Member

A few years ago, I produced a report for the Mayor of London on London’s preparedness to deal with a terrorist incident. The question he wanted me to answer was whether he was putting enough armed support officers in the capital to deal with the sorts of attacks that had taken place in Paris and Brussels in recent years. I think he wanted to be in a position where he would be able to say, should something dreadful have happened after my report, “Well, I asked that Lord Harris to do a report for me and he said it would be okay”. I am afraid that is not the answer that I gave the mayor. I said, “Ultimately, it’s down to you. What is the risk appetite that you have for coping with this? Of course you could reduce the risk significantly by doubling or quadrupling the number of armed support units, but what is your risk appetite to do that and what do you think the consequence is?” That is exactly where we are on this Bill: what is our risk appetite?