Oral evidence: Science in emergencies: chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear incidents, HC 163

Oral evidence, 13 September 2016.

Chair

Welcome to our Committee on science in emergencies: chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents. Thank you very much to the guests and apologies for running a few minutes late. If you have not been in front of the Science and Technology Committee before, unfortunately we always try to cram in really interesting things in a very short space of time, so please excuse me if I interrupt you. We may ask you afterwards for follow‑up questions and I hope you might give us written submissions if we have not covered them during the time. May I begin by asking you to each take a minute to introduce yourselves and your background pertaining to this investigation?

Dr Gent

I am Dr Nick Gent. I am a senior medical specialist—consultant grade, if I was in the national health service. I specialise in the health threats and risks associated with high‑threat chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear events and materials. I work from Public Health England’s emergency response department. We are based at Porton Down but we operate throughout the UK. Although we are principally Public Health England, we work in the full range of operational services in England, but we provide specialist services throughout the UK.

Chair

Brilliant. That is great for a beginning, thank you.

Gary Butler

I am Gary Butler of AWE. For this context, I am a senior technical adviser and part of AWE’s offsite emergency response.

Chair

I am going to be picky. I have a pet hate of acronyms, although I will be using them, I am sure.

Gary Butler

Atomic Weapons Establishment—apologies. I support AWE’s offsite response to CBR in national arrangements. I have been part of the organisation, with the offsite responsibility, for over 20 years.

Dr Rees

I am Cerys Rees from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. I am one of Dstl’s senior scientific advisers who are—

Chair

Again, for everybody, what is the Dstl?

Dr Rees

Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. I am able to provide science advice in an emergency.

Simon Earwicker

I am Simon Earwicker, head of the chemical, biological and radiological sciences division in Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. The division is the centre of excellence within MOD—

Chair

Within?

Simon Earwicker

Sorry, within the Ministry of Defence—for all chemical, biological and radiological issues.

Chair

Lovely, thank you very much. Dr Gent, can you tell us how the Emergency Co-ordination of Scientific Advice—we will be slipping into the word ECOSA—relates to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, or SAGE?

Dr Gent

It was recognised many years ago that there could be an important gap in providing science services to first‑line responders between an event occurring and the formal scientific advisory systems, such as the science technology advisory cells that form in local areas to support the police and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, which is the central Government committee that supports the Cabinet Office briefing room mechanisms for handling major incidents. It was important to make sure that when an event occurred that was unusual in nature there was some way of being able to call off opinions, advice and support from the senior technical and clinical people across the three principal Government science agencies—the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the Atomic Weapons Establishment and Public Health England—to fill that gap.

Chair

You are saying there is a gap with the advisers in the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.

Dr Gent

It takes time for them to come together to gather the facts and to be able to take over management and support. If we imagine a timeline from an incident occurring, we have the first responders being deployed to an incident, and they then use the training they are given in the response. There is a lot of operational response guidance and training given to them, but it is an automatic response. If they recognise that there is something outwith their training and understanding, they can then call off, using conventional telephone systems or any other communication systems, science advice, which is available in minutes and which will then—

Chair

That is where the emergency, the ECOSA, as we call it, comes in.

Dr Gent

That is right. The first scientific adviser and senior medical adviser would be online to those first responders within minutes. The whole co‑ordinated group of science adviser services that cover all three agencies comes together in the next 10 to 20 minutes, and that bridges the gap until the formal advisory structures that sit in rooms and provide face‑to‑face advice come together in the one, two or three hours after that. It also has the utility that because many of us who feed the ECOSA service are part of those local and national services, we can then make sure that the continuation of information and—

Chair

It goes on.

Dr Gent

Yes, there is clean handover. It is bridging first response, augmenting first response and making sure that the national and local definitive services start with good briefings and clean handovers.

Chair

What is the role of SAGE—the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies—in that situation, or is it after that time?

Dr Gent

The SAGE group is the principal group, usually chaired by the chief Government scientist or the chief medical officer, that advises the ministerial meetings or senior officials meetings sitting in the Cabinet Office briefing rooms—the Cobra mechanism—about the science picture. They do a certain degree of peer review of the science technology adviser system that operates at local level, and they also have a role in dealing with areas of science where there may be a degree of uncertainty. The local systems will deal with the knowledge, the best‑known science and the best already promulgated advice about how to manage things, but when things start to be unusual, the SAGE group is a higher level in terms of strategic management but they can also call on science resources that are unique and unusual, and co‑ordinate those nationally.

Chair

Thank you. I am looking at the others, and you seem to be in agreement with that.

Victoria Borwick

Could you perhaps give us a flavour of where one would do something and the other would come in?

Chair

A descriptive example.

Victoria Borwick

Exactly, so we can understand fully.

Dr Gent

Certainly, comparing the local science group, the staff groups and the SAGE groups, a good example of where SAGE would have come in would have been, for instance, around the time of Fukushima where we were dealing with complex questions about exposure, pathways of exposure, risks in the food chain, what is a tolerable degree of risk and that kind of thing, whereas a STAC group might meet around, for instance, a fire at a local chemical factory where the chemicals are very well defined and we know what the offsite—

Chair

What group did you say?

Dr Gent

The science and technology advisory cell.

Chair

Within ECOSA.

Dr Gent

Yes. That is the local group, and ECOSA may very well feed both.

Victoria Borwick

That is level one.

Dr Gent

Yes.

Chair

Thank you. That was a good question. Gary Butler, the Home Office says the Emergency Co-ordination of Scientific Advice—ECOSA—has been relaunched this year. This might be for you, or it might be Dr Rees: do you know what prompted that?

Gary Butler

ECOSA has probably now given us a formal framework to work within, which clearly identifies that ECOSA will only stand until STAC and SAGE are formed.

Chair

Until the cells, which is what you mean by STAC, and SAGE, the more strategic advisory group, are formed.

Gary Butler

Correct, because, as Nick rightly said, I, for instance, would probably advise from an ECOSA perspective but then probably either go to police gold, to STAC or to support the MOD chief scientific adviser at SAGE. That would stand down once the more formal things were established, but the important thing for us is that we have always worked as a community of three for years, from my perspective, right back to the death of Alexander Litvinenko.

Chair

The three communities being public health, yourself—the atomic weapons—and the laboratory.

Gary Butler

Yes. All the reinvigorated formal framework has done is to formalise that response.

Chair

It was not a relaunch. It was a formalisation.

Gary Butler

I think it was more of a formalisation, yes.

