Liaison Committee
Oral evidence: Evidence from the Prime Minister,
HC 887
Tuesday 16 December 2014
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 16 December 2014
Members present: Sir Alan Beith (Chair), Mr Adrian Bailey, Sir Malcolm Bruce, David T. C. Davies, Miss Anne McIntosh, Andrew Miller, Rory Stewart, Keith Vaz, Joan Walley and Mr Tim Yeo
Questions 1–76
Witness: Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Prime Minister, gave evidence.
Q1 Chair: Welcome Prime Minister. There are two things that we want to ask you about today. The first is climate change and the second is radicalisation. I am going to ask Mr Yeo to start the first session.
Mr Cameron: Before we start, I think it might be right after the events of yesterday and today—
Chair: I was going to give you the opportunity later, but you might like to do it now.
Mr Cameron: I just want to say that I think it is right to pay tribute to those who have been murdered in Australia, and in this appalling outrage in Pakistan today. I am sure that the thoughts of everyone in this House and this Committee will be with the families and the loved ones of those who have perished. In Australia, tales of extraordinary bravery and sacrifice are now being told about what happened in that café. That is what we would expect from the people of that remarkable and great country. Our thoughts are with them. The scale of what has happened in Pakistan simply defies belief. It is a dark, dark day for humanity when something on this scale happens with no justification. There is not a belief system in the world that can justify this sort of appalling act.
What this shows is the worldwide threat that is posed by this poisonous ideology of extremist Islamist terrorism. It is nothing to do with one of the world’s great religions, Islam, which is a religion of peace; this is a perversion. We have to recognise the scale of what we face in this country, but also, as we see, around the world. We must, with our allies, use everything we have in our power to defeat it. That means combating terrorism. It means defeating ISIL in Iraq and Syria, but, above all, it means asserting the freedoms that we hold to—the values of freedom, tolerance and democracy.
I say to this Committee, as I have said before, that this is going to be the struggle of our generation, both here in our own country and around the world. We are going to have to show every bit of resilience that we have shown when facing similar problems and challenges in the past. I am sure that members of the Committee would agree with those sentiments.
Chair: Very much so, Prime Minister. The Committee would very much endorse what you have just said. It also makes it appropriate that the second part of our session today will be about how we tackle radicalisation in our own country and around the world. The Committee shares your horror at the scale of the murder that has taken place in Pakistan and the all too familiar grimness of the hostage event in Sydney. Our feelings, thoughts and prayers are with those who have been affected by those two terrible events.
We turn now to climate change and Mr Yeo.
Q2 Mr Yeo: Another issue for our generation relates to the conditions of climate stability, which have been the precondition for the quite phenomenal success of the human species in the past few hundred years. By accepting in 2011 and, even more, by confirming last summer the fourth carbon budget, I personally believe that that itself justifies a claim that this is the greenest Government ever. The carbon budget went further than anything previously envisaged in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Without introducing an inappropriately partisan note, it will fall to the next Parliament and, therefore, the Prime Minister of the day—who I naturally assume will be you—to make a decision about the fifth carbon budget, which covers the period 2028 to 2032.
Another recent success for the UK was getting the EU to agree to quite a challenging target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by the year 2030, and also sensibly avoiding adding any unnecessary individual targets for renewables. Do you agree that if we are going to continue playing a leading role in achieving those targets, the fifth carbon budget will have to continue along the same path as the fourth carbon budget? Will you be able to resist the siren calls, which come from all across the political spectrum, at home and abroad, to slow down our progress towards decarbonising our economy because part of the investment that is needed in low-carbon technology does, in the very short term, add to costs?
Mr Cameron: I hope we will. The claim to be the greenest Government ever is based on the fact that we have climate change legislation that we have put in place and followed, and set out these carbon budgets. As a result, you have seen further reductions in carbon emissions, aggressive targets for the future, and, for instance, the first new nuclear plant for a generation at Hinkley C. We have more than doubled our capacity in renewable electricity over the past four years alone. There are a lot of good things being done. To answer your question directly—yes, I hope that we can continue with this carbon budgeting process. The only note of caution that I would add is that we have to make this decision in 2016, and my only hesitations have been that I want to see carbon reduced at the lowest cost. Sometimes we need to know whether some of the new technologies that we are being told about really will appear.
On carbon capture and storage, which is absolutely crucial if we are going to decarbonise effectively, we have put a lot of money as a Government into carbon capture and storage experiments, but we have not yet got, as I understand it, a workable system. Before we commit to the next stage, we need to know more about whether gas, particularly, can play a role in a decarbonised electricity system. Until we know more about carbon capture and storage, it is difficult to make that judgment. It is about saying, “Yes”, but there is a bit of a “Yes, but” because otherwise you commit to something that could see electricity bills go through the roof and I do not want that to happen.
Q3 Mr Yeo: Some of the new technologies address the demand side in a new way. It is possible to get consumers, particularly of electricity, to switch off their consumption at very short notice for a financial reward. That technology was not available 10 years ago and has been adopted, quite widely now, in the US. Will you ensure that we are in the lead in Europe in moving to that technology, which is extremely cost-effective in terms of actual energy bills, and is also, of course, a very cheap way of cutting greenhouse gas emissions?
Mr Cameron: The whole electricity market has completely changed. It used to be one large national grid with very large power stations, electricity generated and sent to people’s homes and businesses, available on demand. That was a one-way system. We now have the potential, as you know, of a two-way system, of a smart grid. It is not just a smart grid and electricity meters that are more interactive in people’s homes. It is the opportunity for businesses, public services and others to be able effectively to reduce their demand without any effect on the services they provide, and be financially rewarded for that. Yes, we are fully committed to that.
I would say that the difficulty is that the technology is changing so fast that what you think is the best way to do it today is suddenly replaced by a new smart piece of software that perhaps could do it automatically without organisations having to bid to reduce their demand. We are absolutely up for this, but the technology is moving very fast.
Q4 Mr Yeo: Moving on to emissions trading, the EU system has not yet driven a high enough carbon price to influence investment decisions significantly, but many of us still see this market instrument as a very effective—perhaps the most effective—way to get good value for money investment in low-carbon technology. Interestingly, it looks as though China has reached the same conclusion, because they are proposing a roll-out of a national scheme of emissions trading only two years from now. California has a system up and running as well. That opens up the possibility of linking these various systems in due course. Will you continue to ensure that Britain leads the pressure for reforming the EU system, so we can deal with this problem of surplus allowances, which has arisen because the recession was so much more savage than expected?
Secondly, do you recognise an opportunity, now that we are moving towards auctioning the allowances, on potentially what will become a very large revenue stream? Under the present guidelines, half of that is designed to go back into investment to address climate change. The remainder of that could be used to cut taxes, since it is business that will pay for the allowances through the auction system and, therefore, ultimately, the public are the customers of those businesses. That money could effectively be recycled in the form of lower direct taxes on business and individuals.
Mr Cameron: First, the question on whether we should continue to lead this reform of the emissions trading system—yes, absolutely. Because not only is it essential for Europe to meet its climate change goals, but if we do not see improvement in Europe, we could be disadvantaged here in Britain because, if there is a very big difference between our carbon price floor and the carbon price in Europe, then our businesses would be disadvantaged. Actually, you would not cut emissions; all that would happen is companies might move from Britain to somewhere else in Europe and emit there, instead of here. This is right for Europe, but it is essential that Britain lead this process of reform. We must try to stop this leakage of permits and the inappropriate use of permits that has helped to drive the price down.
On the issue of what we do with the revenues, obviously we still have a very large deficit, so that is the primary use of these sorts of resources, but I agree with the thinking that says if we want to be, and we should be, a very pro-business Government, where there are potential costs for business from reducing carbon emissions, the more we can help businesses by reducing their taxes, we should, so that is an interesting area to examine.
Q5 Mr Yeo: Finally, emissions trading started in this country, so it is a success if it is going to spread gradually, perhaps across the globe. That would be entirely consistent with the latest IPCC fifth assessment report, which introduced the concept of a maximum safe level of emissions. Do you think we can promote our solutions actively now? The same applies to carbon budgeting, which is not yet a process adopted in other countries, but in which there is clearly a lot of interest in other countries. Do you think there is an opportunity for us to, as it were, market these concepts, invented in Britain and first implemented here, to some other countries?
