17/01/2013 Newsnight

As we go on air strikes the Algerian hostage crisis is still

unfolding. But there is still no clarity, as the number of oil

workers involved, the number of casualties, or the attempted rescue

operation at the plant by Algerian forces is actually, as the Algerian

Government claims, over. The Prime Minister cancelled a speech on

Europe tomorrow, and was grave when he spoke earlier tonight. It is a

very dangerous, very uncertain, a very fluid situation, we have to

prepare ourselves for the possibility of bad news ahead.

will have the latest news as it unfolds, we will be joined by

politicians and experts to discuss the crisis and the implications for

foreign policy, and for western commercial activity in Algeria. A

new era in medicine, the Government has plans for a national DNA

database, but what benefits if we share and share alike.

Government thinks the health and wealth of the nation could benefit

if we were all a little more open with our data. So the qi question

is, how far are we prepared -- so the question is, how far are we

prepared to trade our personal information for the promise of a

healthier future. And...Bear Grylls has just filmed a series on which

he takes celebrities on adventures, he took them on adventures and

Miranda up the hill. Charlotte Green, - sarndy Green is about to

hang up her Microphon. If you have anything good to say give it to her,

and her fall ago I part is one of my favourites moments.

Good evening, the Prime Minister has said tonight we must brace

ourselves for very difficult news at the hostage crisis at the

Algerian gas plant. Now we expect multiple casualties. This evening

the Algerian communication minister went on Algerian television to say

the operation had been successful. We already know from the Algerian

authorities that there are fatalities among the hostages, and

also the Islamist militant terrorists responsele for the

attack. Among the hostages in the Amenas plant in the oil region are

British, French, Japanese and spweed and possibly Filipinos, one

Irishman, Stephen McFaul is free, and perhaps three others. Earlier

tonight David Cameron called off his speech tomorrow on Britain's

future in Europe to concentrate on the crisis. Downing Street was

surprised by the decision of Algeria to storm the ground by air

and ground. Francois Hollande, the French President, said the action

today justifies the decision to inter veen in neighbouring mal--

intervene in neighbouring Mali. Mark, first of all, what was the im

port of what David Cameron said tonight about preparing ourselves

for bad news, do you think? I think he was expressing the concerns that

resulted from the way this had unfolded this afternoon. Causing,

as you say, him to cancel this long-awaited Europe speech here in

Amsterdam. What became clear this afternoon was that an Algerian

military operation had started, obviously without consultation with

the British and other Governments, whose citizens were being held

hostage. My understanding is, that Foreign Office and MI6 personnel

were on the ground in Algeria, and it was from them that the British

Government first learned the news that something was happening. That

shots were being fired, and that the thing had turned violent. There

are two versions about what happened, the first is that the

hostage takers put many of the hostages in vehicles, and decided

to try to break out, or move them out of the compound, the other is

that the Algerian army had given some sort of ultimatum or warning,

and that shots started when that ultimatum had expired. But one

thing is clear, that once the violence got under way, the

situation rapidly became much more serious, and quite a few people

were killed. Now, as you mentioned earlier, the Algerian Information

Minister has put a positive spin on this, and said that many of the

hostages were freed, and that many of the militants were killed or

captured. It is still a confused situation. And Downing Street has

urged people to expect bad news. know Stephen McFaul either escaped

or was freed, we know nothing about him, but we don't know anything

about any of the other hostages. Why do you think the Algerian

Government went ahead. They were in conversation with Downing Street

without consultation? It seems that they didn't consult with any of the

other Governments, we know for example, from the Irish Foreign

Minister, who said this evening, that they weren't consulted, that

is what sources in London suggest too. The US, which has said that it

had six or seven people among the hostages there, also, it seems,

learned about things as they turned violent, not before. It could be as

simple as a commander on the ground taking a decision, events getting

out of control, it could be that in some sense, the Algerian Government

felt that this was too good an opportunity to miss to try to stop

this notorious Islamist gang, for once and for all. But the simple

truth is, in these situations where you are, if you like, in governed

rather than ungoverned space, the will of the sovereign Government

will always be paramount. There was one a couple of years ago, where

the British wanted to free a hostage, had forces in place to do

so, but the word never came, and that person was murdered.

These situations never end exactly the same way. But does history tell

us anything? An interesting counter point is what happened in march

2011, when the -- March 2011 when the Libyan revolution had started.