Chair

That is very helpful. Dr Rees, would you say that ECOSA, the Emergency Co-ordination of Scientific Advice, is a group of people in the same way that SAGE, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, is, or is it more a way of referring to the three branches—as we would say, the public health?

Dr Rees

From my perspective, it is about ensuring that we deliver co‑ordinated scientific advice because I think that—

Chair

“We” being?

Dr Rees

All the collective. If we do not have that system, the danger is that Nick may give different answers from a health perspective from the ones that perhaps Gary and Dstl would give from a scientific perspective. It is about making sure that we do not give slightly different advice for different reasons and making sure that we have co‑ordinated and given the correct information, as one.

Chair

You would actually co‑ordinate the advice together.

Dr Rees

Absolutely.

Chair

It is not really about the people or linking. It is about the messaging.

Dr Rees

Yes.

Gary Butler

Could I add a little context? By the time ECOSA is called, there is probably very limited information at the scene.

Chair

Because it is a first‑responder kind of thing.

Gary Butler

Correct. Really all we are trying to do is advise those first responders of precautions they may wish to take—statements they may wish to make. It is very limited advice at that point in time. We are trying to provide early advice and support during that period.

Chair

As Dr Rees was saying, you are co‑ordinating it.

Gary Butler

Correct, yes.

Chair

In a very short time.

Gary Butler

It is a very short period of time.

Chair

Are we talking minutes?

Gary Butler

Yes.

Dr Rees

Yes.

Chair

Touching on what my colleague was saying, Simon Earwicker, in your experience do you have an example of where ECOSA—the Emergency Co-ordination of Scientific Advice—has happened during a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear incident recently?

Simon Earwicker

I have no personal experience. ECOSA has not been called on in a real‑life situation as yet.

Chair

In this country.

Simon Earwicker

In this country, yes, but it has been exercised through exercises held by the police or the Home Office.

Chair

Okay, brilliant. Thank you very much.

Dr Gent

May I add to that? It is not unexpected. It has not been called because we have not had those circumstances yet. There are lots of other circumstances where any of us individually get called about an issue that we recognise crosses the boundaries between us as advisers, and we routinely use those co‑ordination mechanisms. We have a lot of confidence in the system because ECOSA is describing and branding so that we know—

Chair

Okay. You routinely do this. When was the last time?

Dr Gent

The kinds of things that we have dealt with are when we have been asked to advise and support police in intelligence‑led operations where there might be discovery of hazardous materials; we have been asked for opinions and support for people like the National Crime Agency, where maybe there is a deliberate contamination threat to a food or pharmaceutical chain, whether political or for extortion.

Chair

Your advice co‑ordination has already happened.

Dr Gent

We are asked as a group of individuals to advise on threats to the public every week. Every month or two there will be things that cross and that we co‑ordinate with, so we are comfortable and confident. We know each other.

Gary Butler

It is not just about crisis either. It is preparedness. For instance, we all worked very closely during the preparation and delivery of the Olympic games.

Chair

I guess that is when we are talking about SAGE versus ECOSA.

Gary Butler

Yes. SAGE will probably sit only in emergencies. The formal element of ECOSA would be for that situation, but the fact is that we do not just rely on an incident to be able to work together. For a major sporting event we work together to ensure we have a co‑ordinated approach to protect it.

Chris Green

You are saying that ECOSA responds very quickly normally.

Gary Butler

Yes.

Chris Green

But there is also an element of looking at evidence. How much is there a role for looking at evidence, at what has happened?

Gary Butler

At that point, with the timing of ECOSA, we have probably had a single phone call via the CBRN Centre at Ryton to one of the organisations. They have probably rung the lead. If it was chemical or biological, they have probably rung Porton. If it was a pre‑CBRN event, they might have rung me. If there had been a post‑event, a consequence event, it would probably have gone through Nick. At that time, there is very limited information. The big mechanism for putting the police command and control situation in place, and Government, is probably a couple of hours away, as Nick said. We are trying to provide that advice directly to whoever is in charge at the front end, to say, “If this is the type of event you believe you have, these are some of the precautions or the scientific advice we would give.” It is only very briefly, probably only up to a couple of hours, that ECOSA would actually sit.

Chris Green

It is a very short period of time. Does ECOSA actually go on the ground or is it pretty much done remotely, and you rely upon the first responders to provide the information?

Gary Butler

We do. It is virtual, so there would be an open conference call that we would all keep open during that period of time. People would come and go—experts would come and go—from the three organisations as we tried to offer advice, but it is then directly focused on the front end.

Chris Green

There is a clear mechanism for when ECOSA finishes what it is doing and there is a transfer.

Gary Butler

There is, yes.

Chris Green

What is the main limiting factor for the speed at which ECOSA can work?

Dr Gent

It is people recognising that they need to speak to us, because we use the call‑off mechanisms that we use for our everyday emergencies that people are familiar with: 24‑hour call‑in systems; people who are rostered; and people for whom we have call‑off lists if there is any problem with the first availables. We already have an audit trail on knowing that we are accessible. People recognising that something is unusual and that they need potentially to vary their advice is possibly the most rate‑limiting thing.

Chris Green

I suppose the response varies to some extent depending on when the first responders decide they need to escalate the situation.

Dr Gent

Yes.

Chris Green

That depends enormously upon their training and their experience.

Chair

May I butt in on that, just to clarify? Who do you mean by people? Is it the public, St John’s, the police, the clinics?

Dr Gent

We would never tell anybody that they did not have a right to speak to us. If anybody gives us information that there is something of significance that harms the public, we act on it. We might not be the right people to act first of all, but we do not tell people to go away and speak to somebody else. We take the information, give advice and then we make the internal contacts. Preferably it should come through the police and the police national—

Chair

So 999 would know to co‑ordinate with you.

Dr Gent

Every constabulary call centre has an inspector on duty and we would normally expect—

Chair

Great, thank you.

Dr Gent

But if something comes in through one of our poisons advice lines, our chemical advice lines, the radiation call-off or whatever, we join those up behind the scene so that people do not have to say they need an ECOSA response. We would recognise it and channel it all through the right way.

Chair

Thank you.

Chris Green

We all like to measure things and to have targets. What is the target time for a response from ECOSA? Is there one?

Dr Rees

In terms of calls coming directly to us, we tend to give advice within the first five minutes of getting the call, but very much with the recognition that as we have more time available, and as more information becomes available, we will refine that advice. In terms of ECOSA, we would aim to have people on a telephone conference call within 10 minutes and get that first advice out, if it needed all three organisations, in the first 10 minutes, so it is a very quick response.