Mr Cameron: I think we can. My understanding is that there are some other countries that have quite accurately copied some of our legislation. I think Denmark has got a similar situation. There is only one amendment I want to see. The idea of the Climate Change Act, carbon budgeting, planning for the future, giving industry and energy investors a long-term horizon—that is all fantastic. If we could rewind and do it all over again, the thing that I would change is that you do not want underneath that too many other specific targets. We want to reduce carbon at the lowest cost. Sometimes additional targets can get in the way of that. So, when it came to negotiating the EU 2030 package, we pushed very hard for, yes, let’s have an ambitious cut in carbon for the EU as a whole, but let us not have national binding targets on renewables or energy efficiency, as has happened in the past and has been rather distortionary. So, cut carbon at the lowest cost. I think we have a good system. I am sure there are imperfections in it, but it is something we can recommend to others.
Q6 Joan Walley: Prime Minister, can we stay with Europe for a moment? It would be really helpful to know what position the Government took in the discussions that have been going on today in terms of the new package on air quality and also on resource efficiency and the circular economy. If we are going to be successful at dealing with all these energy issues, that is part of a linked-up agenda with other packages as well. Did our Government actually support those proposals?
Mr Cameron: We support the national emission ceilings directive, which sets out the maximum amount of pollutants allowed in the atmosphere. It is important for improving air quality across Europe. We have always supported sensible regulation on reducing waste and making better use of our resources. I think that what your question comes from is the potential for withdrawing a number of proposals.
Joan Walley: Exactly.
Mr Cameron: I may want to look more closely at exactly what is being proposed and come back to you. We try to support sensible measures where pollution is crossing boundaries, but we do not want to see excessive regulation. That is the balance we are trying to get right.
Q7 Joan Walley: The issue is that the decision is being made as we speak, and it would be helpful to know what position DEFRA took in terms of making sure that the wider commitments will have relevance at a national level.
On the issue of energy subsidy, we have signed up to phasing out energy subsidies for fossil fuels. In view of the fact that the EU has agreed new emission reduction targets and that there is also the prospect, especially after Lima, of a UN climate deal next year in Paris, how do you square the fact that the Governor of the Bank of England told my Committee in October that the Bank of England now acknowledges that such a UN climate deal, which limits global temperature increases to 2° C, could make the majority of our carbon reserves unburnable or stranded carbon assets? If we cannot burn the oil, why are you, especially in the Autumn Statement, encouraging more North sea oil extraction?
Mr Cameron: Okay. There are two things there. One is the issue of carbon subsidies. I would argue that we do not subsidise carbon in this country. We encourage other countries to get rid of fuel subsidies, which are distortionary and harm their economies in the long run. I think it is quite right for us to say that we do not want those subsidies in place. Sometimes people say the fact that we have a lower VAT rate on heating is a subsidy. I do not accept that. It is not a subsidy. It is just a decision we made about a tax. There is a difference between a tax and a subsidy, so I do not accept that. So that is the answer to that point.
In terms of the North sea, this is a valuable and vital industry for the UK. I believe that hydrocarbons have a role to play in the international energy system. I hope that carbon capture and storage will come about, so it may be that for many years to come gas will still play a role in our electricity supply. I believe it should. Some people say, “Let us decarbonise irrespective of whether carbon capture and storage works.” I think that that is a difficult view to take. To make the electricity system add up without any gas, you would have to have an enormous amount of highly subsidised renewables and quite a large amount of semi-subsidised nuclear, and that could lead to very expensive electricity bills for your consumers and mine. I do not want to see that. That is why I do not commit to the decarbonisation targets that people sometimes want me to until we know about carbon capture and storage.
It is right to have a care for the North sea oil industry. It is vital for our country and plays a role in giving us energy security. I believe that carbon capture and storage technology for the future will enable gas to play a part in the electricity industry.
Q8 Joan Walley: And we should not be setting an example by not using tax measures to encourage further oil extraction?
Mr Cameron: No, I think we should use tax measures to do what I would argue is environmentally sensible as well as economically sensible. It makes sense to make sure that you can get as much oil and gas out of an oilfield as possible. It also makes sense that we encourage the industry to decommission oil and gas platforms in an environmentally sensible way. The tax system has a use. Sir Malcolm Bruce would be more of an expert on this than me, perhaps. The tax system has a use in making sure we achieve those two goals. If the argument is you shouldn’t do anything to help oil recovery in the North sea by changing the tax system, I don’t accept that. I think that would be a bad idea.
Q9 Joan Walley: Okay, so let’s turn to nuclear and renewables. I think it has been established now that there is going to be a subsidy for nuclear, because of market failure. Shouldn’t you accept at least that new nuclear is being subsidised by the Government and that it is being treated differently from other renewables?
Mr Cameron: I don’t accept that. I always say this in this Committee—let me just sort of stand back and ask, what is the aim of all this? What are we trying to do? We obviously want to have reduction in carbon at the lowest cost. That is a key policy goal. At the same time, we want secure energy supplies to keep the lights on and to power our economy. Diverse energy supplies means not being too reliant on any one fuel or any one part of the world. I think that argues in favour of being active in the North sea, supporting the nuclear industry, investing in the renewable industries as they come forward, and maintaining a role for gas. That is the policy. That is the approach—to achieve our green targets but at the same time keep our economy safe and secure.
As part of that, I think it is right to have the regeneration of the British nuclear industry. If we didn’t have that, and if there is at all a suggestion that we didn’t have oil and gas, we really would be in difficulty because all we would have is renewable energy. Unfortunately the sun doesn’t shine enough in this country to make that work, I think. We have a very good balance of policy but it does include nuclear. The subsidy, if you like, is coming from the fact that we are giving a guaranteed price per kilowatt-hour into the future. It is a subsidy through the price that is offered to the nuclear power station in practice. The price is lower than we offer to, say, offshore wind, so I don’t accept that we are treating nuclear fairly compared to renewables. The price of offshore wind is about 150 per kWh; with nuclear, the deal done with Hinkley is around the 90 point. I think that—
Q10 Joan Walley: Yes, I think the Government are actually providing greater subsidy for the new nuclear because of the time span that is involved.
Mr Cameron: Sorry to interrupt you. You can’t ask for a nuclear power station to be there for a couple of years. It is a very long-term project. It is an enormous multi-billion pound construction so obviously it needs to have, we hope, a 25 or 30-year life.
Q11 Joan Walley: But the Government have actually been less helpful as far as onshore wind energy is concerned. It is the contradictions in Government policy that interest me. DECC is looking to support and bolster wind renewables but DCLG has intervened in 52 wind farm planning applications since as recently as June 2013. I just wonder what you are doing to make sure that you have a joined-up approach for these two Departments.
Mr Cameron: I think there is a very joined-up approach. It is joined up in No. 10 Downing street, I am happy to say. I take full responsibility for what we are saying about onshore wind, which is that, as with other renewable technologies, there was a subsidy in the early days to give this nascent industry the chance of success. We are heading for around 10% of our electricity coming from onshore wind. In my view, that is enough as part of a balanced energy supply. If you look at what is in the planning system—that has already had planning permission—if all of that is built out, that would get us past 10% of our electricity supply. Frankly, I think that is enough for the reasons of balance in our supply, so we should then take away the subsidy, put it back properly in the planning system and let local communities decide if they want to see any more of these go ahead.
Q12 Joan Walley: With due respect, they are not deciding, are they? It is being determined centrally by the Secretary of State.
Finally, in respect of fracking, I am not quite sure why the Government are subsidising fracking because it is not a new technology, is it?
Mr Cameron: We’re not.
Joan Walley: There are tax breaks which are far superior to other forms of energy.
Mr Cameron: I do not accept that. We are not subsidising fracking with a guaranteed pence per kilowatt hour.
Joan Walley: Fracking has got to expect—
Mr Cameron: What we are saying with this, again, is that as we stand today, there are no unconventional gas wells in Britain and yet the Bowland shale and some of the other shale reserves have the potential to provide gas for this country, perhaps for as long as 30 years. Again, it is a nascent industry. We are not giving it a subsidy. We are just saying, effectively, that there should be a tax regime on this industry that encourages it to get going and, crucially, encourages it to get going and to reward local communities. As soon as a well is dug, that is £100,000 for a local community, then 1% of the revenues—not 1% of the profit—can go to the local community, which could be as much as £10 million for a pod of wells. Plus the fact that, which I hope Members will welcome, if this happened in your area, we are saying that 100% of the business rates should be retained by the local authority. This could be £1 million or £2 million.