Another one of these big facilities in The Sahara, in the far south of

Libya, came under threat. There were 150 foreign workers near Zili

in the desert down there, they felt armed gangs were either going to

take them hostage or start using violence towards them. At that

point, in part, because of the ungoverned nature of the space, the

British decided to mount a rescue operation, they sent the Special

Forces from the SBS, and RAF Hercules planes in there they

rescued the people. There were some shots fired, but essentially the

operation was carried out without a great deal of trouble. So it can

end in a positive way. If you are able, if you like, hold all the

cards, in terms of making those decisions, about when to go in, and

when to extract people, foreign nationals. In that case, many of

them were not British, but the British felt a responsibility to

their own people and the wider foreign community there. Equally,

it can go totally disastrously wrong, go back to 1978, an Egyptian

plane was hijacked, taken to Cyprus, Egyptian commandos then tried to

storm the plane in Cyprus, without the permission of the Cypriot

Government, they ended up in gun fights with the Cypriot police and

troops, 15 of their commandos were killed, et cetera, et cetera. So,

that kind of macho attempt to determine the outcome of these

things, has, in the past, gone disastrously wrong. We see the

other extreme with the British mission in Libya nearly two years

ago. In the intervening years, countless examples where small

numbers of people have been taken, particularly by this type of group

in The Sahara, and randsoms have been paid, or some other

arrangements have been reached, and people have been freed. We have

been trying to piece together all today's events.

The exact details of what happened today at the Ain Amenas in eastern

Algeria are still unclear. But certainly the operation by the

Algerian military to rescue the hostages, held there since

yesterday by Islamist militants, went badly wrong. Earlier in the

day there was some good news, as one hostage, Stephen McFaul from

Belfast, phoned his family to say that some how he was free.

elated. I just can't describe how happy I am. I didn't think we

would...I didn't think we would get this so soon. But even as the

rescue operation continued, the British Government sought to

prepare others for the worst. a very dangerous and very uncertain

and fluid situation. I think we have to prepare ourselves for the

possibility of bad news ahead. COBRA officials here are working

around the clock to do everything we can to keep in contact with the

families, to build the fullest possible picture of the information

and the intelligence that we have. I have chaired meetings of COBRA

today, I will continue to do so. I will do everything I can to update

people about what is a difficult and dangerous and potentially very

bad situation. Now, several hours later, there are

still conflicting reports about how many died, in an operation the UK

wasn't warned about in advance. Downing Street has let it be known

about Algeria not letting other states know before mounting

operations. The Foreign Office offered advice on siege tactics and

other information, but it was ignored. When they began their

assault, the Government here was completely shocked. Why did it end

like this, this is a former Jihadi fighter, who tracks the activities

of Islamist commanders, some of which he knew personally, and

Government's response to them. the incident happened in gall

gearia, they would like to set up from now the standards of the

Algerians, there is no negotiations with terrorists, we are not going

to accept to be the victims of this intervention, this is our methods,

this is our measures, which is very brutal, and very direct. Military-

based, even if there is other victims from civilians. It is the

conflict in Mali, its southern neighbour, that Algeria wants to

insulate itself from. French forces moved in there last week to try to

crush a growing Islamist insurgency. Was the attack on the western gas

workers, that now appears to have ended in such tragedy, a direct

retaliation for that. This attack, has been planned for many, many

months before the French intervention or international

intervention in Mali. But just, I think, when it happened last week,

maybe it gave the terrorist group a legitimate, from the ideolgical

point of view, legitimate reasons to carry out the attack. Because

the group itself, or the nature of the leader of the group, by is

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, if we study his history over the last ten years, he

