Security shake-up as terror threat increases
PM says our defences must work ‘in concert’
A SECURITY shake-up has been unveiled by the Government as it warned the threat from Islamist terrorism may increase over the next two years.
Britain’s enemies should be in no doubt that “every capability at our disposal” will be used to defeat them, Theresa May warned.
The National Security Capability Review states the threat from Islamist terrorism is expected to remain at its current heightened level for at least the next two years and might increase further.
It also refers to the “brazen and reckless” nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. In the foreword to the report, Prime Minister Mrs May wrote: “Over the past year in the UK we have witnessed appalling terrorist attacks in London and Manchester.
“But also a brazen and reckless act of aggression on the streets of Salisbury: attempted murder using an illegal chemical weapon, amounting to an unlawful use of force against the UK.
“Crucially, what all of these incidents have made clear is that our national security is conditional on not only the police and security services who work so hard to keep us safe at home, or on the brave men and women of our Armed Forces working tirelessly around the world – but on our ability to mobilise most effectively the full range of our capabilities in concert to respond to the challenges we face.
“So as this report sets out, we have agreed a new approach to the orchestration of our national security capabilities.”
About £56bn is spent annually on national security capabilities, which will rise to £60bn in the coming years. The deadly terrorist threat was also brought into sharp focus yesterday by a new report into the emergency response to the Manchester Arena attack, which left 22 dead and hundreds injured last May.
The 226-page report, by Lord Bob Kerslake, found that confusion between emergency services led to fire crews being kept away from the scene of the blast for more than two hours.
The panel of experts state they are not able to say whether the earlier arrival of the fire service would have “affected any casualty’s survivability”.
“This is a question that only the coronial inquests can decide,” the report said. But it says firefighters “would have been much better placed to support and, potentially, to accelerate the evacuation of casualties from the foyer,” had they gone to the scene.
The report was commissioned by Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to assess the preparedness and emergency response to the attack last year. It makes 50 recommendations.
Dawn Docx, the interim chief fire officer of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, said she apologised unreservedly for the failures in the previous leadership of the service. “It is clear that our response fell far short of what the people of Greater Manchester can expect,” she said.
Fire chief sorry:
A FIRE chief has made a public apology for firefighters being delayed two hours before joining in the response to the Manchester Arena terror attack.
Crews were barred from getting to the scene earlier because of confusion with other 999 services over whether an “active shooter” was on the loose, a report into the emergency response to the attack found yesterday.
The fire service had been left “outside of the loop” of the police and ambulance emergency response meaning that firefighters, some who heard the bomb go off and were trained in first-aid and terror scenarios with specialist equipment, did not get permission to go to the scene, despite the nearest station being half a mile away.
Suicide bomber Salman Abedi left 22 people dead and hundreds injured when he detonated his device at the end of the concert by American pop star Ariana Grande at Manchester Arena. Victims with links to Yorkshire included York couple Marcin Klis, 42, and his wife Angelika, 40; Kelly Brewster, 32, from Sheffield; Leeds Beckett University student Courtney Boyle, 19, and Wendy Fawell, a 50-year-old mother from Otley.
Dawn Docx, the interim chief fire officer of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS), said she apologised unreservedly for the failures in the previous leadership of the service at the time of last May’s outrage.
“There were clearly failures in leadership and poor decisions made,” she told a press conference following the publication of the report by Lord Bob Kerslake.
“As a result firefighters themselves, desperate on the night to attend the incident, were let down by some of their senior colleagues.”
The then-chief fire officer, Peter O’Reilly, has since retired. The 226-page report was commissioned by Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, and concluded the emergency response was “overwhelmingly positive.”
But Lord Kerslake described the failure by fire chiefs as “extraordinary” and “incredible”.
Mr Burnham said no one individual should bear all the responsibility for failures and no-one should be “scapegoated”.
And a man whose wife and two daughters were injured in the attack told The Yorkshire Post his family “couldn’t fault” the care they received from the emergency services, both at the scene and during their recovery.
Andrew Senior, of Queensbury, Bradford, rushed to Manchester on the night of the bombing, in which his wife Natalie, and daughters, Eve, then 14, and Emilia, then 11, had been injured. Both Mrs Senior and Eve needed treatment in hospital for serious injuries, while Emilia had cuts and bruises.
The family received an early copy of Lord Kerslake’s report on Monday, ahead of its publication yesterday. Mr Senior said: “I would say they were extremely well-organised and efficient in what they did.”
He said by the time he arrived, casualties had been categorised by the severity of their injuries and paramedics arranged a bus to take his wife and others to hospital after running short of ambulances.
He said: “For me, the only people to blame are the terrorists who helped to plan and carry out this cowardly act.” Comment: Page 12.
For me, the only people to blame are the terrorists. Andrew Senior, whose wife and two daughters were injured.