Q13 Joan Walley: But some have said, haven’t they, that that amounts to a bribe?
Chair: I think we need to move on.
Mr Cameron: I think what that means is that the community benefits from the development of a resource. I think that is very important if we are going to see this industry develop. We should do it in a very calm, rational, sensible and scientifically based way. But I wouldn’t argue that those are big, unfair subsidies. This industry is going to have to make a profit in order to succeed. But the way you tax a new industry I think is different to the way you tax an existing industry.
Joan Walley: But there are huge tax breaks—
Chair: Order. We need to move on to Mr Bailey.
Q14 Mr Bailey: The Green Investment Bank in its 2013-14 annual report described its work as “a key part of the UK’s efforts to achieve its legally binding environmental targets”. I don’t think anybody would dispute that. Then it goes on to say that the current projected level of investment in the UK’s green economy was “less than half the required rate”. Since then, of course, there has been the December OBR report, which shows that, of the £1 billion that the Green Investment Bank was expected to make available this financial year in new loans, only £200 million had been taken out. So you start off from the position of investing at only half the required rate and, even on the March projections, we are way down—only 20% of that rate. What do you think you can do to improve that?
Mr Cameron: There are two questions here. One is, are we attracting enough investment into our energy industries at a time when we need massive investment? We want investment into renewables; we want investment into our nuclear industry as it gets renewed; we want investment into the North sea, to recover as much as we can. We need a smart grid; we need meters. On that question I would argue that, first, there has been an enormous uplift in investment under this Government. I think more has been invested in our electricity capacity in the last four years than in the previous two Parliaments. But also, I regularly get round to No. 10 the big energy investors and other financial investors. I had a meeting like this the other day and I asked them, “Is there any other country in the world that has as long-term an open planning system for you to invest in?” They basically said, “No; if you are an energy investor and you want to get involved in providing this energy capacity in Britain, this is a great place to invest”. So I think on that front, we are doing well.
On the Green Investment Bank—which is a world first, and I am very proud of it—we gave it £3.8 billion of seed capital. It hasn’t spent that money yet. I think it has got off to a very good start, but I think it is the right start that it should be a seed investment arm, levering in money from the private sector, rather than a lending arm in its early days. That can change, as we have said, but right now it hasn’t run out of money and it has plenty more seed investment to do.
Q15 Mr Bailey: No, I agree: it has not run out of money and the problem is that it can’t seem to spend the money. What do you think can be done to improve that?
Mr Cameron: It is early days. I think it’s spent £1.6 billion of its £3.8 billion. So far, it has levered in £3 from the private sector for every £1 it has spent. I am sure you’ll see it ramp up. I am confident that it is well organised, well led and well capitalised and there are plenty of opportunities. In answer to your question, I will go away and look to see if there are any particular problems or blockages, but the message I get not just from energy companies but from overseas investors, banks, financial institutions and pension funds is that they’re hugely positive about investing in Britain. I will give you one example. In terms of offshore wind, this is now the biggest market anywhere in the world. That says something about the system we have established.
Q16 Mr Bailey: Yes, but on the surface it would appear that if only one fifth of the projected lending capacity of this financial year is being used, there is a blockage somewhere.
Mr Cameron: Given that we have said that we want it to start borrowing as we see our deficit and debt situation ease, and the fact that it has spent £1.6 billion of its £3.8 billion of seed capital and it is only in its first year of operation, I do not sense that there is a problem. Again, I will look and see if there is a better answer to what you are saying.
Q17 Mr Bailey: If I can pursue that a bit further, it may be premature to actually advocate increasing the capacity of the bank to lend by allowing it to borrow on the open market and to invest as a conventional bank does, but if we are to reach the environmental targets, at some stage, unless we are going to plough more money in, that is going to be necessary. At the moment, borrowing powers would not be given until the public sector debt was falling. Of course, the proposal, or the estimated time for when this would become operable, has been postponed because of the public sector finances. Would you consider bringing it forward if it became appropriate to do so in order to reach those targets?
Mr Cameron: I will certainly look at it, but I don’t think it is necessary. If it has spent a third of the capital it has got, and it keeps doing that every year for the next three years, by the time we get to the position where, under the Conservative plans, we will be running a small surplus and so debt will be falling, it will be a happy coincidence that the two things should miraculously come together.
Q18 Mr Bailey: I remember the Conservative plans at the beginning of the Government.
Mr Cameron: Well, deficit as a share of GDP is down by half. I think it is a mistake to think that what is required is another lending institution. There are plenty of lending institutions out there. I think the value of the Green Investment Bank is principally as the first investor, the one that can take some of the riskier parts of the investment. Then there are plenty of pension funds and others that are desperate to invest in energy. Remember, with our system, with the levy control framework, people can see how much money there is out there to support renewable investment. If you build a renewable energy enterprise, because of the way the renewable obligations have worked, you know what you are going to get in terms of returns for the coming years.
Chair: We need to move on to Sir Malcolm Bruce.
Q19 Sir Malcolm Bruce: I welcome your acknowledgement that volatility in energy prices and the tax system do interact, something the ex-First Minister of Scotland does not seem to understand.
Mr Cameron: If we had devolved oil, it would have had an interesting effect.
Q20 Sir Malcolm Bruce: Indeed.
I want to talk about the international climate fund. The cause of climate change has been industrial development in the developed world. The impact, although it has been global, has been very heavily on the developing world. You have been a great champion of the post-2015 sustainable development framework, so how do you see climate change as part of that framework?
Mr Cameron: It absolutely must be part of it. My worry about the post-2015 goals is that they will get too complicated, too diffuse and no one will be able remember what it is all about. I think Ban Ki-moon has done a good job recently in trying to narrow down the fact that this is about people, prosperity and climate, and trying to keep this simple and straightforward. Climate absolutely must be a part of it. We won’t tackle global poverty unless we tackle climate change. The two go hand in hand, so it has a very clear part in it.
Q21 Sir Malcolm Bruce: In that context, do you see mitigation or adaptation as having the greater emphasis? Do you think there is any particular UK interest in which one it is? Do you think, given that the poorest countries have the least ability to respond, it should be targeted on the poorest countries, or should all countries—certainly all developing countries—be able to access it?
Mr Cameron: There are no absolutely hard and fast answers to those. We should be looking at both mitigation and adaptation. There are some countries—small island states, for instance—that are feeling the effects of climate change already. Adaptation may be more helpful to them, but we should do both. The poorest countries are those with the least capacity to do anything, so they need the most help. This argument always goes on in the aid world: do you help the poorest people wherever they are, or do you help the poorest people in the poorest countries? I always tend to favour the poorest people in the poorest countries because those countries do not have the capacity to take action, whereas developing countries can access finance and do more things for their people. But you shouldn’t rule out using those funds to help other countries.
There is a balance of things. We should try to get the maximum value for money when we do this, but we have made good, generous offers of support.
Q22 Sir Malcolm Bruce: What about the balance between adaptation and mitigation?
Mr Cameron: I can’t give you a percentage. I think it’s both, and it should depend on where the greatest return can be found.
Q23 Sir Malcolm Bruce: But, in your view, the fund is predominantly for the benefit of the poorer countries.
Mr Cameron: In my view, yes. There is always an argument about this, but generally speaking—it is the same with aid spending—we should focus on the states that have the least capacity to help themselves. In traditional aid, that means conflict-hit states and the poorer states that cannot generate revenues themselves.
Q24 Sir Malcolm Bruce: You know how this debate has progressed. The green climate fund was supposed to be provided from new and additional funding—in other words, in addition to aid. I appreciate that we have just delivered 0.7%, so this is asking a lot, but you said that the £720 million pledged to the green climate fund will count toward ODA, so it isn’t really new and additional, is it? It is simply taken out of our existing aid budget.
Mr Cameron: I don’t really accept that. We have an aid budget, and we have said that some of it can be used for climate finance. We have set aside money in our international climate fund for that, and some of that money is going to the green climate fund. You can argue about whether it is new money or not, but it is money that was not in the green climate fund and is now. I would argue that, under our umbrella of 0.7%, that money is going for that purpose.
Q25 Sir Malcolm Bruce: The UK’s own objectives on development assistance are very well targeted, but that is not true of all the partners—the EU in particular. What is to stop the money we put into the climate fund being used, for example, to support wind turbines in Turkey rather than schools in Somalia or elsewhere?
