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Counterterrorism

My Lords, again, I go back to the point about not wanting to frighten the horses. The bottom line is that if one looked at CBRNE and came up with a worst-case scenario, it would be very easy to overwhelm any nation in the world, I fear. We have done exercises in this country specifically in relation to these issues. The Americans have done rather more complex ones than we have. We were very much involved in those exercises with the Americans. As I say, about 18 months ago we had perhaps not done as much as we should have done. We have done a great deal since, but it would be extremely foolhardy to say that we are there yet; we are not. As always in all these areas, we could spend our entire national wealth on CBRNE countermeasures. That would clearly be stupid, because again we would be doing the terrorists’ job for them and would have no money for anything else. One always has to balance risk with exactly what one can do. We have a project called Cyclamen, which we use to monitor the radiological and radioactive stuff that is coming in and out of the country. We have other things, which I cannot really mention, by which we are focusing on some aspects of this. We have done a lot of work in the "Prepare" area. We now have whole teams that are made up of volunteers from the ambulance services who can do triage and operate within the contaminated area when something goes on. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, is absolutely right; cleaning up after the murder committed with polonium took a huge effort. Cleaning up after something like a dirty bomb would also be terribly difficult. That does not necessarily mean that a lot more people will be killed, but the implications are huge. We do not underestimate this. We have taken a big cross-cutting measure across all the pillars. We are doing a lot. Yes, there is a long way to go. We have very close links with the EU. I have talked to Brussels about these issues. If anything, we are rather more prepared in some areas than it is, but we all need to be at that level. I have not addressed the question of NATO and EU resources very closely, but I will ensure that my team does so after this debate. I am not sure at the moment of the exact status of those resources.