Chris Green

Do you think a target timetable or a target time would be helpful or unhelpful?

Dr Rees

We all recognise that it is important to get the advice out as quickly as possible, and I am not sure we could get it out any quicker than it is going, to be honest. If someone said they needed advice within 15 minutes, absolutely we would act to try to achieve that.

Chris Green

That is as professionals realising the seriousness of the situation.

Dr Rees

Absolutely.

Chris Green

You would do it as a professional, rather than having a timetable. If there was a target perhaps people would delay until the end of that target to gather the evidence, when perhaps they ought to have responded a little more quickly.

Gary Butler

Of course every scenario will be different. We may well get significant evidence, significant information, fed back to us from the first responders or we may get nothing at all. At that point, the onus is on us to put our heads together to decide what advice we are going to give.

Chris Green

How long does it take for ECOSA to morph into STAC? Is it a couple of hours or so?

Chair

Ahem.

Victoria Borwick

No acronyms.

Chris Green

I am sorry; I mean how long does it take for the Emergency Co-ordination of Scientific Advice to morph into scientific technical advice cells?

Dr Gent

It is dependent on those cells becoming available. We give a commitment that we will continue in operation until the science and technical advice cell and the Science Advice Group for Emergencies say, “We are comfortable, we have our personnel in place, we’ve got the briefing, we’ve got the communication system and you can stand down.” We wait till we are told by them that they are comfortable.

Carol Monaghan

Dr Gent, if the incident was happening in Scotland, as opposed to England, what body would play the part of Public Health England in the response?

Dr Gent

First of all, we have very good relationships with our public health counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The resource that we provide out of the emergency response department, through colleagues in the Atomic Weapons Establishment and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, is a unique UK resource. We promise to provide the same service that we provide anywhere in the UK if an emergency service in Scotland asks for it, but we would also make sure that we called our equivalent colleagues in Scotland to make sure that, where they wished to take the lead and where they wanted support from us, it was given. They take the responsibility for saying what they want from what we can offer, but we make that available and there are no issues, boundaries or borders around that. We just say we are there and available: “How can we help?”

Carol Monaghan

The ECOSA trigger would still happen in Scotland.

Dr Gent

Yes. If there was a trigger from Scotland, we would respond to it as a group.

Chair

But that has not happened in reality yet, because it has not been needed. Would that be the case?

Gary Butler

Not under the new formal framework that exists.

Dr Gent

There are instances when we are asked for scientific, technical and clinical advice from colleagues throughout the UK. Where we uniquely hold that and where they wish us to provide it, we provide it without let or hindrance; it is done.

Victoria Borwick

Moving on a little bit, when we are talking about the difference between the chemical and biological, radiological and nuclear incidents and the hazardous materials emergencies, does the response vary as to whether or not it is a result of malicious intent or an accident, for want of a better word?

Gary Butler

It probably varies with regard to the flavour of the hazard. I think the definition of CBRN is an important one. From our perspective, CBRN is potentially terrorism, but it is certainly police‑led and probably a result of criminal activity, whereas a hazardous material accident could be, until it was proved otherwise. It is probably slightly different. From a radiological and nuclear—

Victoria Borwick

It could be a road accident, for example.

Gary Butler

Correct. From a radiological and nuclear perspective, there are some quite formal responses. There are national arrangements for incidents involving radiation, in which all the nuclear licensed sites and nuclear facilities would have a response, and that is very much based upon where you are in the country.

Victoria Borwick

Presumably it could be a nuclear‑waste train, though.

Gary Butler

It could be, yes.

Victoria Borwick

It could, therefore, be travelling.

Gary Butler

It could be travelling, but there are geographical response areas. AWE, for instance, would cover some of the south, the Thames Valley and the M4 corridor as immediate responders. The mechanism is probably still through the police under a NAIR, and AWE’s resources would—

Victoria Borwick

What was that?

Gary Butler

Under the national arrangements for incidents involving radiation.

Victoria Borwick

It is for the sake of those watching.

Chair

And me.

Gary Butler

I apologise.

Victoria Borwick

I imagine by this time they will have gone off for a strong coffee.

Gary Butler

We are incredibly acronym-rich in CBRN—CBRN in itself, there you go.

Victoria Borwick

We are conscious that this is watched by greater numbers than the audience in this room, so I support the Chair on the use of acronyms.

Gary Butler

The arrangements are well tested. There is also the RADSAFE organisation, which is the nuclear industry itself; it has its own arrangements. The difference between RADSAFE and the national arrangements for incidents involving radiation is that with RADSAFE you would know the manifest, so you would know what actually was in it. Under the national arrangements for incidents involving radiation you might not know at the particular time, so the resources that you deployed might be different.

Victoria Borwick

That covers the next question. There is no time wasted in determining whether the Emergency Co-ordination of Scientific Advice is needed. As soon as you know what it is, obviously the right teams step into action. How do you know which the right teams are?

Gary Butler

I am speaking purely for radiological and nuclear—my colleague will talk about CB; we train and exercise very carefully. The assets that we would deploy for national arrangements involving radiation would very much be monitoring assets initially, because it is probably consequence-led. If it is CBRN, hopefully we are there to prevent the event, so the assets that would be deployed, again, would be very different. Those assets are very much trained and exercised both internally and collectively as an organisation to make sure we have the right capabilities in place.

Victoria Borwick

Our view here and what we are really trying to find out is whether it is clear. Does everyone know what they are doing? Are we having the fastest and clearest response? That is what we are trying to get to in the middle of this mire.

Dr Gent

I think you are making a very good point, if I have understood it correctly. There is a multiplicity of different potential responders. How do the people who are first on scene, or the police commander, know which resource to call off?

Victoria Borwick

Absolutely right.

Dr Gent

One great advantage of ECOSA is that those of us who provide that national service know and understand all those resources, because it might not be readily apparent which bits of chemical, radiological or biological response for incidents Public Health England can do versus what the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory or the Atomic Weapons Establishment can do. We know our strengths between us and we advise the police commander and say, “You need so-and-so and we have already spoken to them.” We take that out of their way.

Victoria Borwick

Mr Earwicker, was there something you wanted to come in on?

Simon Earwicker

From Dstl’s point of view, our focus is very much on deliberate chemical, biological or radiological releases and the types of materials that might be used. That is where our particular expertise comes in—our deep understanding of those materials. That is our particular contribution to the ECOSA response and the science and technology advice.