Mr Cameron: If you are arguing that we spend aid money better than the EU, I would probably agree with you. In order to reach the 0.7% target, we include what we spend bilaterally, what the EU spends and things such as the donations we make to the World Food Programme and others. Obviously, we should work as hard as we can to ensure that any fund we give money to does not waste that money and that the money is spent in the right way. The contribution that we made to the green climate fund is commensurate with that.
Q26 Sir Malcolm Bruce: May I suggest that we could use our leverage even more effectively if we bargained with other countries and challenged them to match what we are doing? The original target for the green fund was $15 billion; it was reduced to $10 billion and the UK pledged 12% of that. Doesn’t that make it easy for other countries to sit back and say, “The UK does the heavy lifting,” as we have done, for example, in the Middle East and elsewhere? Wouldn’t it be better for us to work with other countries and say, “We are prepared to put money in, but why don’t you match us so we lever more into the fund?”
Mr Cameron: I was criticised for holding back on the green climate fund because I wanted to do exactly that. I went to Ban Ki-moon’s conference in September and said that I would try to deliver an EU deal on climate change that was very positive and contained big carbon reductions, but I held back from making a contribution at the green climate fund. I said, “I want to see the colour of other people’s money before I put our money in.”
It is a mixture, frankly. Sometimes it is the right decision to lead and to lever in other moneys. Sometimes you want to hold back and see the colour of other people’s money. Sometimes—we did this for things such as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation—it is best to say, “We will put in this much money, but only if it is matched by others.” That can work to lever in money, because then every pound that someone else gives is effectively worth £2, because you are adding one yourself. We should use all those methods, but we should never be a soft touch. If that is what you are saying, I agree with you.
Q27 Sir Malcolm Bruce: I welcome that. An EU official described the discussions at the G20 in Brisbane as “trench warfare”, and we know that the new Australian Government are in denial about climate change. Is there any hope of getting them to deliver more, or do you think that Australia is doing enough, as they claim?
Mr Cameron: I think there is a hope of their doing more. Look, it is a sovereign country that has to make its own decisions. There has obviously been a big debate in Australia about carbon taxes, prices and the rest of it. My sense is that they don’t want to be the backmarker, and nor should they be. It’s a great country. It is clearly affected by climate change, and I believe that they will do more. We should recognise that Europe is doing its bit. Now that we have done this 2030 deal, we have done what is necessary for Europe to show real leadership and to help secure these Paris talks.
Q28 Sir Malcolm Bruce: Just to finish that—you don’t want to be the backmarker. America used to be the backmarker but, for their own reasons, they have moved. The truth is that Australia is the backmarker at the moment.
Mr Cameron: I don’t think they will want to be, and I think they will feel pressure and want to do more. We should try to encourage them to do it in their own way, rather than say that there is some preordained route they have to follow. America has had a very interesting path. It has managed to cut its carbon emissions and, not least because of the shale revolution, it is burning less coal. That was a slightly unexpected bonus that has enabled the President to make some quite interesting commitments on climate change which are being delivered through all sorts of executive motion rather than through Congress. The aim of what we are doing—stand back—is to try to get a global deal to keep below 2°. Every country has its own pressures and politics and we need to help everyone to get to the right conclusion.
Q29 Andrew Miller: Many of my constituents work in high-value jobs where energy is used at an extremely high level. Yet, at the same time, we are trying to persuade the public that we have to drive down our energy use. These are difficult messages to communicate. Just yesterday, IGas announced that it had identified a 1,400-foot shale section in my constituency. Clearly, the exploitation of that will generate futures for those high-value jobs. On the one hand, there are protesters opposing the shale development and, on the other, parts of the community desperately need those energy prices to come down. Do you agree, Prime Minister, with Sir Mark Walport, who says that “science isn’t finished until it is communicated”?
Mr Cameron: Definitely. Maybe I am unfair on our scientists, but I spend a lot of time saying to them, as I think you heard me say at the parliamentary meeting the other day, that I value the work they do. There are some myths that we need to get over: the myth that fracking would be a disaster for the environment; the myth that GM technology means that we are all going to be eating fish-flavoured tomatoes; the myth that nuclear power is inherently unstable and we should not pursue it. Those are myths that we need to confront if we are going to be a successful science-based country in the future. As you say, if the scientists agree with those things, we need them to get out and communicate it because they are a lot more trusted than some of us.
Q30 Andrew Miller: But we also need a consistent message from Government. On climate change, there have been one or two members of Government who have been a little off-piste to say the least.
Mr Cameron: The Government have a very clear policy, which is to be a very green Government and, we argue, the greenest Government ever because of all the steps we have taken to push for this deal in Europe, which we have done. I very strongly believe in cutting carbon at the lowest cost. There are sometimes some disagreements within the coalition—not huge ones—but I believe in cutting carbon at lowest cost and also taking the public with us. This is why, on onshore wind farms, I think the public are frankly fed up with so many wind farms being built that won’t be necessary now we have reached some 10% of our electricity use by onshore wind. We don’t need to have more of these subsidised onshore, so let’s get rid of the subsidy, put them into the planning system and if they can make their case, they will make their case. I suspect that they won’t and that we will have a reasonable amount of onshore wind. We will have safer electricity supplies as a result, but enough is enough. I am very clear about that.
Q31 Andrew Miller: Let me go back to the role of the government chief scientists—in the plural—in each Department. I have asked you before, Prime Minister, about the need for them to be able to take a strong and independent role, and to advise their Ministers bluntly about what the science says. On issues such as climate change, it therefore becomes vital that the Government come out with a consistent message because the science is so overwhelmingly in one direction.
Mr Cameron: Yes, I agree. I think that the Government do have a consistent message. The fact that we now have scientists in each Department is a very strong thing. I would urge them to speak robustly to their Ministers and point out scientific risks and opportunities. I hope they feel as though they’re part of the prosperity agenda for Britain, because we don’t just want to have policy that is driven by science; we want science to be booming in Britain. So they have that role to play as well. As I have said to this Committee before, seeing threats down the line is important—for instance, on ash dieback, we now have to assess how bad that has been—but sometimes things have happened about which I don’t think we have had significant enough scientific warnings. They should be responsible for some of the early warning systems, too.
Q32 Andrew Miller: One of the reasons why I am very keen to see a consistent message is that this feeds into the different agendas of some of the media. We have had some real problems of false balance being presented on some scientific stories, nothing more so than in the case of climate change. It makes it so easy for a journalist—or editor, rather—simply to pull back and say, “Minister A said this; Minister B said that.” Therefore it justifies creating a kind of false balance, where you wouldn’t do it in party politics—
Chair: Are we taking some steps to prevent this happening?
Mr Cameron: I think it is right to have a debate; I don’t think we should be frightened of that. Often through argument and debate these—
Q33 Andrew Miller: I do not want to shut down the debate. I want the Government to take a consistent line, based on evidence.
Mr Cameron: Yes. Amen to that.
Chair: We are sending over that message.
Q34 Miss McIntosh: Prime Minister, I was pleased that you said that deep-well fracking hydraulically for shale gas is a new industry because the only time it’s ever taken place it went disastrously wrong. Will you put an end to the self-monitoring through the current regulations of fracking companies?
Mr Cameron: Sorry—
Miss McIntosh: If I can give you the example of the Lancashire experience, they went through a 2.3 tremor on the Richter scale and they carried on fracking. I know that that has now been looked at. Should we not look into a precautionary principle, until we have actually eliminated any environmental difficulty, any earthquake going forward or any groundwater?
Mr Cameron: I think we have now got a good regime in place.
Q35 Miss McIntosh: So you will rule out any self-monitoring by any fracking company, anywhere in the country.
Mr Cameron: DECC has put in place a traffic light system to ensure that the seismicity induced by fracking is minimised at very low levels that would be neither dangerous nor disruptive. Anything above a shock of 0.5 ML would result in operator shutdown, and 0.5 ML is less than a lorry driving by a house. So, again, it is good that we have a debate about fracking; I hope we have a sensible debate. When we look at the e-mails we get from constituents and lobby groups, there is a level of concern that I recognise—I am a politician and I want to answer those concerns—but I have looked myself at some of the mythbusting that needs to be done, and I hope that we can encourage the media to bust some of these myths and look rationally at what is being proposed.
Q36 Miss McIntosh: Exactly, so we should not rely on their self-reporting on what the tremors are. We should actually have the HSE or the Environment Agency going in and conducting these tests after each frack.
Mr Cameron: But we have a traffic light system.
