Question: Why should we have homeland security department?

Patrick Mercer: Because my big concern is that the level of government complacency about the threat that faces us, and as a result - I'm not suggesting that the government are doing nothing - but the government aren't joining up their thinking or their actions or their reaction to the threat.

And therefore I would like to see one individual who is responsible for the cohesion of homeland security right across the disciplines.

Question: What is the impact for the UK of the Jakarta attack?

Patrick Mercer: Well, the interesting thing is that if the organisation that is responsible for this is al Qaeda or one of its associated branches, it actually marks quite an interesting shift, because they are now reacting to world events rather than attacking in their own time, which is very much more the sort of tactic that we've been used to seeing from organisations like Baader Meinhof or indeed the Irish Republican Army.

But we shouldn't underestimate the impact of the bomb in Iraq the other day outside the Jordanian embassy. I have no doubt at all that that was timed to coincide with the trials in Indonesia and therefore if we have incidents going on in Jakarta, we have incidents going on in Iraq, then it shows that the organisation, whatever name it wants to go under, is coordinating itself much more cohesively worldwide than we've seen in the past.

That means therefore that the threat to this country must be, must be heightened. I would be very concerned that the government understands the level of threat and is taking actions accordingly.

Question: Is enough being done to tackle extremist groups in UK?

Patrick Mercer: Well, you see, I'm very content for the government to have a much better warning regime than they do.

I'm sure the counter-terrorist forces in this country both overt and covert are expecting an attack at the moment.

I'm sure that a suicide attack is being expected, and I think that tactics are being adopted to counter suicide attacks - that's quite sensible.

But I don't see why the public isn't being warned about this. The accusation, of course, is that if you warn the public, it panics the public - but we survived 30 or more years of Irish Republican Army terrorism without panicking the public either on the mainland or over in Ulster. I would prefer the government to be straight about this and to say to people, 'look, the threat is heightened at the moment, you as a public can help by being more alert and readier in the event of a terrorist attack, readier in terms of how to react to it'.

But to allow the public to continue in a state of blissful ignorance is not helpful.

Question: Is there a danger the public will get warning fatigue?

Patrick Mercer: Of course there is. That is a problem of terrorism. But that's why you have got to have a single voice - be it a minister, be it a secretary of state or whatever - but some individual who can at times of heightened alert actually come onto the media and say, "look people, please understand it is dangerous at the moment. We're not in panic spill, but it's dangerous, look out for the following indications that an attack is forthcoming, please be alert, avoid the following areas".

In other words, precisely the same way the Irish problem was handled in the early days when attacks in this country were prevalent and, let's face it, the way that this country prepared itself for the Second World War and for the Blitz and the gas attacks then.

The fact that we were actually able to say, the Germans are getting this gas against us - although the Germans didn't use it - the terror of an unknown weapons system was partially abated by it becoming common language and the understanding of it was therefore spread that much more.

Question: Isn't funding going to be a core part of the fight against terrorism?

Patrick Mercer: Yes, money's half the problem of course but there's also a question of determination. I think the government have actually started to realise this and I think that a certain amount of money has been forthcoming.

For instance, there's quite a lot - and don't ask me to quantify it - but there is a rolling programme at the moment of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare suits and other decontamination kits slowly being rolled out across the country to what we call the first respondents.

But what is grievously missing at the moment is the training to go with it.

Now the training - if you've got the kit that's one thing, but you've got to have the training and the training has got to be part of it.

I do wish the government would understand that we're not in the business of gesture politics, we need to have the equipment and to have the training.

Question: Should more be done to tighten security at UK ports?

Patrick Mercer: Well, I think there is a need for greater security, greater security staff to be on duty at the ports. I think the government really needs to bring in the kind of security agencies... to bring them into the counter-terrorist fold.

In London, there are almost 20,000 non-government employees, in other words, hybrid security officers of one sort or another.

Similarly, organisations like Group 4 Securitas etc working out of ports. Well, a duty has got start being laid by government on these organisations to work hand in hand with the police and for them to be warned about the threats that are forthcoming. That's the first strand.

Secondly, we need more equipment; particularly we need more machinery to search containers. The whole nature of the container is that it's sealed. But we've got to have equipment capable of looking into it.

And I think the SS Nisha incident, which you'll be familiar with from earlier this year, actually proved just how vulnerable ports can be.

Question: There's been a big use of private security firms - should this be more formalised?

Patrick Mercer: Private agencies, the private sector - a duty must be laid upon them to liaise more closely with police forces, customs and excise and the like. And there must be a more cohesive spread of intelligence.

The local authorities, of course, should be in a position that - don't forget, its local authorities [who] are the people who will coordinate any response to an emergency and therefore particularly at ports and other vulnerable areas they must be brought within the information and the action loop.

Question: The US has a citizen preparedness campaign. Should we have something similar?

Patrick Mercer: Well, I think it's certainly something worth looking at. We're talking about both the training information and what to expect, and the colour coding about alerts in the public arena.

Yes, going back to my earlier point about alerting the public, if we're responsible about it and if people understand where the dangers lie then the terror aspect of it - once something is understood, it's then so much less frightening.

The current situation - stick your head in the sand: if we don't talk about it, it will go away - I fear could be extremely dangerous.

Question: Does Europe's lack of border controls make terrorism easier?

Patrick Mercer: Again a balance has got to be struck. The aim of terrorists is to so affect the quality of our lives, and the way that we live our lives, that actually they terrorise us into coming round to our way of thinking.

So I think the balance has got to be struck between making people believe that terrorist organisations are more effective than they actually are and issuing coherent warnings.

I can't really answer that precisely, but a responsible government will make sure that people understand without doing the terrorists' job for them.

Question: This is a developed, modern country. Isn't trying to stop fanatical, determined people impossible because they will find the weak link in the chain?

Patrick Mercer: Yes, I think that's absolutely dead right. That anybody who thinks that homeland security starts at the borders of Great Britain is completely wrong.

When a bomb goes off in Grozny, we should jolly well be alert that this could be the start of a pulse of activity over the next bombing which could be in Manchester or London.

Question: In effect, perhaps share best practice?

Patrick Mercer: There isn't much evidence of that at the moment. I think that the biggest bogeymen on the terrorist scene are Muslim terrorists.

I don't see any evidence for instance of Irish terrorists trying to follow the examples set by the Muslim groups.

Nevertheless we've got to be aware, the public has to be certainly, and yes I suppose there is an inevitability that one set of terrorists can see how much more effective another set can be, and therefore try to emulate.

Question: Is there a danger of complacency among people that believe "we've seen this before with the IRA?"

Patrick Mercer: Well, yes of course, and again we saw this with the IRA campaign, but by the same token we also saw how Northern Ireland, where the campaign was much more intense than on the mainland, we saw how Northern Ireland came to terms with that and lived a relatively normal life..despite being aware of a terrorist threat.

What worries me is that the rumours that we heard that everybody within government regarded September 11 as a one-off, and they were only reminded that the threat was there and would continue when the Bali bomb exploded.

Well, look at the effect of the Bali bomb on Australia - it didn't happen in Australia but it cost nearly 150 Australians.

My great concern is that we will not see any sensible reaction to terrorism until such time that there have been several foiled incidents.

To my mind it would be very useful for the government to pinpoint these, to underline them and say, "look, be aware that we have narrowly avoided the use of ricin in North London, be aware that we have narrowly avoided an outrage on the SS Nisha" or whatever ship it was meant to be.

We really ought to be making people aware of our intelligence successes, within the confines, of course, of source protection.