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National security strategy unveiled |
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Written by Islamic Times
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Wednesday, 19 March 2008 |
Gordon Brown has set out a programme to protect the British public from threats ranging from international terrorism to climate change.
Unveiling the first National Security Strategy, the Prime Minister pledged extra support for the military and security services in the face of dangers which have “changed beyond recognition” in recent years.
As part of the plan, the Government will publish the previously secret national register of risks - detailing the threats to the UK. Other measures announced today included a cross-departmental support package for the military, including bonus payments of up to £15,000 for long-serving personnel and a £20 million fund to help servicemen and women purchase homes.
In a Commons statement, Mr Brown said: “The primary duty of Government - our abiding obligation - is, and always will be, the safety of all British people and the protection of the British national interest.”
He told MPs that to meet the new challenges “we need to mobilise all the resources available to us” including both military “hard” power and diplomatic and humanitarian “soft” power.
Mr Brown said that the Intelligence and Security Committee will be subject to enhanced scrutiny and greater transparency.
Four regional counter-terrorism units and four regional intelligence units would “significantly increase” police anti-terror capabilities across the country.
He also said that the Government had learned the lessons from conflicts including Iraq and Afghanistan and would establish a 1,000-strong civilian task force which would be on standby to offer expert help to failing states.
The force will include police, emergency services and judges, he said. Mr Brown said the strategy would help Britain to “always be vigilant, never leaving ourselves vulnerable” in the face of an “unstable and increasingly uncertain international security landscape”.
David Cameron, while welcoming certain individual measures, said that the Prime Minister’s plan looked “rather more like a list than a strategy”. The Tory leader also questioned why Mr Brown had not set up a US-style National Security Council with executive powers intead of "a talking shop and confusion".
Mr Brown told MPs that the security situation in the UK had changed since the old threats of the Cold War and Irish republican terrorism.
Now, he said, the consequences of regional instability, terrorism, climate change, poverty, mass immigration and organised crime “reverberate quickly around the globe”.
He told MPs that the size of the Security Service will rise to 4,000 - twice that of 2001 - and announced a 10-per cent funding rise for the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre. New high-tech capabilities will be developed at GCHQ and MI6 to tackle terrorism and measures were also being taken to combat cyber-crime.
Mr Brown said that experts from business, academia, community organisations and the military would be invited to join a new National Security Forum to advise the National Security Committee. He also pledged to help non-nuclear states develop new power plants in return for agreements not to develop weapons.
Mr Brown said there would be “tougher action” against “potential proliferators such as Iran” and also against suppliers of nuclear technology.
On a local level, Mr Brown said that there would be “improved resilience against emergencies” from floods to terrorist attacks.
This would take “not the old Cold War idea of civil defence but a new form of civil protection”.
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