Q37 Miss McIntosh: So that has changed since the experience at Fylde in Lancashire.
Mr Cameron: That was put in place after what happened at Fylde.
Chair: You might need to write to us to clarify whether this meets the point that Miss McIntosh is making.
Q38 Miss McIntosh: What I am worried about, and what the public are worried about, is the self-monitoring of the regulatory system.
The Environment Agency has had a severe reduction in its capacity, staffing and financial resources. Can you give us a commitment that that will not impact on both its licensing and permit regime, and the monitoring of any fracking?
Mr Cameron: I don’t see why it should. From everything I have heard about this, there are an enormous amount of regulatory hurdles that companies have to go through. Arguably, we are making it too complicated. We have got licensing processes, planning processes, environmental processes and a whole series of licences. That was why we set up the Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil—to try to help companies through this. In the end, this debate will be won or lost only when there are some wells in Britain carrying out unconventional gas recovery and people can see, as I believe, that this can be done cleanly, without environmental problems, and that it can have benefits for the community. Interestingly, it is not just benefits for our industry in the potential to have secure gas, as there may also be some environmental benefits, because of course we will go on using gas in our homes for cooking and heating, and if that gas has been produced here, without having to be brought half way round the world, that is actually good for the environment.
Q39 Miss McIntosh: But, Prime Minister, you are asking the public to take an awful lot on trust.
Mr Cameron: No, I am not asking them to take it on trust.
Miss McIntosh: You just said yourself that we need to carry the public with us, so why was the Shale Gas Rural Economy Impacts report so heavily redacted as published by DEFRA? Will you ensure that an unredacted copy, particularly in relation to the social impacts and impacts on housing, and to safety, such as flares, will be posted on the website at the earliest opportunity, before any fracking licences are granted?
Mr Cameron: I am very happy to look at that. To clarify, on self-monitoring seismic activity, that does happen, but companies lose their permits if they make any mistakes and get shut down. The HSE does spot checks, and this is the same system that has been used elsewhere. I am happy to look at all these detailed questions about reports and the rest of it. From everything I have seen, I do not believe that this is an industry in danger of under-regulation.
Q40 Miss McIntosh: With the greatest respect, Prime Minister, it is not coming to Witney any time soon.
Mr Cameron: I would be very happy if it did.
Miss McIntosh: May I just ask, in terms of ground—
Mr Cameron: It is quite interesting, because I have been to visit onshore oil. Remember we have had 14 rounds of onshore oil licensing in the UK. I went to see on the Nottinghamshire-Lincolnshire border conventional oil and gas recovery. It is remarkable just how small those pods are.
Q41 Miss McIntosh: I entirely agree, but that is conventional.
Mr Cameron: Yes, but the shale pods will actually be smaller than those.
Q42 Miss McIntosh: But it will be a mile underground and horizontal, as opposed to vertical, and no one has actually tested this before.
Prime Minister, in the list on the website about developing onshore shale gas and oil, it does not say that water companies have to be consulted. Is there only an expectation that water companies will be consulted, or is it an obligation? With regard to drinking water, the Select Committee got some compelling evidence that we can rely on drinking water, but groundwater—
Mr Cameron: With the planning system, everyone is consulted.
Miss McIntosh: It does not say that.
Mr Cameron: As you know, Anne, in planning, everyone is able to put their point across. It is worth making the point—I was quite surprised when I read it—that while fracking does need a lot of water, one well uses less in its life than a golf course uses in a month. Interesting fact.
Q43 Miss McIntosh: But if the water company is not consulted, Prime Minister, no one knows at what point the chemicals are taken out of the water, or about the groundwater pipes transporting the contaminated water to some kind of well for storage. That might be a 20-mile round trip and, as you know, those pipes can freeze in north Yorkshire, because we had this problem involving massive fines four years ago. There are all sorts of potential dangers. It will be too late after the licence has been granted.
Mr Cameron: The point I would make is that there is an MOU with industry and water companies already to consult early on—I think that answers that point. Any of the actions that you are describing would be likely to be illegal and companies would immediately lose their licence.
We have all got to be clear. My view is that if shale gas can be recovered safely in an environmentally protected way and if local communities can benefit, we should do it. Part of the problem—again; stand back and think of the big argument—is I frankly find that some of the green groups are anti shale gas for the simple reason that it is gas. It is a carbon-based fuel, and they cannot bear the thought of another carbon-based fuel rearing its ugly head. They are opposing it with a religiosity that is frankly wrong. My view is: let’s be practical, sensible people. If we can recover gas onshore in a safe way, let’s do it; if we can’t, obviously we can’t.
Chair: We need to move on.
Q44 Miss McIntosh: Last question. Prime Minister, will you insist that DEFRA publish unredacted the Shale Gas Rural Economy Impacts report?
Mr Cameron: I don’t know because I haven’t seen it. I will go and have a look at it, and I will give you my answer.
Q45 Miss McIntosh: I will give you my copy and show you 63 redactions in 12 pages.
And will a full environmental impact assessment not just be done, but be published for each application?
Mr Cameron: I will look. You are asking me a lot of points.
Chair: You can come back to us on those.
Mr Cameron: The industry has already voluntarily committed that any fracked site will have a full environmental impact assessment.
Q46 Miss McIntosh: And that will be published.
Mr Cameron: All these things are published, aren’t they, because that is the way our planning system works?
Q47 Miss McIntosh: Redacted?
Mr Cameron: It doesn’t sound as though you are very keen on shale gas—that is the conclusion I am taking away.
Miss McIntosh: I am open to persuasion.
Mr Cameron: You don’t sound very open to persuasion, but I will make it my lifetime’s work to try to persuade you.
Q48 David T. C. Davies: Prime Minister, I am somewhat more keen on it myself, but is there not a danger that we might over-promise the number of jobs, especially local jobs, that could be created? We have to make sure we do not raise expectations and then disappoint people afterwards.
Mr Cameron: You are absolutely right. The figure has been given of 64,500 jobs. I don’t think anyone can be certain what would happen, but the way these estimates are come by is normally relatively cautious and conservative. If you look at what has happened in America, it is many, many more jobs. I think we should be examining this industry and seeing what it can do for British jobs, British communities, British energy efficiency and British energy security. My objection to the green groups is that they do not want to hear any of those arguments, because they cannot bear another carbon-based energy source coming on stream—even if you could, through carbon capture and storage, capture the carbon when you are burning it.
Q49 David T. C. Davies: We are in danger of agreeing very much on environmental issues, which is quite a surprise for me.
Can I just ask you again about the employment issue? Clearly, the number of jobs depends on the amount of gas that is recoverable, so what can you do as a Government to speed up the process of exploration?
Mr Cameron: We have tried to do that in a number of ways: by setting up the Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil; and by trying to make sure that the number of permits and planning permissions a company needs is not too onerous—it has to go through all the things that Anne was talking about in terms of water, chemicals, planning and all the rest of it. But I think we also need to try to make sure that the industry has the skills base it requires, which is why we are setting up the new national college for onshore oil and gas, which is going to be headquartered in Blackpool. So we can do all these things, but it is only when the first few pods are up and running, when people have something to visit, see and look at, and when you can talk to the local communities about how they feel about it, that the industry will really get going.
Q50 David T. C. Davies: When do you think that might be? How many years away is that?
Mr Cameron: I am hopeful that the first wells will be dug next year—I am very hopeful that will happen. It really does need to happen; we have been talking about this for long enough.
Q51 David T. C. Davies: And then, perhaps, commercially saleable gas coming out a year or two after that.
Mr Cameron: The current way energy markets are moving will have an impact, but we hope this industry will, once the first wells are dug, start to grow quite rapidly.
Q52 David T. C. Davies: Even those of us who are a lot more enthusiastic about the possibilities have some concerns about national parks, certainly until the full environmental impacts have been seen. Could you say anything about the circumstances in which you might support fracking in national parks?
Mr Cameron: I think we have said only in exceptional circumstances. We have not really defined what they would be but, clearly, there is a much higher threshold to be crossed. I was very struck when I went to see the conventional fields in Nottinghamshire and talked to the neighbours and the businesses there, who said, “Now this has been here for 10 or 20 years, we are very relaxed. We know what there is in terms of road movements. We can see the scale of what the operation is. We have reassurance about the environment.” It is only when that happens that I think this industry will be seen in a different light. At the moment, I think we all know from our constituency mailbags that people are very worried about it, and I think they will go on being worried about it until they can see that there is much less to worry about than they thought.
