New agency to cope with biological terror

A nationwide decontamination agency is being set up to cope with chemical and biological terror attacks on Britain, ministers revealed today.

In an interview with the Evening Standard, Fire Minister Nick Raynsford said that the move was the latest part of the Government's efforts to prepare for an atrocity on the scale of September 11.

With London likely to be the main target of an al Qaeda strike, Mr Raynsford revealed that the Metropolitan Police and intelligence agencies had already foiled a "significant number" of plots.

But the new national decontamination service would coordinate a response in the event of a successful release of deadly germs or gases on the capital.

The agency will offer expert advice to the emergency services and local councils on clean-up operations after a biological, chemical or even "dirty" nuclear bomb strike.

The move comes amid heightened fears of a terror attack on the UK.

Scotland Yard and MI5 scuppered a plot earlier this month to fill the Underground with lethal osmium tetroxide gas. Police in north London also unearthed traces of the poison ricin last year.

It also follows a report by the Royal Society yesterday which claimed there were flaws in the country's state of readiness for a non-conventional strike.

Mr Raynsford said most Londoners were "very realistic" in their perception that their city faced attack from fanatics but wanted to offer reassurance that every possible step was being taken.

He said that a national decontamination agency was likely to be one of "a whole series of measures". The idea is being worked on jointly by the Home Office and Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The budget and functions of the service have yet to be determined but Environment Minister Elliot Morley said that "further details will be given as soon as practicable".

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens hit the headlines when he warned earlier this year that a terror attack on the capital was now "inevitable". The minister agreed, saying that the police chief was "being wholly realistic".

Mr Raynsford, who chairs the London Resilience committee overseeing the capital's security, added that the Government was making provision for further funds on top of £188 million already earmarked for anti-terror defence.

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