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Brown unveils security strategy | Brown unveils security strategy |
(about 3 hours later) | |
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to set out plans to deal with national emergencies such as terror attacks, disease pandemics and flooding. | |
Britain's first National Security Strategy will set out the role of the government, police, security services and the public in handling disasters. | |
Security Minister Lord West said: "We need to let people know what the risks are and what the government is doing." | |
But the Tories said there was a risk of the strategy becoming a "talking shop". | |
Mr Brown will outline the government's ideas in a statement to MPs at about 1230 GMT. | |
Scrutiny | |
The strategy, which is four months behind schedule, is expected to rank climate change and extreme weather as being as much of a risk as terrorism. | |
A report in The Times suggests Mr Brown will call on MI5, MI6 and the intelligence-gathering organisation GCHQ to become more transparent and open to scrutiny. | |
BBC Security correspondent Gordon Corera said the strategy would put "an emphasis on the new, complex, interrelated nature of risk and the need for greater public awareness. | |
The issue is the government's competence to deliver Dame Pauline Neville-JonesConservatives | |
"The challenge for government will be transforming this ambitious framework into effective action." | "The challenge for government will be transforming this ambitious framework into effective action." |
Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "No country has ever done this before... We should be rather proud of that." | |
He added: "There are a lot of people out there who know a lot about these complicated areas that are very interdependent and need a co-ordinated response." | |
The drawing up of such a document and getting Whitehall departments to agree on it does not appear to have been an easy task. | |
Lord West said it would be a "living document", which would be constantly updated. It would look at risks to the UK in a global context, he added. | |
'Lurching' | |
He said: "We've done a lot. For example, in counter-terrorism I think I can put my hand on my heart and say, in the last year that - although the risk hasn't gone away - we are safer than we were a year ago." | |
But the Conservatives say the government has to set up a permanent security council to implement its strategy, rather than rely on existing committees, or risk becoming "some sort of talking shop". | |
Shadow security minister Dame Pauline Neville-Jones said: "The issue is the government's competence to deliver." | |
A report by think-tank Demos warned recently that the government was "lurching from one crisis to another" and leaving the country vulnerable to attack. | |
It said: "The forthcoming national security strategy is a step in the right direction but its aim must be to transform our outdated and compartmentalised national security architecture. | It said: "The forthcoming national security strategy is a step in the right direction but its aim must be to transform our outdated and compartmentalised national security architecture. |
"Unless we have joined-up government of national security, we will be vulnerable through the cracks." | "Unless we have joined-up government of national security, we will be vulnerable through the cracks." |