Victoria Borwick

Let us go back to try to put some flavour into this. If there was a lorry spill and you knew what was on the manifest, as you would probably, you would not need ECOSA. It would be dealt with locally.

Dr Gent

It is more likely to be dealt with as a hazmat, because it is clear; the science would be known because it has been described through all the hazmat processes—the training, the manuals and so on. A hazmat has a very fixed response. They use key clues like the manifest, the cards on the backs of lorries and things like that.

Chair

The good thing for the first person on the scene is that it does not matter to them.

Dr Gent

No.

Victoria Borwick

That is what we need to have done. What is the equivalent of ECOSA, the Economic Co-ordination of Scientific Advice for a hazmat—the hazardous materials—incident from the point of view of local responders, or will they just call—

Chair

I think you meant “Emergency Co-ordination.”

Dr Rees

That would generally be led by the fire and rescue service who would respond and be able to deal with a hazardous materials incident directly.

Victoria Borwick

Fine. Moving on to Fukushima, which I think was touched on, and the advice given, was that viewed as a hazardous materials incident or was it viewed as a chemical, biological and radio-nuclear emergency? If, heaven forbid, the equivalent occurred over here, we are trying to understand the levels of who would be involved.

Dr Gent

That was an incident that was dealt with purely at a national level. It was dealt with by the Cabinet Office briefing room mechanisms—the Cobra committee structure directly chaired by the Foreign Secretary.

Victoria Borwick

It was dealt with by Cobra.

Dr Gent

Yes. It was advised by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies chaired by the chief Government scientists. On that, the principal scientific advice about the risk to British nationals in Japan, and more widely through foodstuffs and transmission through transport systems, was given by the Atomic Weapons Establishment and ourselves in Public Health England. The Atomic Weapons Establishment and the Office for Nuclear Regulation could obtain information about the materials that had been released. Using the Met Office and others we could get dispersal patterns, so I was getting predictions about what materials would be deposited that people would be exposed to. My scientists in Public Health England were turning that into exposure information as to what degree of radiation exposure British nationals were getting in, say, Tokyo, or whatever, and what the contamination routes were into food and foodstuffs. We were turning that into human risk, and also into human messaging so that we could advise people in Japan and people who had an interest or were travelling to and from Japan what that meant to them in terms of hazards to their health.

Victoria Borwick

If, heaven forbid, something happened here, could you run through the chain of command?

Dr Gent

Yes. We would do exactly the same thing. We practise for fixed nuclear sites and for movement of special nuclear materials and chemical materials every year from very high level, what are called the tier 1 exercises, which exercise across Government and all the administrations of the UK, down to practising at local level to make sure the communications, the understanding and the pre‑fixed response are there and things are working quickly.

Victoria Borwick

I was conscious that prior to the Olympics we reviewed all those potentials, particularly the nuclear trains. Thank you.

Matt Warman

Can you tell us how often the ECOSA process has been triggered in recent years?

Dr Gent

Never.

Matt Warman

In any sense.

Dr Gent

In the sense that a call comes in to one or other of the parties that makes us want to co‑ordinate our activities to make sure that advice is given to protect the public and protect responders, I would say that it is probably two or three times every quarter. We have conversations between some of us most months.

Gary Butler

The difference is that it may never escalate beyond that.

Matt Warman

That is my point.

Gary Butler

It may never escalate to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies or a science and technical advisory cell being formed. It may well be dealt with by one of the organisations in isolation or us collectively, and that is advice, but it may never become a major issue.

Matt Warman

How often do you test the process? You mentioned a dry run for a nuclear event, or a train or whatever. How rigorous is that testing process?

Dr Gent

We audit our response at times when we have been asked for advice on what would be the equivalent systems. We always look back at our response. We try to put in a formal test, just us as a team, once a year, and we are increasingly trying to put it in through all the exercises. For instance, we have an exercise coming up in Cumbria next month and we are putting an ECOSA response into that. We put it into an exercise two months ago. We are trying to make sure that people are familiar with it and we take every opportunity we can to make sure it is comfortable.

Chair

In those exercises the three groups are involved.

Dr Gent

Correct.

Gary Butler

Yes.

Matt Warman

Are there any occasions, thinking back, when the process should have been triggered and it was not, or are you conscious that it works?

Dr Rees

I think we probably all agree that it works and, importantly, that the police and the other emergency services are calling for scientific advice when they need it. The national CBRN centre has a really important role to play in that, as they tend to be the portal through which the information or the requests for information come to us, and those happen very frequently. While we have not necessarily stood an ECOSA up, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is called definitely on a weekly basis. I was on call as our senior scientific adviser two or three weeks ago and dealt with four requests for four separate incidents. That is probably fairly average.

Simon Earwicker

The response that Dstl provides is not designed specifically around supporting ECOSA. It is built from our long history of supporting operations, so we have established mechanisms that are tested for other purposes—overseas support, for example—which give us confidence that the ECOSA mechanisms will work.

Matt Warman

Is it because over that period of time you have refined how scientific advice is provided that actually ECOSA has not been triggered in that sense? You have managed to pre-empt a lot of those situations.

Dr Rees

That is probably true. It is probably also about scale of event, to be honest. Thankfully, we have not had a large‑scale event that required that kind of response.

Chair

You talked about overseas. Is any advice given and received from countries like Syria where there is a lot of chemical warfare going on? Are you using that information?

Simon Earwicker

Yes. We have been consulted regularly over the past few years in relation to Syria.

Chair

Are you advising NGOs or the people who are getting the mustard gas, the hydrogen cyanide and the chlorine? Are you giving your expertise, or is it there and available?

Dr Rees

We provide advice to other parts of Government generally, who then use that information as necessary.

Matt Warman

May I move on to the appetite for information during emergencies, at whatever level? Could you give us a flavour of what the media pressure is at the height of any of the situations you have dealt with?

Gary Butler

From an Atomic Weapons Establishment view, and probably from a Defence Science and Technology Laboratory view, we tend to focus very much on resolution of the technical incident. Quite honestly, some of our scientists are not generally trained in public‑facing media. They would very much talk in scientific language, so we tend to defer—pass the buck, if you like—to Nick and his organisation to take that very technical information and present it in such a way that the general public can perhaps have greater understanding of it.

Matt Warman

Do those scientists have permission to speak to the media, or is it something they would have to apply for if they wanted to?

Gary Butler

I do not think there is anything that says we cannot speak to the media. However, it is not something that we have ever been asked to do.

