Civil Contingencies Bill

Public Bill Committee, 27 January 2004.

Standing Committee F

Civil Contingencies Bill

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Before I call the Minister to move the programme motion, I remind the Committee that there is a financial resolution in connection with the Bill, and copies are on the Table. I also remind hon. Members that adequate notice must be given of amendments. As a general rule, my co-Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments, including any that may be reached during an afternoon sitting of the Committee.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I beg to move,

That—

(1) during proceedings on the Civil Contingencies Bill the Standing Committee shall meet when the House is sitting on Tuesdays at 9.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. and on Thursdays at 2.30 p.m;

(2) 8 sittings shall be allotted to the consideration of the Bill by the Committee;

(3) the proceedings shall be taken in the order shown in the Table below and shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the second column of the Table.

TABLE ProceedingsTime for conclusion of proceedings Clauses 1 to 17;Schedule 1.5.30 p.m. on Thursday 29th January. Clauses 18 to 31;Schedules 2 and 3;5.30 p.m. on Tuesday 10th February. Clauses 32 to 35; remaining proceedings on the Bill. It is a pleasure to serve under you, Sir John. I know from a number of hon. Members of your reputation as a fair and experienced Chairman. I know also that all members of the Committee would want to send their best wishes to your wife. As I said on Second Reading, the Bill has been developed following a wide-ranging process of consultation and discussion. We are grateful for the contribution of the Joint Committee of both Houses, which considered the Bill when it was published in draft last summer. We will listen to the points raised by all members of the Committee and will reflect on the arguments. Looking around the Room, I am conscious already of the experience and expertise that will be brought to bear on the Bill. As a service to members of the Committee, I have ensured that my Department has provided a pack of the relevant documentation for the clauses to be taken this morning; it is available on the Table. I also make clear our commitment to updating the legislation on civil protection in this country, which is the principal reason for the Bill. The Bill and the accompanying non-legislative measures will deliver a single framework of civil protection for the United Kingdom to meet the challenges of the 21st century. I commend the motion to the Committee. Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con): I join in the welcome to you in the Chair, Sir John. We have spent many a happy hour on Committees considering Finance Bills under your expert chairmanship, so we know that we are in safe hands today. I also join in the remarks about Lady Butterfill. We missed you last night, Sir John, at the meeting last night of the Programming Sub-Committee and we all join in the hopes and wishes for a speedy recovery for her. I do not think that I have said this on the record, but it is a marvellous thing that you are now Sir John. It is something that I know will be welcome to all sides of the Committee. We have grave reservations about programming Committee sittings. There was no problem with the old system, which enabled the usual channels to reach agreement about progress in Committee. Although on this occasion I have been fortunate to discuss matters with the Government Whip—who has been extremely reasonable, accommodating and co-operative, as she always is—there is still always the danger that the debate will develop as we go through the clauses and that we will reach a point where, quite reasonably, we need a little more time here and perhaps a little less time there. We are very much against the inflexibility of programming. Therefore, in the best possible spirit, I say—as I did last night—that we do not accept programming, or this programme. It is worth considering the range of issues that we must cover on the Bill. As was clear on Second Reading, the Bill raises points of law of severe complexity. Hon. and learned Members asked, for example, why part 2 of the Bill contained exceptions to the regulations that could be made in an emergency in respect of strikers and those who may not wish to serve in the forces. Reservations are made in the Bill about those particular human rights, but no reservation is made for the rights that the Human Rights Act 1998 conveys. There are definitional issues and we shall debate the meaning of ''an emergency'' in parts 1 and 2; the meaning is different in each. It has been suggested that in making the regulations in part 2, it might be better if a Privy Council committee were involved, where practicable, in deciding whether emergency powers could be used in particular circumstances to provide the sort of reassurance that a wartime, all-party, National Government style of Cabinet would bring to such proceedings. We want to press the Minister on what could be done to give a more all-party feel to that aspect. The Local Government Association has raised concerns about the imposition of duties—seven in all in clause 2—without the provision of necessary resources. Very fairly, the Minister said on Second Reading that he was prepared to discuss the matter with local authorities and that it was not the Government's intention to impose burdens without adequate resources, but the track record of the Government is such that we have some doubts about that. We shall press him on the matter. The question arises of the nature of the work force that will enable emergencies to be tackled. As was made clear on Second Reading, it is not enough to rely on our marvellous public servants who can tackle the ordinary situations that they encounter. The example that I gave on Second Reading was that if a dirty bomb fell on a medium-sized city in this country, the point would come relatively quickly where the emergency services were spent. Which reserves would then come into play? The Government have said that defence forces will be available. However, the concern is that the required numbers are not available on the ground. Often, territorial personnel are committed to theatres elsewhere in the world. Is there a case for a volunteer reserve force that would bring together the necessary skills so that more manpower is available? The Police Federation has made the point that it is necessary to rationalise the organisational structure that would follow a civil emergency in order to provide a new tier of organisation. It talks about making ''clear and unambiguous issues pertaining to jurisdiction, remit, lines of control and lines of communication.'' It also talks about permitting ''proper and effective coordination between public bodies and utilities'' and providing ''the full backing of the law to individuals with designated civil emergency roles and responsibilities.'' We want to probe the structure that underlines the Bill and whether it would produce a practicable and effective response to the sort of emergencies to which the Bill refers. We are concerned that the appraisal that was commissioned by Scotland Yard—the Unicorn project—has shown big voids in the sort of cover available in London, particularly in the business sphere. We want to examine the arrangements that exist to protect our businesses and what more needs to be done, particularly in the communications field, as highlighted by the report. At times when our nation has been threatened, arrangements have been put in place for public training and education. More could be done without frightening the public, and it is necessary for our society to prepare for the new threats that we face. For many of the years of my lifetime, the threat that we seemed to face came from the USSR, and we made preparations with that in mind. The current threat is not a certain one; it is more the threat of uncertainty, risk and an unknown form of terrorism. We must ensure that the public are aware of the likely ways in which we might have to deal with the current threat as opposed to that of previous years. With regard to the motion, it is always helpful if a Minister can provide the Committee with the latest information on any draft regulations that his Department is preparing for the Bill. It would be helpful if the Minister told us of the latest situation on drafting regulations for this Bill. We do not agree with the motion, but we hope that it will be possible to fit all the important issues and concerns into the time frame set out. Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD): I echo the comments of the previous speakers about your chairmanship, Sir John, and the good wishes to yourself and your wife at this time. We do not have any problem about the principle of programme motions, and we think that Programming Sub-Committees are quite sensible. I say that with a certain degree of shame, as I was unable to attend the Programming Sub-Committee sitting last night. I was in a Public Accounts Committee dealing with the fascinating subject of duty on Scotch whisky; so one can understand that we were, to a degree, distracted. [Interruption.] It was a spirited discussion, as the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn) says. I emerged from it to find that I had just missed the Programming Sub-Committee, for which I extend my apologies. In general terms, we are comfortable with the programme motion; we were not happy with the motion on the Order Paper on Second Reading, because there had been no prior discussion. The motion was put to me before the Programming Sub-Committee sat and we were broadly content with it. As we said on Second Reading, our main concerns are with part 2, in which there are important principles to discuss. The motion allows us to have a serious debate about part 2; therefore, we do not seek to block it.