Chair: Taking the public with you on fracking in national parks sounds pretty much of a challenge.
Q53 Mr Yeo: I should draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which includes interests in the energy industry, but not in shale gas or fracking.
I hope your answer to Anne, Prime Minister, did not herald a forthcoming ban on golf courses.
Mr Cameron: No, I was just making the point—
Mr Yeo: My Committee actually published its first report urging the exploitation of shale gas reserves almost four years ago, before some of today’s enthusiasts—and, indeed, opponents—had even heard of it. Just to put the concern about earth tremors in context, those experienced in Lancashire when Cuadrilla was drilling there were not great enough to be felt on the surface and were considerably less than the tremors recorded at least three times a week from old coal-mining workings, so I don’t think they are all that serious a source for anxiety.
Shale gas could help Britain to substitute its current dependence on imports with domestically exploited reserves. You said that we need to get a few pods out there so that people can see them in operation and will not be afraid of them. Do you agree that one way to kick-start the process and achieve exactly that might be to extend your really quite generous incentives a little further for a limited period? Anyone who agreed to allow shale gas to start being exploited in their community in, say, the next three or four years would then get extra incentives. In that way, you would have quite a number of demonstration operations, as it were, up and running quite soon. That might then allow the much larger scale roll-out in due course.
Mr Cameron: I am open to suggestions. We came up with £100,000, the 1% payment and 100% retention of business rates, and the Chancellor has now added in a sovereign wealth fund for the north of England. I think that those are all good ideas. I am happy to consider more, but I do not think that the problem at the moment is local communities saying, “If only there was another 1%, we would go for this.” I think the problem is that people are worried and uncertain about it. Only when you get a community that is happy with what has happened, and when that is benefiting them, will others say, “Hold on, there are advantages here and there aren’t the disadvantages, so we’ll go for it.” On areas of outstanding natural beauty, it is worth pointing out that the Wytch Farm onshore oil well has been in such an area for many, many years.
Q54 Chair: We must turn to radicalisation, and we do so in the context of the events that you referred to earlier, Prime Minister.
You set up and chair the extremism taskforce. What has it been doing since it produced its report in November, and how are you monitoring what it is doing?
Mr Cameron: It is worth reminding ourselves again what this was all about. The Government have a very clear policy on tackling extremism, but I felt that in light of the appalling murder of Lee Rigby, it was right to bring people together and to think, “Right, are we actually driving through the process of tackling extremism via every part of national endeavour?”—so in prisons, schools and universities, and by helping moderates to drive extremists out of mosques or community centres. We got together and had a whole series of recommendations, many of which have been put into force. Some of them are being put into force in the counter-terrorism Bill that is now in front of the House.
There will be subsequent meetings of the extremism taskforce to see if there are more things we need to do or more things we need to check up on. It is quite like the way I work. I sometimes think it is best to bring together Ministers with a very clear agenda and say, “Right, this is the work programme we are going to do. We are going to discuss it, we are going to action it and we are then going to report back on it, and then we will meet again to see how we have done.” It is working like that. Of the committees I have set up and the things I have tried to get done, I would say that this was moderately successful.
Q55 Keith Vaz: How much of a priority is this for you personally? If you compare your agenda on the day you started as Prime Minister and that on day 1,684 of your premiership, which is today, is it occupying more or less of your time? Is it more serious than the economy? Where is it in your list of priorities?
Mr Cameron: I would say that I have twin priorities: economic security and national security. This falls into the national security element. I know it is the first sign of madness to say, “If you read one of my speeches”—it is something that some of my colleagues sometimes say to me—but if you go back to when I was in opposition, I made a lot of speeches about the problems of Islamist extremist terrorism and about confronting the ideology underneath it. I particularly remember making a speech on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 in 2006, which I think is still very relevant today. In that speech, I said that this is, as I put it today, a generational struggle. This is a perversion of Islam and it needs to be confronted and defeated with every tool in the toolbox, from military action at one end all the way through to persuasion and diverting people away from this path at the other end, and with everything in between. Regrettably, I am spending more time on it than I hoped because the problem we face is still very serious.
Q56 Keith Vaz: And despite all the speeches—I have read some of them, in particular the one you made in Geneva on Islamophobia and the need to challenge the extremists—how close are we to that Sydney-style attack in our country?
Mr Cameron: I think the threat that we face definitely includes those sorts of self-starting, sometimes quite random attacks that could happen at any moment in Britain. Over the past few months, a series of plots have been detected and prevented that would have seen police officers or other authority figures murdered in cold blood, as Lee Rigby was murdered in cold blood. It is thanks to the brilliance of our policing and security services that these things have been prevented, but we cannot count on them to prevent it every time because it is one thing understanding the terror networks coming out of Pakistan or Afghanistan, or Iraq and Syria, and trying to monitor what they are doing, who is going and who is returning. That is one thing, but if people are self-radicalised, often on the internet, and then suddenly do appalling things, that is much more difficult to prevent.
Q57 Keith Vaz: I want to ask you about what you call the dark net, but just look at the Prevent agenda. Despite billions being spent over the past 10 years under successive Governments, it appears that there are still more people being radicalised. What has gone wrong with the agenda that has not enabled us to engage with communities? Are we still just using authority figures? Obviously speeches by Prime Ministers and imams in mosques are very useful, but we do not seem to be able to get into the DNA of the community to try to identify those lone wolves and the others who are coming out and trying to undermine our way of life. How do we get to them? That is the issue, isn’t it?
Mr Cameron: It is, but we have to do everything. I would argue that the build up of the security and intelligence services has made a difference, and that counter-terrorism legislation and modern policing practice has helped. Prevent, the programme whereby you are diverting people away from terror, has helped. If you are saying that we are not doing enough to challenge the underlying narrative that has been the starting point for some people to be seduced from a moderate-Islam approach to something that accepts the narrative of the extremists, I agree with that.
Q58 Keith Vaz: Because we don’t seem to be able to get to that tipping point. What takes someone who is a law-abiding young man or woman suddenly to go off—
Mr Cameron: We are doing a lot of work there. I agree, but a lot of work is being done with imams, mosques, leaders in Muslim communities and social media to do just that. The Australian social media response—“I’ll ride with you”—is incredibly powerful. People came forward very, very quickly. When Lee Rigby was murdered in Britain, the same thing happened here. There is not one single act. We need people across all communities—perhaps particularly with the Muslim community, because these extremists are using words and phrases from Islam to justify what they do; it is a total perversion of Islam, which is a religion of peace—and everyone to rise up and say, “These people are not speaking in my name.” Sometime people can feel like they are being targeted when I ask them to do that. That is not my intention; it is just that we have to drive these people out of our communities and out of national life. That means confronting, and this is the difficult bit. Sometimes people say, “Okay, of course we’re against the extremist terrorists,” but we also need to oppose the world view that says that all Muslims are victims, that 9/11 was a Jewish plot, and that the world conspired. Sometimes people accept the bit of the narrative saying, “Of course, violence is wrong,” but that is not good enough. I am afraid that we have to deal with that bit of the narrative, too.
Q59 Keith Vaz: We do, and I represent 15,000 Muslims from Leicester East. You have attended so many functions and I have been there with you when you make the point about representing a multicultural country. This is a tiny minority of people.
Mr Cameron: It is a minority of a minority of minority, as it were.
Q60 Keith Vaz: Indeed, but what do you say to a mother like Majida Sarwar, who tries to help the police and tells them what her son Yusuf was doing; whose son was then jailed for 12 years and says, “I feel betrayed by the police”? Do you not think that that kind of sentence sends the wrong message to parents as worried as you and I would be if our children suddenly reached that tipping point? How do we tell them that they can co-operate with the police and the security services and not then risk not seeing their children again?
Mr Cameron: I wasn’t in the court room, so I didn’t hear the arguments and don’t know about the specific case. It is very difficult to interpose yourself when you hear about it on the radio and read a bit about it. We have to trust our policing and justice system to deliver just results. That is what it is there for. If you are asking whether, when people are returning from Syria and when young people are in danger of radicalisation, we should use all the powers that we have to try to pull them away from that side using persuasion and the Channel programme and the Prevent programme, as well as the harder end, such as arrest and prosecution for encouraging terrorism, then yes, of course we should. From everything that I see of the police and intelligence services’ work, they do that a lot.
Q61 Keith Vaz: But do you see the message that goes out? Parents may want to stop people going and stop people being radicalised, but if that means that they don’t see their children for 10 years, they might not want to do that. We might need to find another way.