Matt Warman

Do you feel that Public Health England’s response is the sensible way of doing it, because obviously the media are not always that keen to wait when something is going on?

Dr Gent

We try our best to anticipate media needs. We recognise that giving reassurance and proper information to the public is an important part of our role—information about what they need to do to protect their own health and safety. That is a key part of what we do. People have to be safe, and to feel safe when they are safe, or they need to know what to do if they are placed in any danger. We put quite a substantial amount of response there. We have a significant media team feeding the traditional media and social media, making sure there is advice and guidance on accessible internet sites, and bidding into media outlets if we think there is information that needs to be put out, or indeed briefing the media directly. For example, with Ebola we ran a lot of training sessions for media people, both to keep them safe if they wanted to visit west Africa but also for them to understand the nature of the disease and the advice people had. We try to make sure that we have senior trained clinical staff who can be credible, because they are medics or senior scientists and so on, to lead that part of our response.

Matt Warman

Finally, is your focus, therefore, on pre-emptive information, on making sure people know what might be the sensible course of action to take, not going to a certain country, or whatever, rather than necessarily saying that you can definitely tell them what is going on when an incident has happened, whatever the incident is?

Dr Gent

The ideal is that you can pre-empt things and that your knowledge is perfect, but when you cannot, you need to be absolutely honest about what you know so that people can make judgments as to how good your advice is. You need to be clear about the advice and make sure it is in language that can be understood, not misinterpreted. The other thing we are very keen on when things change, particularly if we have misjudged something, is the dynamic of re-evaluating again and again; it is so important to us, especially, for instance, in ECOSA. If things change, we should say they have changed and why. If it is because you have made a mistake in interpreting it, you should be honest about that, so that people understand the reason why it has changed.

Chair

That is very clear.

Chris Green

Dr Gent, the new framework for the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear response includes a move away from wet decontamination to dry decontamination. Can you explain first what that change is and the practical differences, and could you explain the scientific evidence behind that decision?

Dr Gent

Certainly. When we first started dealing with the possibilities of chemical, biological and radiological terrorism, deliberate release and so on, the evidence framework for what was good at removing contaminants—hazards that people still carry about with them on their clothing or in their body and so could continue to cause harm—was very limited indeed. There was a lot of myth and ideas about what would work, but they had never been tested. There was a programme to put together the science, a lot of which was done by organisations around this table, particularly the emergency response department, Public Health England, from our site in Porton Down, to look at the best way of doing things. It is very clear that the absolute ideal was that you remove all clothing and wash people down using warm water, detergent and a washing aid like a flannel or a sponge, and that is a counsel of perfection. What was put in place were mass decontamination units that could support that for large numbers of people, and those are still around. However, we also recognised that there was an overhead in doing that which was undesirable in that it could take one or two hours to get such equipment to a scene, to manage people. That was undesirable, particularly if people were injured.

Chris Green

Especially with open wounds, for example.

Dr Gent

Yes. It was not ideal for people who needed proper definitive hospital care because, for instance, the release was an explosive release, so there were life‑threatening injuries. We then had a programme to look at all the elements of decontamination; for instance, how effective was just removing an outside layer of clothing? To be honest, that is very good and we tested it by putting simulants on to people—simulants they could not see, that only showed up in ultraviolet light—and asking them to do decontamination steps, such as simply removing clothing, then photographing them under ultraviolet light to determine quantitatively how much material had been removed. We looked at that and we looked at simply dry decontamination—removing things, brushing things down—and the use of absorbent materials to remove liquid contamination, how good and effective they were, and at simple showering, such as just hosing down without detergent being used. We quantified all these things. We now have what we call an interim operational response, which is what needs doing quickly at the scene. For instance, if there is a caustic injury, where the skin is burning and so on, we do not wait an hour for a shower system; we use simple, water‑based decontamination to remove that element. If it is an oil—

Chair

That is wet decontamination.

Dr Gent

It is, but it is done in an immediate way. It might be just a bucket and sponge, it might be a tap, or it might be a garden hosepipe. It uses what is there; it is about making sure things are done quickly, using things that are available on scene, absorbent materials, like nappies, bandages and so on. We quantified how effective they are so that people can do things quickly before definitive things arise. Also, we have defined circumstances where you do not need to do decontamination, and these are probably the most important.

Chair

In a sense, you are talking about appropriate decontamination.

Dr Gent

Yes.

Chair

But the framework suggests a different emphasis.

Chris Green

The gist I am getting is perhaps a more pragmatic approach.

Dr Gent

Pragmatic and proportionate.

Chair

Rather than didactic.

Dr Gent

Yes, but now we have that research base, through all the elements I have described, so we have a good base to say that we know what works and, “In certain circumstances, do enough.” In certain circumstances, it might be appropriate to do the full wet‑based decontamination, particularly where you have large numbers of people and you can pre-position equipment and things like that. We now have a much more diverse range of options that can offer, as you say, the pragmatic and can get rid of some of the things like delays that we were worried about in definitive care.

Chris Green

In that sense, if you had a standard operating procedure that required wet decontamination, the first responders, the people responsible for that, would say, “Don’t do anything until all the equipment arrives,” which may not be for many hours, and people may be suffering in the meantime.

Dr Gent

We come back to one of the purposes of ECOSA. It is there for giving advice. One of the things I get asked more frequently than anything else is, “What do we need to do to decontaminate people in this incident?” Often my response is, “You don’t need to decontaminate in these circumstances. Just get them to hospital. Get rid of the delay.” The interim operational response using pragmatic methods is about stopping people suffering while they are waiting. It is about recognising things like caustic injury and giving the emergency services the guide to say, “Just use water in whatever method available. You need to irrigate those wounds, that skin,” because that is part of managing and stopping suffering, and it is making the person safe to get to definitive care quickly.

Chris Green

Both the Emergency Planning Society and the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine have queried whether or not sufficient research had taken place to make those decisions. Do you see any legitimacy in that? How would you respond to their concerns?

Dr Gent

I would be delighted to show them the research. We have been doing 10 years of research at Porton Down, both ourselves in Public Health England and some of our colleagues, about effectiveness. We have a number of European projects, the ORCHIDS projects, for instance, which are in the public domain, and describe the effectiveness of wet decontamination. There is a whole range of other programmes where we looked at individual elements—simple wash‑down, detergent, washing aids, removal of clothing and things like that. There is a literature that is in part open, because there is a certain element about national resource and national capability that is of use to our first responders, but also to people who might want to perpetrate attacks. There is a certain amount of the literature and some of the science detail behind it that is not public, but I am privy to all of it and I am confident that we know as much about the methods of decontamination and their effectiveness as we can, but we are continuing to research.