usually asks for ransomes, he has never been -- randsons, he has

never been involved in killing or capturing hostages. Whatever his

reasons, we know that Mokhtar Belmokhtar and those like him are a

real threat of the west. Until recently he was head of Al-Qaeda in

the Islamic Maghreg, one of the Islamist groups who have been

building up their strength throughout this poorly defended

region of porous borders. It was in Algeria in the 1990s, that those

groups first launched a major insurge circumstance eventually

defeated by the Government, at a cost of 150,000 lives, perhaps. In

Libya, since the fall of Colonel Gaddafi, some of the Islamists he

once defeated have now returned. And some, like others from Algeria,

have crossed The Sahara into northern Mali, taking advantage of

the collapse of state authority, in the wake of a rebellion by ethnic

Tuareg seperatists. Some of those Islamists are believed to have

training from Al-Shabab, the militant Islamist group that has

controlled much of Somalia in recent years. They have been joined

by fighters from Nigeria, from the Islamist group, Boko Haram,

fighting the Government there. Shabab in Somalia, they trained

explosive makers and experts for Boko Haram, and Boko Haram

themselves, they have a significant number of many of their fighters in

northern Mali, to establish networks and connection and co-

operation between the other groups in northern Mali. And why? Because

they share the same ideology and the same goals. This ideology and

goals is very important, this is the culture that is keeping the

network together. It acts as the Super Glue to hold all this loose

network together. To counter that threat, Nigerian

troops are now following the French into Mali, to join an operation

that President Hollande today said had been proved to be justified.

TRANSLATION: What's happening in Algeria absolutely justifies a

decision I took on behalf of France to come to the help of Mali, in

accordance with the United Nations charter, and at the request of the

President of Mali. Today's terrible events in Algeria, though, suggest

that in the short-term at least, the north African Islamist threat

can only increase. There is a surge of militantcy at the moment, it is

linked to what's happening in Afghanistan, and in Somalia, and

they are trying to create the same sort of pushback against the west,

and non-Islamic people. I think it will be very dangerous for non-

Islamic people, for Europeans, to travel in these countries for the

next few years. I think they really do have got their selves now, and I

don't think the Governments -- themselves now, and I don't think

the Governments have the capacity to contain them. Today's tragedy

will change our whole view of the region.

With me to discuss the latest in the hostage situation are the

former Lib Dem leader and member of the Intelligence and Security

Committee, Ming the Merciless Campbell. And from Washington the

former US Assistant Secretary of State for public affairs, now a

fellow at the George Washington Institute for Public diplomacy.

Ming the Merciless Campbell, it must be a draet -- Ming Campbell,

it must be terrible for the families that no information is

known. Today in the Scottish Parliament, Alex Salmond indicated

that two of the hostages are Scottish, is there any information

on that? There doesn't appear to be any more information on that at the

moment. I understand Alex Salmond was speaking after a conversation

with the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister after a meeting of COBR A,

