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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: In the Queen’s Speech next week the government will claim it is stepping up fight against crime with the establishment of the National Crime Agency, the NCA. It has been called an FBI organisation and its Director-General will become the most powerful policeman in Britain with the ability to issue orders to other Chief Constables. Well that policeman joins me now, he is the former Chief Constable of Warwickshire Police and now Director General of the NCA, Keith Bristow, a very good morning to you Mr Bristow. Can I ask you first of all, a lot of people are going to want to know about the powers of the National Crime Agency, is the FBI analogy an accurate one?

KEITH BRISTOW: Good morning. The ambition that we have, and the Home Secretary has set this out very clearly, is that it is less about what it’s like and more about developing the right law enforcement agency for the very clear operational crime fighters that are there to protect the public. Subject to the laws of parliament, that is exactly the sort of agency that I am going to create.

DM: Do you have to have some pretty sharp elbows with the existing interests that are there in establishing your role, I’m thinking of course with the existing chief constables, then you are going to have elected Police Commissioners, you’ve got issues of who’s in charge of anti-terrorism with Scotland Yard overseeing that. How are you going to carve out your patch?

KB: Let’s be very clear that all of the people that you’ve mentioned, and others across law enforcement, across public service, all have an interest in public protection. We want to keep the public safe, we want to cut crime, we want to reduce the horrible impact that organised crime has up and down the country on every neighbourhood every day, whether that’s drug markets, people that are being trafficked, children that are being exploited or whether it’s the £20-40 billion a year that’s taken out of the UK economy, we all want to impact on that and we all want to keep the public safe so what’s very important is to recognise that we’re all in this together, the NCA has a very clear role in leading the law enforcement response against organised crime but this is about working together, sharing intelligence, making sure that we are absolutely focused and that we all bring our unique contribution to that battle.

DM: But we have heard that from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, which you’re replacing, it’s being bundled inside the NCA, are you getting powers beyond that?

KB: Well there are some key differences from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, as one of the organisations that will come into the NCA. Firstly we have a much broader remit, Serious Organised Crime Agency is specifically around serious organised crime, we have responsibilities that are broader than that – in to cyber-crime, economic crime and beyond. That’s the first big difference, the second one is that the Home Secretary has been clear that we will have the legitimacy to lead the law enforcement response and SOCA was not given that particular role, SOCA is a very effective law enforcement agency that works alongside other colleagues. Our role is yes, to work alongside and yes, to work led by wider law enforcement but let’s be absolutely clear, our job is to make sure we line up all of our assets, all of our capabilities and to get our people focused on protecting the public from serious and organised crime.

DM: So you will have the powers to tread on the toes of chief constables?

KB: Well we’ll see what’s in the Bill and it’s not for me to pre-judge the view of parliament but the Home Secretary has been clear in a plan that set out her ambitions for our organisation that she wanted us to have the power to co-ordinate and in extreme circumstances, task. But I do want to be very clear that this is about shared ambition to protect the public, it’s about intelligence and it’s about the very strong credible relationships that we’ll have across law enforcement to work well together and if we do need to task that will be in extreme circumstances.

DB: You talk about use of intelligence and protecting the public and one of the biggest areas of threats and continues to be so is of course terrorism, yet as I understand it that will remain with Scotland Yard, that’s a big gap in your powers isn’t it?

KB: The Home Secretary is very clear that we won’t have a debate about counter-terrorism policing until after the Olympics and I think that’s for reasons that we’d all understand. After the Olympics and once the NCA is established, I think she has already been clear that there will be a review of how we deliver counter-terrorism policing and NCA having a responsibility for that will be one of the options set alongside a range of other options including the current approach which works very well.

DB: Is it costing a lot of money to set up the NCA?

KB: No, there’s a lot of ambition, a lot of determination to make a big difference but I am very clear that I have to deliver those ambitions within the existing budgets of the agencies that will be joining us so it is a lot of ambition with challenges around resources but I’m very confident I’m going to make a huge difference.

DB: One of the areas, talking about money, slightly different but you touched on it, was this issue of seizing the assets of crime, again something we’ve heard an awful lot about but in many cases you see it reported in the papers when it comes to major drugs dealers or whatever it is, they actually have clever ways of transferring the assets and holding on to them.

KB: They do have clever ways of avoiding law enforcement’s reach and our ability to take their assets off them but let’s be very clear, law enforcement has been very successful at taking people’s assets away from them, we’ll be increasingly successful and our focus will be not just on targeting the high value assets which are very, very important of course but going for the assets which will destabilise their criminal businesses, will disincentivise other people from wanting to get involved in organised crime and ensure that people don’t profit from other people’s misery and we are going to be very aggressive about that. I think it’s very important we recognise that people who are involved in organised crime do it for their own benefits, they are criminals, they destroy communities and have a very, very corrosive effect.

DM: Must end it there, Mr Bristow, thank you very much indeed, Keith Bristow there, the new head of the NCA.