemplate without completely dislocating not only our government procedures but the investment that we need in key services that secure the kind of lifestyle, economy and services that make this country worth living in [in] the first place".[

We understand the point the Home Secretary is making here, and indeed because Britain has been subject to terrorist threats for many years there are competences in the UK which are currently absent in the USA. In some areas there is good coordination and administrative confidence, and that can be contrasted to the situation in the USA where we heard of the problems and disruption caused by the creation of the new department. An except to this improved coordination is in the scientific and technological research effort. Where a terrorist or a potential terrorist has access to sophisticated toxins, pathogens or weapons, confidence founded on a history of dealing effectively with terrorist events in the past is misplaced. We need a greater scientific and technological knowledge among those who are expected to deal with terrorist incidents. In the US, this is understood, and appropriate measures are being put in place. In the UK, by and large, this is not understood.

48. A key feature of the DHS is its organisation into four divisions, one of which is science and technology. This is the equivalent of the Home Office having a Minister of State for Science and Technology. It is this recognition of the importance of science and technology in home defence that the UK should seek to emulate. Decisions taken concerning science and technology at DHS should be heeded here too. First the DHS does not have control over the medical research effort, since much of this has dual use and it would be unwise to detach this effort from wider healthcare provision. Second, the idea of a Homeland Defense Laboratory was rejected on the basis that the new department needed to draw on the expertise in more than one laboratory, although much of this resides in the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, which we visited in the US. The UK does not need a Department for Homeland Security but we do recommend the creation of a Centre for Home Defence as a Government agency, with the following features:

It would conduct or commission research and development aimed at strengthening the UK's technical capability to prevent, respond and mitigate the effects of a terrorist attack, in particular those using CBRN agents;
It would be under the auspices of the Home Office within the remit of the Minister of State for Counter-Terrorism. SAPER would act as its scientific steering group;
It would have its own research budget of no less than £20 million a year and would be responsible for conducting basic research, deriving new technologies for home defence and adapting military technologies for civil use;
It would not conduct research on medical countermeasures but would have substantial input into and commission research conducted by the Department of Health (including the Health Protection Agency), the Medical Research Council and Dstl;
It would have a physical presence in close proximity to a centre of academic scientific excellence;
It would identify relevant research expertise within universities and Research Council Institutes; and
It would form strong links with academic and Government research laboratories overseas.