Chris Green

The new framework has led to “reductions in mass decontamination resources and trained equipped police,” but the Home Office tell us that this is “in line with value for money principles.” Are you content that decisions are made on good science rather than pressures from budgets?

Dr Gent

I understand that there always have to be decisions made about limited resources. The initial operational response model and the interim models offer very good ways of managing acute situations. I understand that the issue about how many of the larger response units will be available is under consideration, and it is clear from the evidence I have given you that they have a role. I would not personally like to be involved in the hard political decisions about having to balance resources and I understand the difficulties that people like yourselves face in having to balance, discuss and debate them.

Chris Green

Is there anything about which you could say that the science would suggest one thing but what we are actually doing is something else?

Dr Gent

We would be delighted to review the options that are finally decided on and do work on estimating the risk associated with the alternative models. At the present time we have a very rich set of operational guidance and pragmatic ways of managing things.

Chair

Just going back to the research, we had the Emergency Planning Society talk about—double acronym—an optimisation of research project, for want of saying the whole thing, ORCHIDS. They said there was no examination of decontamination of hair. Can you comment on that, because they are questioning the science?

Dr Gent

Yes. There have been three or four more projects looking in detail about elements from the ORCHIDS projects. The ORCHIDS project—

Chair

So you would accept their criticism.

Dr Gent

There is always a level of additional scientific research that you can do. In terms of hair, it is not something that I feel or find is a particular issue, because it is an area of the body that we can manage straightforwardly.

Chair

Okay. Is there any learning from secondary contamination, again in Syria, in the doctors who died? I do not know if it was chemical or biological, but what learning was there from that?

Dr Gent

We have looked in detail at events around the world, and probably the most important and influential were the Aum Shinrikyo incidents in Japan with a—

Chair

I am talking about what has happened in the last few weeks.

Dr Gent

We look at all of these and a number of people like myself are involved in working around the middle east, training and so on.

Chair

Are there any on wet‑dry decontamination, because that is the ultimate first response, isn’t it?

Dr Gent

We only teach in areas of the world where there is no water. We only teach dry response, because it is the only thing that can be done, so we have a fact base of observation as to its being effective.

Chair

Is that secondary contamination not preventable?

Dr Gent

Secondary contamination is not preventable in whole. You start with a wholly contaminated incident scene. Every time you decontaminate people, you move people, and the contaminant reduces and reduces. You will always be able to find some if you look hard enough. The question is whether it is significant and still causing harm to that person, to the people providing the care or people in the family.

Chair

Carol, you wanted to ask a question.

Carol Monaghan

Are there any research gaps in relation to CBRN preparation and response and if so, how are they identified? Who would like to answer?

Gary Butler

Obviously, we try to identify gaps. If there is a constantly evolving threat, we constantly review our technology to try to identify any gaps that may exist. There are no glaring gaps that I can identify, but we obviously continue to upgrade our training, the information we provide to first responders and the information we provide to our own responders, to ensure that any gap at all is minimised, but there are no glaring gaps that I can identify at the moment.

Dr Rees

From a chemical and biological perspective, we have research funding from both the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence to enable us to look at evolving and emerging threats and to enable us to respond as well as we can. We are very keen that we pull our research through into our operational capability, so that we are giving the best possible response we can.

Carol Monaghan

Do you have any issues in terms of recruitment and retention of suitably qualified personnel to work in these areas?

Gary Butler

I can probably speak for the Atomic Weapons Establishment. We do not recruit emergency responders. We recruit the best engineers and scientists to work primarily on our core programme and deliver the nuclear deterrent. Once individuals have relative experience within that, we utilise those skills and make them emergency responders, because the strength of the response organisation is that those people are practising their skills on a day‑to‑day basis and all we are taking them to do is to learn to operate in the field. We have a voluntary organisation for our response and we constantly have more people wishing to join our response than we have places for, so we do not actually have gaps.

Chair

What is the name of that organisation?

Gary Butler

That is AWE’s response organisation. It is a voluntary response organisation.

Dr Gent

For Public Health England, I would have to say that this area of work is attractive. We get people who want to be involved. Likewise, we take people who have the clinical, scientific and technical background to a high standard, and then we add the emergency response. The problem is that we then have some very highly desirable people, and there are other organisations out there that will aggressively recruit them and can offer terms and conditions of service that we cannot match. It is a particular problem, for instance, with mathematical modellers, scientists and computer people; they are a very good example. We recruit some absolutely superb people, but retaining them against the offers they get from outside, with their knowledge, experience and ability, is difficult.

Carol Monaghan

Can I ask specifically about engineering expertise within your organisation, because information given to the Committee is that engineering expertise continues to be a problem with people who can do engineering modelling from beginning to end? Are these types of staff difficult to come by?

Gary Butler

From the Atomic Weapons Establishment perspective, we do not have a problem recruiting engineers. In some particular skills, we have a problem in retaining engineers—along the lines Nick defined—with regards to greater opportunity and greater incentive outside in the private sector, but it does not impact on our ability to respond to CBRN emergencies in the UK.

Simon Earwicker

The position is the same for Dstl. We are all subject to the same market conditions that draw away people who have those unique skills. It is a very common position for all three of us.

Chair

Thank you. We had a submission from the Civil Contingencies Unit, and I do not know if you know whether this is within your remit, that there is concern that local responders are not aware of the expertise. Simon, what is your opinion on that?

Simon Earwicker

My understanding is that the CBRN Centre engages with the local resilience forums.

Chair

You are not aware of the problem.

Simon Earwicker

They are the conduits between the resilience forums locally and the expertise that exists in the three organisations. I have no experience of that not working effectively.

Chair

Is ECOSA—we are back to the acronym—special to the UK or is it a model that is used by other countries, and if others are doing it differently, how do we know we are the best?

Dr Rees

The thing that works well in the UK is that all the organisations involved are relatively small and are able to communicate with each other on a regular enough basis that the advice is coherent. There are also only three agencies involved. The complication in some other countries may be that there is such a vast number of agencies involved in responding to different types of incidents that it can be very difficult to ensure coherence. Certainly, from the US perspective, the US looks at the UK as a really joined‑up response, mainly because we are so small and there is one agency for each type of response.

Chair

Small is beautiful. I like it.