that is the committee immediately formed when crises of this kind

occur. It seems to me that one of the first questions will be, did

the Algerian Government act out of necessity, or was it out of some

kind of view of national pride? The answer to that question may be very

important in so far as if there is a breakdown in relations between

the Governments of those who have been killed, and the Algerian

Government, that may make finding out exactly what happened more

difficult. Especially as we know the Algerian Government say no to

negotiation, we just heard on the report that there was quite a lot

of traffic between Number Ten and the Foreign Office, and Algeria,

saying negotiate, discuss, hold off, by clearly was either ignored or,

by the necessity, ignored? You can have a policy of saying we are not

going to negotiate, but that doesn't mean to say you have to

take action as soon as appears to have happened in this case. If you

think about it, British Special Forces, and American special force,

and French Special Forces, have got a much greater amount of experience

about this kind of thing than putting it bluntly, any Algerian

equivalent might have. That is why there will be suspicions that this

was an -- suspicions that this was an action taken out of national

pride. Whatever the reason it was taken for, none the less, as the

Prime Minister said, if I may say so, in a some sombre mood than I

have ever seen him before, we have to expect the worse, and what has

been called, "multiple casualties". From your point of view, if Number

Ten was talking to the Algerians about tactics, it would be

presumably inconceivable that the state department was not also doing

the same thing? The state department has been in touch with

senior Algerian officials, including the Prime Minister. I do

not know what kinds of consultations occurred today,

either immediately before or after the Algerian action. I think you

have to put this in context with Algeria's history. I'm not sure it

is about national pride as much as steps that Algeria has taken, not

only going back into the 1990s, but also over the past two years to try

to insulate itself from trends that are happening in neighbouring

countries. Do you think it is quite shocking to the Americans that they

went in today, or do you think the Americans thought that Algeria

would do it their own way? I think there has been an effort in recent

weeks and months to get Algeria more engaged in trying to help

solve the situation in Mali, and Algeria has been involved in some

dialogue to try to work with all the forces in northern Mali. It is

a really interesting mix. You have got Tuareg, indigenous Tuareg

tribes that have historical historical grievances, and

opportunists in it for the revenue from hostage taking, and you have

these elements closely linked to Al-Qaeda in the Maghreg. It has

been very, very difficult for all the stakeholders to try to sort out

who are those you can deal with and who are those you can't. At the

very heart of this, Claire, is Al- Qaeda, a former commander of Al-

Qaeda. Before we actually get on to that, what went wrong today, do you

think? I think we have to reserve judgment until we get more

information about what was actually going on amongst the hostage takers

and the hostages. There were reports yesterday, for example,

that explosives were strapped to the hostages, and that there were

threats to kill them straight away, should any attack like this be

launched. Somewhere inbetween this, there must have been a calculation

that a surprise attack would happen before they could actually detonate,

if you like, sadly, some of the hostages. Do you think that is why

Algeria might have moved very quickly, because of the idea that

there were suicide bombers. Obviously they would have needed

some kind of intelligence about where the hostages are. I

understand one of the reasons they have been saying the mission wasn't

complete earlier this evening, was that they had to search the whole

facility to see if people were hiding out in it. We are in

situation now where we are dealing with, not Al-Qaeda itself, but

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who himself is trying to improve himself, even he

is slightly separate from Al-Qaeda in the region. In the report it was

saying that in the area Al-Qaeda is completely unfettered by the idea

of nation states. In a sense, no matter how much Algeria is trying

to be brought into the fold, is it extremely dangerous place for all

these companies, that are trying to move in there, British Airways,

GlaxoSmithKline, all these companies trying to do business?

One of the things that will have to be investigated is how it was

possible, in an area where, as we know in the 1990, there was always

a possibility, Algeria itself was ridden with internal violence, of

an Islamist nature, but other factors at play, there were big

fears then that the oil and gas facilities would be attacked by

insurgents of different kinds, and largely, they weren't. A lot of gas

pipelines were attacked but they were repaired. What has gone on

recently, it has been fairly safe, yet this Al-Qaeda in the Islamic

Maghreg has a residual presence, not much, around 200 people in

Algeria itself, but have also migrated, not just across the

Sahara but other regions. They haven't attacked the facilities in

recent years, why now. They claimed yesterday, Mokhtar's crew, that it

was associated with the French attacks in Mali. Mokhtar, what was

it, was it ransome, or was it Mali? -- randson or Mali? I think it is

interesting, he was the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic faction in

malli. He has been part of the faction that has enriched himself

through that. He has been reported to have separated himself, had an

argument with other leaders, this is a new faction movement he's

heading. Do you think, Francois Hollande says this justifies

France's action in national Mali. Do you think the two are linked?

think that's an inference that people will want to example very,

very carefully, I'm not sure I would go along with Mr Hollande to

say this justifies the French action. Afterall the French action

was taken for a particular purpose in relation to Mali. What people

want to know is whether it is a consequence that came of the French

action. What people want to know is whether it means, rather as some

other contributors have indicated, whether it will be regarded as open

season on these plants. Which are soft target. They are enormous and

difficult to guard. It would be virtually impossible to make sure

you could keep them safe in all circumstances, against a determined

Islamist terrorist force like the one we are talking about. Which

then, begs the question, there may be some help being given by British

forces in malli. It begs the question will British forces have

to become part of the operation in Mali? What we have so far

contributed it is the provision of transport aircraft, two C-17s, and

the crime up until now has been pretty strong, as indeed has the

Foreign Secretary, in saying there is no intention of putting British

boots on the ground. I have to say there was general support in the

House of Commons for the action taken so far, if that were to be

extended, either by in degree or inkind, there would be very

substantial political reservation, and also, in the light of our

recent history in Afghanistan and before that Iraq, very considerable

reservations in the minds of the public. The huge resistance among

ordinary Americans about getting embroiled in Mali, it mate be, if

this is the big focus for Al-Qaeda, that the US might have no other

action but to become embroiled in Mali with the French? It is not

likely that the United States will become directly involved, because

by US law, because there was the military coup last March, the

United States has prevented -- is prevent the legally from providing

assistance to the mally Government. A lot of lawyers here in Washington

are working overtime to find out how to support the French and the

in coming African intervention force, without breaking US law. I

do think that it will accelerate the planning that was already under

way. Because obviously what we are seeing on the ground is perhaps a

far more dangerous situation, and the capabilities of the insurgents

are much more significant than might have been initially assessed.