Mr Cameron: But as you know, Keith, if you spend time with the police and intelligence services, they can give you countless examples of people who have been pulled away from the path of radicalisation and violence and as a result are making a contribution to our community. We of course need to triage people in the right way, but at the end of the day we have to allow the police and the prosecuting system to work to tackle those who are threatening terror.
Q62 Keith Vaz: On schools, you talked about the dark net in relation to child abuse, but as far as terrorism is concerned, the dark net is much darker and deeper. There are 50,000 terrorist sites and 300 terrorist forums that we know of. It is used as a method of financing terrorist groups. The internet companies came to the seminar that you held at No. 10 and promised to do various things. Should we not be doing so much more regarding the internet? Have you looked at the possibility of setting up an equivalent of the Internet Watch Foundation for those who want to report such terrorist sites? Isn’t this all happening far too late?
Mr Cameron: My answer to that is that we are doing all of those things. If you stand back a bit, it is interesting that last week, the internet companies made some massive steps forward when it comes to pictures of child abuse online. A year ago, I said to them, “You have to stop allowing searches for revolting terms when people are looking for child abuse images.” They said that that was impossible and goes against free speech. To be fair to them, they have now said that they won’t complete searches for more than 10,000 terms. The amount of searches on Google is down by 80%.
Q63 Keith Vaz: But can they do that for terrorism?
Mr Cameron: Exactly. They can, and we need to encourage them to do that. I think they’ve made bigger steps on the child abuse front than they have so far on the terrorism front, but my argument is that the two are different, but similar, and that we should argue that they should do that. They are taking down more images and helping to—we do have organisations such as the Research Information and Communications Unit, which does work to take down a lot of terrorist images and websites, and we need to keep doing that. We have come a long way in the past couple of years on this, but there is more to do.
Q64 Keith Vaz: Finally from me on schools, is there evidence of radicalisation in schools? We know about the Trojan horse schools and the problems in Birmingham, but is it a worry to you or is it being contained by those in education and others?
Mr Cameron: It is a worry, and it would not be right to say that this was purely confined to Birmingham. There was obviously a problem in Birmingham, which Peter Clarke has properly examined in his report. We have had instances of schools in other parts of the country that have had backing from groups that have views on the extremism narrative that I think are completely inappropriate, and we have had to act in some cases.
Do we have in place all the necessary powers? If we can get everyone to understand what it is that we are fighting against, this new duty that we are passing in this legislation in the House at the moment, which is that all public bodies have a duty to prevent radicalisation and extremism, will be a powerful thing, because it is not just about areas of the country or institutions that are high risk; it is about everybody. It is about schools, universities, colleges. Sometimes some of these organisations have frankly been a bit too relaxed about it. Some colleges have thought, “Well, of course there is a bit of extremist preaching going on, but that’s free speech. Hey—what’s the problem?” Actually, it is a problem and that is why everyone now has this duty. I think we are making progress.
Chair: We are quite close to a possible vote, but I will ask Mr Stewart to come in at this point. If we don’t have the vote soon, I will go back to Mr Vaz later.
Q65 Rory Stewart: Prime Minister, to what extent is degrading and destroying ISIL in Iraq and Syria a priority for you?
Mr Cameron: It is a priority. The way I put it is that the problem is the Islamist extremist narrative and the backing it gives to terrorism. We saw that with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. We see it with AQM in Mali; we see it with al-Shabaab in Somalia; but its biggest manifestation is ISIL in Iraq and Syria.
The difference this time is that this is not a terrorist body that has found a willing host. It is a terrorist body that runs a state, has oil revenues, has weapons, has land, has money and all the rest of it. So we will not deal with the problem of the Islamist extremist terrorist narrative unless we quite aggressively deal with ISIL. So it is a priority.
We have just had a National Security Council meeting about it this afternoon, to see what more we can do. There is no short-term easy answer. I know you have just been to Iraq yourself. We need a long-term multi-year strategy to help the regional players and the key countries to eradicate this organisation; but it can be done.
Q66 Rory Stewart: Prime Minister, how are we going to make sure in a big coalition that we do not end up just saying, “Well, this is an Iraqi lead and the United States are doing a great deal, and we are just a small part in the coalition; we will do a tiny part but we are not really going to take a big view on the mission or the strategy”? How are we going to make sure we grip this?
Mr Cameron: First, I challenge the idea we are not doing very much. If you look at the kinetic action—the bombing that has been done of ISIL positions in Iraq—I think Britain has taken the second largest role, after the United States. I think we have done five times as much as, for instance, France.
I would put it in a very simple way, which is: this alliance has a strategy which is very simple and straightforward, which is, we want a Government in Iraq and a Government in Syria that are capable of representing all of the people of those countries, and have security forces that can keep the security and stability of those countries, and not allow terrorists to thrive. That is the strategy. That is the aim.
If you ask me how long is that going to take, it could take many years, so the question we have to ask ourselves is: what is it Britain can do to make the realisation of this strategy more likely; and what are those things we should avoid doing that make the realisation of the strategy less likely?
My test for the National Security Council is what, in terms of military resources, can help the strategy to be delivered; what, in terms of political surge, can help to create an Iraqi Government that does all the things that Prime Minister Abadi says he wants to do; what can we do to help put pressure on the Syrian regime for a proper transition, so we get a different Government? That is the framework we should approach this through. We cannot do all of everything. We shouldn’t just try to do a bit of everything. We should work out: where does Britain have some expertise and some heft that we can bring to bear? That is where I am sure your Committee’s work will be very helpful.
Q67 Chair: I want to take up the theme, looking at the situation in prisons. If you get a lot of returnees from Syria who finish up in our prison system because we prosecute them, are we going to add to a problem of radicalisation in prison; and is it a real problem? Have we got evidence that people became radicalised in prison?
Mr Cameron: I think the answer to that is yes. My understanding is that there are several hundred people in prison who were not arrested or convicted of terrorist offences, but who none the less have been radicalised with an extremist Islamist narrative. So it is a problem. This is not something that is being invented.
I think it would be wrong to say that all over the country prison imams are doing a terrible job. They are not. They are doing a great job and we need to celebrate the ones with the best practice. We need to work out which programmes of deradicalisation are working best, and roll them out in all our prisons; but yes, it is a problem.
It is not surprising that it is a problem, because this problem of the seductive Islamist extremist terrorist narrative—we see it has had an effect in some universities and some colleges, and some countries. This is what we are up against. It is incredibly regrettable that it happens in prison, where we are responsible for people, but it has, and we need to deal with it.
Q68 Chair: Are we able to recruit for the chaplaincy service enough imams who are prepared to challenge the narrative, which you would expect them to do because it is not the narrative of genuine Islam? It needs a real challenge. Are we able to recruit imams who will do that?
Mr Cameron: My understanding is, yes, we are. There is a particular course called Tarbiyah, which is educating prisoners who are new to, or inexperienced in, the Muslim faith and tackling head on the distorted rhetoric that some other prisoners might espouse. So this was one of the purposes of the extremism taskforce.
You’ve got all the Cabinet Ministers around the table, with all the different responsibilities: prisons, colleges, universities. Each one of them then has to—it might not be their highest priority. Their highest priority is probably making sure that prisons are not overcrowded, or building new, but because the extremism taskforce exists, they know they have got to report back to me on the action they take on this agenda. So we are driving some real activity here.
Q69 Keith Vaz: The Sunday Times has recently reported that the Home Secretary has taken away the passport of someone called Nadeem Sheikh, and not just his passport, but those of his entire family: 22 passports were removed from the whole family. Is that what we are going to do in respect of trying to stop people returning to our country? Not just those involved directly, but also everyone else in the family, irrespective of whether they should have their passports removed.
Mr Cameron: I don’t know the details of this particular case. All I would say is that from everything I know of Theresa May’s work, she is meticulous at looking very carefully at the advice that she is given and what is proportionate and legal and right, and then carrying that out. But she knows that her first responsibility—as is mine—is keeping the country safe. So we should use the powers appropriately.
Q70 Keith Vaz: And the temporary exclusion orders that are contained in this Bill going through Parliament, are you also satisfied that you have the co-operation of those countries? Say somebody refuses to return, and refuses to abide by the conditions, and they want to stay in, for example, Afghanistan. Are you satisfied that foreign Governments will say, “Okay, we will keep them and we will not send them back to Britain”?