Gary Butler

It is. May I just make the point that it is not a closed shop? Clearly, we do not have all the expertise, but during the forming of ECOSA, which would be very quick, very sharp, it is probably unlikely that we would reach beyond our capabilities. But, of course, as an event runs, there are places like the National Nuclear Laboratory, the Forensic Explosives Laboratory and the National Physics Laboratory, and all the scientific assets in academia, that we could draw upon as we had more time.

Chair

Brilliant.

Dr Gent

I have a lot of experience of working on radiological and nuclear response issues, particularly around terrorism in Europe and radiological chemical issues for the World Health Organisation. The fact that there are three principal Government scientific agencies that have the depth that Public Health England, the Atomic Weapons Establishment and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory have is quite unusual. There are some large countries that can sustain that, but they are few and far between. That degree of integration, particularly not just integration between them as emergency science responders but integration with law enforcement services so that we can always put the principle of protection of the public first, is quite remarkable and unusual.

Chair

Thank you. I am grateful for your time. What has been well demonstrated is how you have answered almost as a team, so it gives me confidence in what you were saying originally about your co‑ordination. As mentioned, if we ask you afterwards for extra written information, I would appreciate it if you could give it to the Committee. Thank you very much. Examination of witnesses Ben Wallace MP and Paul McCloghrie.

Chair

Welcome to the Science and Technology Committee. I am sorry to have kept you waiting for a few minutes. I would like you to introduce yourselves and give us a brief—less than a minute—outline of your responsibilities and, Minister, if you could do so pertaining to chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological incidents.

Paul McCloghrie

My name is Paul McCloghrie. I am the deputy director for national risks and infrastructure in the civil contingencies secretariat, which is part of the Cabinet Office. In the civil contingencies secretariat role, we co‑ordinate support across Government on all aspects of crisis management; it starts with risk assessment through to capability building, incident response and recovery from incidents.

Chair

How long have you been in that position?

Paul McCloghrie

I have been in the civil contingencies secretariat for three and a half years.

Chair

Thank you. Minister.

Ben Wallace

I am Ben Wallace, Minister for Security in the Home Office. With the CBRNE, I cover the counter-terrorism threat, trying to mitigate that threat and ensure that our intelligence services and police have all the tools to prevent it happening, both at home and abroad, overseas, but also, in the unfortunate and unlikely event of something happening here in the UK, that our response is informed and able to deliver the best solution possible to make sure that terror and panic do not spread and that people get the treatment they need.

Chair

Thank you very much. We have a few questions and we are always time pressured, so if we do not cover things, we may ask you to write to us with information after this session. Minister, how is the Home Office investing in research and development to support planning and response in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents? By the way, we avoid acronyms as much as we can.

Ben Wallace

If I could, I would ban them. I thought the MOD was bad, but the Home Office has acronyms for acronyms. First of all, we spend about £6 million a year. We spend about £30 million over the Parliament period on science and technology, and obviously on research and advice. We also—

Chair

This is for these.

Ben Wallace

This is for CBRNE, in that sort of environment. The examples I can use are in our submission, but when we contribute to things like the model response, the ORCHIDS research that we have seen, which looks at decontamination issues, the type of research we fund ranges from scientific research to personal protection equipment, equipment used to mitigate the effects. We also look at other areas such as exercising and making sure that the fire and police services invest in the right kit and that we make sure that that kit is maintained, as well as DIM kit—detection, identification, and monitoring equipment, I think—and making sure that is up to speed, modern and capable of doing the job it is supposed to do.

Chair

At another Committee hearing, we heard about the importance of social science in emergencies. Is there investment in social science research pertaining to these kinds of incidents?

Ben Wallace

I am not aware that we have a specific project. We have a behavioural unit that looks at human behaviour, often as applied to terrorists and people who might potentially become terrorists.

Chair

What about on the public response to an emergency?

Ben Wallace

It is civil contingencies who have the general response.

Chair

We had a lot of learning, obviously, from Ebola and things like that.

Paul McCloghrie

We have a behavioural science expert group that looks at the risks we consider, which include the CBRN risk, and provides advice to us on what the public reaction might be to those.

Chair

Might there be investment in the research there?

Paul McCloghrie

That is done on a very low‑cost basis. We get support from collections of academics and people from Government agencies to provide that information.

Chair

Minister, different Departments have different responsibilities when it comes to these kinds of incidents. Who co‑ordinates investment in the research pertaining to other Departments?

Ben Wallace

The MOD is the main sponsor of Dstl, the Government’s science labs, and they really—

Chair

The Ministry of Defence is the main sponsor of the defence laboratory.

Ben Wallace

Of the Dstl, yes. They fund about £600 million of that, and that includes Porton Down and areas like that. A lot of the knowledge base is contained in three main bodies: Public Health England, when it comes to biological; when it comes to atomic, we are talking about Aldermaston—

Chair

But it is the Ministry of Defence that co‑ordinates the research.

Ben Wallace

The research is often demand‑led, so it can be triggered by a review. For example, we constantly review the process in which we respond and the anticipated needs of people affected. When we look at decontamination times and limits, that will trigger us, effectively, to commission scientific advice, and that advice, as I am sure you can guess, is not massive in certain areas. There are not huge numbers of scientists.

Chair

That is helpful. On the research side, you quite fairly say it is demand‑led. Our concern might be that if it is demand‑led, how do you know where your gaps in research are?

Ben Wallace

There are three or four things. We exercise regularly. We do about one exercise a month. We have done about 20 in the last two or three years and they are exercises at all levels. Obviously, in exercising you find gaps. We started the process in about 2006 with the model response study, and then a response framework was triggered in about 2010—a review—as a result of gaps identified in the working process. That framework produced the current response, which is the way we deal with incident response—the immediate operating response followed by specialists. It is constantly being reviewed, because of the environment of civil contingencies, who regularly review most of their national risk assessment because we are risk‑informed and intelligence‑informed, and that triggers reviews, but also because the academic community and Dstl share—

Chair

The defence laboratory.

Ben Wallace

Yes. Dstl scientists were involved in the effective removal of chemical weapons in Syria. They were involved in advice—

Chair

On that note, we have been told, thankfully, that in this country we have not had incidents—I expect there are lots of exercises and it is being tested—but with Syria, is there information that you are getting because of all the chemical and biological incidents that are happening out there? We were talking about the doctors who have suffered.

Ben Wallace

It is of public record that we have had attempts to detonate bombs, so we had the trial and conviction of an individual who tried to make a dirty bomb.