But, you know, where as the United States has taken direct action in

places like Pakistan and Yemen, Mali will follow, I think, the

Somali model, where you will be empowering indigenous regional

forces to take action, in Somalia it has been successful, as of yet

not successful in Mali. You were saying, we know tonight that sat

oil and BP are pulling -- Statoil, and BP are pulling out all but

essential workers in the two plants in Algeria. If Algeria thinks it is

literally drawing blood, do you think that the push will really be

done to make the western companies feel very uncomfortable in Algeria?

It depends how many survive the attack. Don't forget the movements

are still very small. I don't know how many are involved in this

current assault, there is about 20, but I think we are talking all

about 200 people, perhaps in these movements. They know the terrain

very well. They have been operating in these very difficult areas for

some time. At least over the last four or five years. They have

become wealthy. They are not just involved in taking previous

hostages for money, don't forget the French still have a number of

French hostages, there are others still in the region who have yet to

be asked for money. They have the opportunity of withdrawing and

doing this on a future occasion if they retain the ability to do so.

We really need to wait until the outcome of this current crisis to

ask some of these questions about why curt had got so lax, what is

the rational now, if they haven't attacked, what essentially are a

primary part of the Algerian economy. 97% of their income comes

from exports of oil and gas. So if they haven't attacked them, if they

are really against the Algerian authorities, why haven't they done

this before, why have they been able do this in a situation where

security measures have been taken. Thank you all very much indeed. If

we have any more news from Algeria, of course we will bring it to you

during the programme. Big Data is one of the Government's

favourite big ideas, the idea is about analysing everyone from the

police to retailers to doctors, and even sports teams will you ever

cover trends, fresh insights into the way the world looks.

Enthusiasts say we should use better use of this stash of

digitised information, to make us more efficient and save money. It

is contentious, much of this information is personal and some

private. Many databases are being created for our most intimate data,

our DNA, the information that describes us. Who will decide who

gets to know what? And will it revolutionise medicine? Most of the

time we are not aware of it, but as we go about our daily lives we

create a trail. A trail of data, and masses of it. A digital record

of where we are and what we are doing. As computing power increases,

and gets cheaper, we can gather and analyse this information on an

ever-grander scale. We live in what's being called the era of big

data. Unlocking the messages held within this mass of raw data, could

help us to lead lives that are more efficient and save money. But could

also reveal information about each and every one of us that is

sensitive. Many of us might not care too much about some of the

data that's collected on us, say what we buy at the supermarket or

how we use public transport. But when it comes to information about

our health, many of us see that has so personal, we want to be sure it

is kept especially safe. The Government thinks the health and

wealth of the nation could benefit if we were all a little more open

with our data. So the question is, how far are we prepared to trade

our personal information for the promise of a healthier future?

passionate about this, because I see this as being quite a dramatic

change in the way that medicine is likely to evolve. Given that a lot

of this information is personally sensitive, it has to be used in the

right way. You have to be honest with people about what is going on,

and you have to give people the opportunity to opt-out. The grand

bargain the Government is offering us, is if we give them our DNA they

will revolutionise healthcare. It is not clear that the British

public is actually willing to accept that bargain.

The Government already seems pretty convinced, at the end of last year

it launched a big data project for some of the most intimate of

personal information. The DNA readout of 100,000 Britains,

suffering from rare diseases and cancer. It is a -- Britons

suffering from rare diseases and cancer. Not only does each patient

have a unique DNA code, but so do their cancer tumour, doctors need

both to identify the most appropriate treatment. It is the

future for healthcare because we want to crack cancer, and the DNA

database can help us to do that. We also want to keep Britain at the

absolute forefront of Biotech nolg and pharmaceutical industries, we

can be a real world-leader in this. So, aside from highlighting British

innovation and attracting investment, the idea initially is

to help people who are already sick, that is because we know, for

example, that some people's cancer tumours will respond better to one

drug rather than another. For the rest of us, if enough people are on

the database, trends will become clear. So we can be more confident

that our personal DNA readout can be checked against the trends, and

might warn us we are more at risk about certain diseases, and do

something about it, like changing our lifestyle and getting screened.