Mr Cameron: We are discussing this with foreign Governments—I discussed it myself with the Turks when I was there recently—and I am confident we will get the agreement we need, but it goes to the bigger point, which is what are we trying to do here. We need to give our police and security services the suite of powers necessary to keep us safe. Sometimes that is taking passports away from people and their families in advance of them travelling; sometimes it is at the border—the new power we are introducing. I think, on occasion, it will be right to say to someone who is thinking of returning to Britain, but who we are very worried about, “Well, you can’t come back until we are satisfied that we have in place the measures that we need to keep you safe.” Now, obviously that puts pressure on foreign Governments, but frankly foreign Governments often put pressure on us by not taking back their citizens when we want them to. There are quite a lot of them in our prisons and I know we have discussed that at another—
Q71 Keith Vaz: Indeed, but finally, what if they did the same to us? What if Pakistan, for example, passed legislation, saying, “We do not want a particular citizen returned because they’d be a danger to people in Pakistan, and we’re going to leave them in Britain”? Would you be happy with keeping them?
Mr Cameron: I’m afraid that we often have a situation—our prisons are full of people I would happily put on a plane tomorrow and send back to these countries, but for all sorts of reasons they do not want to take them. So I believe in playing pretty tough on this one. I think it is very important that we are very robust about this—about keeping our country safe.
Q72 Rory Stewart: Prime Minister, you spoke about a political surge being the key to addressing the root causes of extremism coming out of ISIL in Iraq. Are you confident that over the last four months we have put adequate resources into the intelligence officers, the diplomats, the military liaison officers, the military intelligence officers, to achieve that political surge, to actually understand the drivers of ISIL and address it?
Mr Cameron: I was asking exactly this question at the National Security Council today. I think the answer is—
Chair: What answer did you get?
Mr Cameron: Well, the intelligence services are doing exactly this. They have to face this shifting threat pattern and try and establish themselves where they are most needed. So up to now we have had a very big focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan—that was where, until recently, the overwhelming majority of the plots were coming from. Now they need to readjust.
I would say there is some good work being done, but more needs to be done. I think that Brigadier Simon Mayall’s liaison with the Kurdish Regional Government has been important. Our ambassador has got a hard-working team in Baghdad. We have a lot of military and intelligence liaison going on. I have met Prime Minister Abadi and listened directly to the requests that he wants. But if you are saying the real solution in Iraq is a Government who represent all the country, military personnel and security services that work and represent all the country, and a lot of this is about politics, I completely agree. Again, we should ask ourselves, “Where is our expertise? What are the things we can add to a predominantly American effort?” We should not overstate what we are good at, but there are some areas, I am sure, within that where we can make a difference.
Q73 Sir Malcolm Bruce: Prime Minister, we are still grappling with Ebola. Although it is too early to say that all the lessons have been learnt, some things have already emerged. In June, when my Committee was in Sierra Leone and Liberia, we were told that they did not think the problem was out of control in Sierra Leone, because it had not reached Freetown, but if it did it would be disastrous. Of course, it has. In Monrovia, we picked up the frisson that they felt it was not under control.
MSF, which should be commended because they were tackling this, were pleading for international help and for help from the WHO. They were basically told not to be too alarmist. Do you accept that? And do you accept that, as a legacy, we have to look at whether the WHO is fit for purpose?
Mr Cameron: I completely agree. There is a real question here. Why was the world not faster in responding to Ebola? The thing about Ebola is that, because it is not airborne, but passed by touch, if you get hold of it quicker, you should be able to snuff out an occurrence of this disease much quicker. Everyone has to take their share of responsibility, but I do think we need to learn the lessons. I argued at the G20 in Brisbane that what we need is a standing team of epidemiologists—if that is the right word—and experts to be flown into a country when there is a problem to assess how bad it is, put the resources in and sort it out.
On the WHO, I think Margaret Chan does a great job, but it does have some challenges. It has regional organisations that are—how can I put it?—not the fastest moving. They are often packed with people who are not necessarily the right people. It does not function very well. We could spend the rest of our lives trying to reform the WHO and not get very far. I suspect the right thing to do is to think what we can bolt on to it, and at the G20 I suggested a crack team of instantly deployable people.
A certain number of countries have stepped up to the plate, of which I am proud to say we are one. We, the Americans and the French are doing some very good work, but it is taking longer than I would like, because the assessment did not get done fast enough.
Q74 Sir Malcolm Bruce: You rightly say that in Sierra Leone we have responded—substantially so—but do you recognise that we were in the process of building health systems that simply were not capable of withstanding the development of Ebola, and that we therefore need to ensure there is a legacy of a much stronger health system that would be capable of doing so? I know we are not recruiting from Sierra Leone into our own NHS, but there are significant numbers of Sierra Leoneans working in our health service who would be much better deployed—or would have been much better deployed—working in Sierra Leone. So can we also ensure that, working with the NHS, we can help to strengthen their systems for our mutual benefit?
One of the interesting things that came out was that the NHS has a huge capacity to work in this environment, and it is beneficial to both the NHS and the country concerned that we do it together.
Mr Cameron: I agree with all of that. Once we have got this thing under control and it is on a downward trajectory, we should be planning for the legacy things that we should try and leave behind to help Sierra Leone have a better health care system for the future. Even if we do that, which is important, there is still the tragedy of this case. As I say, if you get an outbreak and you act quicker, you can deal with it faster. That is the real learning, as well as this other stuff.
We are doing a great job. We are training 850 people a week. We are providing beds in the Kerry Town facility. That is all happening, but we have to stay on top of this, because the figures have not yet shown the reduction in infection rates that we need to see.
Q75 Andrew Miller: You quite rightly said, “Why has the world not moved faster?” The risk here has been known for many years. I want to put that in the context of the UK. We allowed stories to run about entry checks being inadequate, how we must close down flights and not send our people into danger, when, in reality, as Sir Malcolm said, that is the battleground where the problem is going to be addressed and lives saved. We have changed fundamentally the way in which Government handle scientific advice in emergencies, and I have praised Francis Maude for the way he has developed that system. Don’t you think there are lessons to be learnt here about a system that did not kick in fast enough? We ended up as a reactive organisation when, with the scientific knowledge we have, we should have been prepared and much more alert to this developing risk. My question is, will the Prime Minister look again at how we draw scientific information into the emergency planning procedures so that we are proactive, not reactive?
Mr Cameron: I will certainly do that. I stand to be corrected, but I don’t think there was—I don’t know how to put this; I don’t want to say something that is wrong. Look, I think the whole world was a bit slow to wake up to this. Everyone knew it was a problem but I think a lot of people assumed that the WHO handled these things and they don’t necessarily. Were there teams of scientists beating a path to my door saying: “Quick, wake up—everyone has to see what a problem this is”? Not immediately, no.
What you need is a combination of political action and scientific advice. It would be wrong to think that all Cobra does is meet, listen to the scientist and simply do what they say. That is not the role of scientific advice. The role of scientific advice is to advise you about the scale of the problem, about what works and does not work, what they think is scientifically feasible and so on. But then the politicians have to make decisions, because with these things you are not just dealing with science, you are dealing with, sometimes, problems of public perception, sometimes problems of, it might even be, public panic. You need to understand the context in which you are operating. On the way we work, whether it was dealing with Fukushima in Japan, Ebola or other scientific-based problems that we have had, we listen to scientific advice, we try to follow it where we can, particularly we follow the chief medical officer on most of this stuff, but I reserve the right for the politician to say, “Hold on, I have to take into account how the public will react, how we communicate this, how we explain this.” The politician has a job.
Q76 Andrew Miller: I don’t want you to misunderstand. I am certainly not criticising Sally Davies, I think she did a fabulous job. But the fact that the system does not proactively suck in information from expert groups out there about risks around the world that have been known about for some time, is a weakness in the system. Will you have a look at it?
Mr Cameron: I will have a look at it. I think the issue is not sucking in the information. I think the issue here was there was too long a delay between people seeing that Ebola was taking off and the big executive action that was required, because there isn’t this crack team of epidemiologists to get out there. I think Obama was one of the first politicians to spot the scale of this problem and address it. One of the lessons is that, when these things happen, you cannot act too fast.
Chair: Thank you very much Prime Minister. I wish you and your family and my colleagues a very happy Christmas—[Interruption.]
Mr Cameron: Saved by the bell. And a happy Christmas to you.
Oral evidence: Evidence from the Prime Minister, HC 887 3