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Brown unveils security strategy Brown unveils security strategy
(about 3 hours later)
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is set to outline the major threats facing Britain in the country's first ever national security strategy. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to set out plans to deal with national emergencies such as terror attacks, disease pandemics and flooding.
As well as terror attacks, it will focus on the risks from climate change, scarce energy supplies, migration, flooding and pandemic diseases. Britain's first National Security Strategy will set out the role of the government, police, security services and the public in handling disasters.
The PM will address the issues and what the state and citizens can do to confront them in a statement to MPs. Security Minister Lord West said: "We need to let people know what the risks are and what the government is doing."
Security Minister Lord West says it is vital to look at a range of threats. But the Tories said there was a risk of the strategy becoming a "talking shop".
The drawing up of such a document and getting Whitehall departments to agree on it has not been an easy task - the strategy is four months behind schedule. Mr Brown will outline the government's ideas in a statement to MPs at about 1230 GMT.
The challenge for government will be transforming this ambitious framework into effective action Gordon CoreraSecurity CorrespondentBBC Scrutiny
Threats as diverse as failed states and extreme weather are expected to rank as importantly as terrorism. 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.
BBC Security correspondent Gordon Corera said there would be "an emphasis on the new, complex, interrelated nature of risk and the need for greater public awareness. 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, rejected suggestions that it will be no more than a "worthy" study. 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."
"There are some areas which we have got very well under control; there are other areas where a lot of work is needed and what this is doing is identifying that and giving us a focus as a way to move forward," he told BBC1's Politics Show. 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."
'Vigilance' The drawing up of such a document and getting Whitehall departments to agree on it does not appear to have been an easy task.
"If there was an easy answer to all of this we would not have had to go down this route. 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.
"It is highly complicated and it is very difficult, but we are leading the world on this. 'Lurching'
"Rather than anything in the past which was produced - very much defence, foreign policy, a bit of Home Office, the threat to the state - we are now much more looking at the citizen and tying the citizen into this. 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."
"Let's think of their vigilance, how does this involve them." 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".
However, 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. 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."