TABLE

As I said on Second Reading, the Bill has been developed following a wide-ranging process of consultation and discussion. We are grateful for the contribution of the Joint Committee of both Houses, which considered the Bill when it was published in draft last summer. We will listen to the points raised by all members of the Committee and will reflect on the arguments. Looking around the Room, I am conscious already of the experience and expertise that will be brought to bear on the Bill.

As a service to members of the Committee, I have ensured that my Department has provided a pack of the relevant documentation for the clauses to be taken this morning; it is available on the Table. I also make

clear our commitment to updating the legislation on civil protection in this country, which is the principal reason for the Bill. The Bill and the accompanying non-legislative measures will deliver a single framework of civil protection for the United Kingdom to meet the challenges of the 21st century. I commend the motion to the Committee.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I join in the welcome to you in the Chair, Sir John. We have spent many a happy hour on Committees considering Finance Bills under your expert chairmanship, so we know that we are in safe hands today.

I also join in the remarks about Lady Butterfill. We missed you last night, Sir John, at the meeting last night of the Programming Sub-Committee and we all join in the hopes and wishes for a speedy recovery for her. I do not think that I have said this on the record, but it is a marvellous thing that you are now Sir John. It is something that I know will be welcome to all sides of the Committee.

We have grave reservations about programming Committee sittings. There was no problem with the old system, which enabled the usual channels to reach agreement about progress in Committee. Although on this occasion I have been fortunate to discuss matters with the Government Whip—who has been extremely reasonable, accommodating and co-operative, as she always is—there is still always the danger that the debate will develop as we go through the clauses and that we will reach a point where, quite reasonably, we need a little more time here and perhaps a little less time there. We are very much against the inflexibility of programming. Therefore, in the best possible spirit, I say—as I did last night—that we do not accept programming, or this programme.