We might be able to avoid drugs known to be toxic in people who

carry a similar genetic make up to our's.

The data at the heart of the project is the DNA double heel lix,

it is made of four -- helix, it is made of a code with four letters,

the string of letters that spell out a human being is huge. It took

about eight years and cost billions of dollars to unravel the first

human genome. But now, the computer technology that made that possible

is far more powerful and cheaper. It now take as little over a day to

sequence a person's DNA, although it is not yet possible, there is

talk of a $100 price tag. Cost serving, I wasn't talking about

this two years ago, I wasn't even talking about it one year ago,

because the cost of doing this was such that it would be an enormous

burden to do it at scale, but the cost of sequencing a whole genome,

as you know, has fallen by more than 100,000 fold in ten years.

Andrew Wilkie works on rare genetic disorders, he uses the power of DNA

sequences to look at cranial disorders. His work provides

families with answers, and can help them make decisions about having

more children. I return a small lab with about four staff working in it,

in the past couple of years, we have identified as many new genes

in my group of disorders, the facial malformation, as the entire

world achieved in the previous decade. So, that's obviously

spectacular progress. Also, of course, it represents incredibly

good value for money. The NHS already has world class Big Data

projects in place, notably a system that enables scientists to carry

out research on our clinical information, once anon-miceed, and

there are begin -- anonymised, and there are genetic databases too.

The idea of bringing it all together is to create a much more

powerful scheme of data, so scientists can better understand

disease and people get better drugs that might suit their disease.