Chair

Forgive me. I am not being clear. What I meant was that, because right now there are people who are undergoing chemical and biological warfare and there is obviously information on the ground and first responders have died because of not doing decontamination, is the Department getting information from that real life, from the exercise to those real‑life examples?

Ben Wallace

Yes. Like anything, first of all, we share intelligence and expertise but also we encourage our scientists, in the university sector and in the defence, Dstl‑type labs and at Aldermaston, to make sure they are part of an international community. Just like medical procedures and medical solutions, that is part of being an academic, as such. We encourage them to do that and we have always had nuclear inspection teams that would go to visit places like Iran, and there were British scientists embedded in those—I used to go regularly to Vienna to see them. That is how we learn, because, as you say, it is actually very rare. The last conventional chemical war was Iran‑Iraq, and we are seeing evidence of events in Syria. In general, the widespread knowledge that was probably there in the era of the cold war is not as widespread, but we keep it very up to date and we make sure that it goes to the scientists. Really, the Government’s chief scientific adviser is charged with making sure that scientific advice to the Government is up to date and of appropriate quality.

Chair

To what extent can you rely on research councils to prioritise research based on those kinds of incidents, chemical or biological?

Ben Wallace

“Rely” is probably the wrong word. When we identify a need, we go out and commission it, or the chief scientific adviser would if he felt there was a gap, either through one of the regular reviews we do, or in a post‑incident study. We have a Home Office chief scientific adviser as well. They are charged to go out and make sure that advice is commissioned or up to date.

Chris Green

Mr McCloghrie, could you explain what role the civil contingency secretariat plays in the preparation for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents?

Paul McCloghrie

Certainly. I will start with risk assessment. The civil contingencies secretariat co‑ordinates production of the national risk assessment, which is a classified Government document produced every two years. In that, we consider all the risks that might impact on the UK and UK citizens, including CBRN risks. The point of doing that is to have a common framework across Government for thinking about how likely things are and what kinds of impacts might be felt by the country from those sorts of events. From that we produce planning assumptions; we look at the most significant consequences of the risks we identify and develop planning assumptions. For example, in that space we will look at the number of contaminated casualties that the various risks might generate and create a planning assumption for the maximum number of contaminated casualties we think the risks lead to, and that then feeds into a capability‑generation programme. The Departments own the risks. Effectively, we own the processes and the Departments own the risks. When the capabilities are generated, Departments can look again at the risks they own and think about what kind of bespoke planning they need to do, knowing that the generic capabilities have been built, wherever in Government they have been built.

Chris Green

As to the advice that is given, how much consideration do you take of cost when you are actually saying this is the response we need? How much are you constrained in terms of cost?

Paul McCloghrie

Cost does not factor into our considerations for preparations. We are looking at the risks and the impacts of those risks, and the planning assumptions effectively are the most significant impacts across all the range of risks we look at. How much capability is built is a question for risk owners and Ministers in the Government Departments.

Chris Green

That is downstream.

Paul McCloghrie

Yes.

Chris Green

Were you surprised that the Home Office submission to this inquiry made no explicit mention of the CCS?

Chair

Sorry?

Chris Green

The civil contingency secretariat.

Chair

Thank you.

Paul McCloghrie

No, I would not say I was surprised.

Chris Green

You were not surprised.

Paul McCloghrie

We have a very good relationship and we work very closely together, so I would not expect to be in a different position from anything the Home Office submitted.

Chris Green

Our predecessor Committee was told in 2011 that a national risk assessment scientific review group was being set up. Does that sit every two years?

Paul McCloghrie

Yes. There are a number of scientific review groups that look at the national risk assessment. There is a review of the methodology and process, which we do with the Government chief scientist and the Government Office for Science, and there are reviews of the risks themselves and the impacts that we collectively think they generate. Those reviews bring in both people from within Government and from certain areas where we think there is significant expertise outside Government. We tap into that. I mention the behavioural science expert group as an example; we bring in people who have a specific behavioural science background and expertise to advise us, and there is an expert group on CBRN that supports us in that.

Chris Green

Who sits on the CBRN group?

Paul McCloghrie

The make‑up includes Government Departments. The Home Office sits on the group along with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Chris Green

Is it named individuals?

Paul McCloghrie

It is named individuals, yes, but it stretches across the Government agencies—Public Health England, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the Atomic Weapons Establishment—and it brings in academics. Somebody from Newcastle University who has specialist expertise in this area sits on the group as well.

Chris Green

We are told that the Cabinet Office works “very closely” with the Government Office for Science to ensure that the evidence underpinning the national risk assessment is robust. Can you give a few examples of how that interaction works in practice?

Paul McCloghrie

The Government Office for Science also sits on the expert groups I mentioned. I think it sits on all the expert groups actually, and it works with us to help us access the right expertise from outside Government as well. It can recommend people to join those groups. The Government Office for Science and the Government chief scientist are part of the review and clearance process for the risk assessments, so they add their comments and thought to that as well.

Chris Green

Is there any kind of example of how it has worked, any examples in recent memory, just to give us an idea?

Paul McCloghrie

Yes. We are working with them at the moment. When we assess risks, there are a number of different types of impacts. There are economic impacts, numbers of people affected and disruption to transport services and so on. To understand the significance of some of those impacts and how we weigh them up, we have a project working with them at the moment to do exactly that.

Chris Green

Do you and Sir Mark Walport go through the risk assessment line by line so that you both have scrutiny of the details?

Paul McCloghrie

We discuss the risk assessment with Sir Mark Walport while it is in draft. On the current risk assessment, I think we sat down with Sir Mark Walport three times over the course of the last six months to talk through the assessment and the details. Part of that is about the methodology approach and making sure that the information we present is accessible to the audience, as well as the detail itself. We submit the finished assessment to Sir Mark Walport for his comments on all the detail. I do not sit down with him during that process, but he has a period of time to read and submit his comments.

Carol Monaghan

You talked a bit about risk assessment. We have at the moment two definitions. We have our CBRN—are you okay with that, Chair?

Chair

I think we’ve got it.

Carol Monaghan

That is defined as a malicious attack, or certainly has those connotations, as opposed to hazmat, hazardous material, which would be more akin to an accidental spillage or something along those lines. Evidence from previous responders, including Staffordshire’s civil contingencies unit, or CCU, said that the different definitions can sometimes cause problems for local responders, and that local responders are not always able to access the scientific support that they would wish to access, because of the definition of the particular emergency. Do you recognise that as an issue?

Paul McCloghrie

We have certainly spoken to local resilience forums about our guidance and the information we provide, to try to understand where there is any confusion.