of the things we have in the UK is scale. The truth is, there is lots

of data systems in the world, which are five million people here and

four-and-a-half million year, on tearia has one, Scotland, Australia,

some of the healthcare systems in the states have got them. The great

thing about the UK and the particularly UK NHS is it is 50

million people, it is at that scale you will have the power to detect

all kinds of things that are very powerful in terms of the management

of the disease and have quite a profound impact. It may be some

time before there are enough people signed up to realise the promised

power from gen omics in the UK. In Iceland they have already tried to

harness its potential, although in on a smaller scale. A company

called Deco Genetics set out to put the DNA code of the country's

entire population. The aim was to identified genetic risks for common

diseases. The project proved controversial over privacy and data

projection issues, the Icelandic High Court questioned its legal

basis. The Government boasts the UK will be the first country to

introduce DNA seek qensing in a mainstream -- sequencing into a

mainstream system. That is part of the problem. This computer expert

said medical data is hard to protect, because it is so rich in

information. The NHS has traditionally anon-ised details by

taking off people's personal details but leaving on your date of

birth and postcode. This doesn't give you any protection at all

against a competent adversary. Postcode and date of birth is

enough to identify 99% of people easily. There are all sorts of

circumstances that will identify people uniquely, the fact that a

certain person got a certain preeplt on a particular day, --

treatment on a particular day may be well known, that might enable

somebody to pick out their medical record from a database of 50

million others. You probably can't get around the issue that no data

in any setting is absolutely anon- ised, and secure, -- anonymised and

secure. I think the constraints in the system that have already been

thought about, about other types of clinical data, are probably pretty

secure. One of the great things about the databases is you may not

be able to make it secure, but you know what everybody has done in the

database, you can track down who has looked at what, when they have

looked at it, how they have looked at it. The current plan seems to

rely, in part, on limiting access to the data to trusted research

partners. Whether in the public or private sector. But some say that's

not enough, and want the Government to make clear the precise details

of how it plans to keep our data secure? What we actually need is

for anonymisation methods to be open to the public, so we can see

what is happening to our data, and we can work out whether the

protection is adequate. He want to see the mechanisms and test them, I

want to be able to kick the tiles, if the Government is lying, I want

to expose them and embarrass them for it. Bioth cyst, Stuart Hogarth,

says he's not sure people are ready to buy in on this one. The grand

bargain the Government is offering us, if we give them DNA, they will

revolutionise healthcare, it is not clear that we need so much begin no

mamic data to understand the begin et genomic data to understand our

genes. It is not clear that the Government has the IT skills to put

in place a giant project like this. It is not clear whether or not the

British public will accept that bargain. Others think that if David

Cameron's goal is to attract life sciences industries to the UK, he

should look more widely than the promise of mass data sets. Richard

Sullivan has worked in the pharmaceutical industry, and was

clinical director of Cancer Research UK for eight years. There

is absolutely no doubt the NHS is in a unique position to do all

sorts of association and co- relation studies between science

and patient outcome. The reality is industry is in the UK because of

the excellence of the healthcare professionals and the ability of

the NHS to do clinical trials, it is here because of the creativity

and the brilliance of our scientists. That is what industry

looks for. Not simply a very large data collection exercise. So before

we embark on such big data experiments, whether with the

nation's health or other private information. Many people want to be

reassured that they will have the choice to opt in, rather than

having to take the time and trouble to opt-out. They will want to know

who stands to gain in this trade in data, they will want to be

reassured that the Government has taken the best possible steps to

protect sensitive information before it is handed over.

The use of Big Data will grow, because it promises so much. But we

will only know for certain who is doing what, with the data the

Government holds on all of us, if it is used in a way that is open,

testable and transparent. After a quarter of a century the

Radio 4 news announcer, Charlotte Green is leaving the BBC tomorrow.

Firstly, we must apologise for ridiculously playing the clip of

another announcer Harriet Cass, she is leaving the BBC, but later in

the year and that is no excuse for mixing the clips. She has

unflapable poise, while yearning for one of her show-stopping fits

of giggles. We have been speaking to the retiring voice of the nation.

With the BBC News, Charlotte Green. It is hard to believe, I know, but

the once lofty standards of broadcasting and grammar at the BBC

are about to get a whole lot worseer. That is because of the one

of the most beloved and trusted voices on radio is taking her leave

of the mic. Charlotte Green is a self- effacing and admired. She

agreed to talk to Newsnight, provided no-one could see she was

on the programme. I know it has come to that! People have an image

of you as being really very sober andsome better, because of how --

sombre, because of how you read the bulletin. When they meet me, I like

to have a laugh and have a lot of fun with people. For some,

Charlotte will always be the voice of the shipping forecast. We may

never know how many have found solace in her voice. They send me

Valentine's cards, and rather sweet letters, actually. But with a

certain whistfulness in them. the listeners you are the acme of

professionalism. I'm really sorry. Just then Charlotte's mobile went

off, there was evidence it was her presumed successor. Nine men have

gone on trial at the Old Bailey...Butter Wouldn't melt,

don't you believe it. American historians have discovered what

they think is the earliest recording of the human voice.

(laughs) The award-winning screenwriter Abby Mann as died at

the age of 80 ...excuse me, sorry (giggles) he won lots of Emmys,

including one in 1973...(giggles) for a film that featured a police

detective...It Is 8.10. We who present the programme genuinely

believe it is about us, and funnily enough you are quickly disabused of

that illusion, the listeners don't see it like that at all. One of the

early questions I was always asked was "you must know Charlotte Green",

followed by "what's she really like"? There is something about

Charlotte that says Radio 4, if she says something is happening in the

news you absolutely believe her. We save up anything with disgraceful

innuendo and we give it to Charlotte. Her falling apart is one

of my favourite things. Bring in the new year with a bang! And with

that, goodbye. I'm goingry lance, and I hope to

come back and do the occasional news quiz, which would be the icing

on the cake. Do you fancy Newsnight? If you're offering!

you have any broadcasting ambitions still unfulfilled, would you like

to dub a Kung Fu movie, is there something? I have always wanted to

read out the football results, ever since I was about six years old,

that is something I would love to do. The fabulous Charlotte Green,

tomorrow morning's front pages. We Laura Robson on the right there.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 43 seconds

Epic match at the Australian Open. We must make it clear there is no

certainty about what happened yet at the gas plant. Finally in the

Express they decided not to go in the Algeria story, they go with

It is not often we get the chance to have royalty on Newsnight.

Tonight is different, as we have heard for some bizarre reason,

Charlotte Green, radio royalty is being allowed to hang up her crown.

We bow down at her feet, take it away Charlotte. You have been

catching, Kirsty Wark, she has blanked me in the canteen. Should I

know these people on the credits. The film about Big Data was

produced by Ian Lacy, well, I say produced. Some pictures were

brought to you, despite Mike Kacey, Bea Games, and Philip Clarkson. Is

there much more of this?? The planning team were Sam and Zara,

this stuff is planned? Unit manager was Rebecca Lavender, she handles

the money, he need to see her. The programme producer was KavitaPura.