It is worth considering the range of issues that we must cover on the Bill. As was clear on Second Reading, the Bill raises points of law of severe complexity. Hon. and learned Members asked, for example, why part 2 of the Bill contained exceptions to the regulations that could be made in an emergency in respect of strikers and those who may not wish to serve in the forces. Reservations are made in the Bill about those particular human rights, but no reservation is made for the rights that the Human Rights Act 1998 conveys.

There are definitional issues and we shall debate the meaning of ''an emergency'' in parts 1 and 2; the meaning is different in each. It has been suggested that in making the regulations in part 2, it might be better if a Privy Council committee were involved, where practicable, in deciding whether emergency powers could be used in particular circumstances to provide the sort of reassurance that a wartime, all-party, National Government style of Cabinet would bring to such proceedings. We want to press the Minister on what could be done to give a more all-party feel to that aspect.

The Local Government Association has raised concerns about the imposition of duties—seven in all in clause 2—without the provision of necessary resources. Very fairly, the Minister said on Second

Reading that he was prepared to discuss the matter with local authorities and that it was not the Government's intention to impose burdens without adequate resources, but the track record of the Government is such that we have some doubts about that. We shall press him on the matter.

The question arises of the nature of the work force that will enable emergencies to be tackled. As was made clear on Second Reading, it is not enough to rely on our marvellous public servants who can tackle the ordinary situations that they encounter. The example that I gave on Second Reading was that if a dirty bomb fell on a medium-sized city in this country, the point would come relatively quickly where the emergency services were spent. Which reserves would then come into play? The Government have said that defence forces will be available. However, the concern is that the required numbers are not available on the ground. Often, territorial personnel are committed to theatres elsewhere in the world. Is there a case for a volunteer reserve force that would bring together the necessary skills so that more manpower is available?

The Police Federation has made the point that it is necessary to rationalise the organisational structure that would follow a civil emergency in order to provide a new tier of organisation. It talks about making

''clear and unambiguous issues pertaining to jurisdiction, remit, lines of control and lines of communication.''

It also talks about permitting

''proper and effective coordination between public bodies and utilities''

and providing

''the full backing of the law to individuals with designated civil emergency roles and responsibilities.''

We want to probe the structure that underlines the Bill and whether it would produce a practicable and effective response to the sort of emergencies to which the Bill refers.

We are concerned that the appraisal that was commissioned by Scotland Yard—the Unicorn project—has shown big voids in the sort of cover available in London, particularly in the business sphere. We want to examine the arrangements that exist to protect our businesses and what more needs to be done, particularly in the communications field, as highlighted by the report.

At times when our nation has been threatened, arrangements have been put in place for public training and education. More could be done without frightening the public, and it is necessary for our society to prepare for the new threats that we face. For many of the years of my lifetime, the threat that we seemed to face came from the USSR, and we made preparations with that in mind. The current threat is not a certain one; it is more the threat of uncertainty, risk and an unknown form of terrorism. We must ensure that the public are aware of the likely ways in which we might have to deal with the current threat as opposed to that of previous years.

With regard to the motion, it is always helpful if a Minister can provide the Committee with the latest information on any draft regulations that his Department is preparing for the Bill. It would be

helpful if the Minister told us of the latest situation on drafting regulations for this Bill. We do not agree with the motion, but we hope that it will be possible to fit all the important issues and concerns into the time frame set out.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I echo the comments of the previous speakers about your chairmanship, Sir John, and the good wishes to yourself and your wife at this time.

We do not have any problem about the principle of programme motions, and we think that Programming Sub-Committees are quite sensible. I say that with a certain degree of shame, as I was unable to attend the Programming Sub-Committee sitting last night. I was in a Public Accounts Committee dealing with the fascinating subject of duty on Scotch whisky; so one can understand that we were, to a degree, distracted. [Interruption.] It was a spirited discussion, as the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn) says. I emerged from it to find that I had just missed the Programming Sub-Committee, for which I extend my apologies.

In general terms, we are comfortable with the programme motion; we were not happy with the motion on the Order Paper on Second Reading, because there had been no prior discussion. The motion was put to me before the Programming Sub-Committee sat and we were broadly content with it.

As we said on Second Reading, our main concerns are with part 2, in which there are important principles to discuss. The motion allows us to have a serious debate about part 2; therefore, we do not seek to block it.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I, too, pass on my best wishes to you and your wife, Sir John. I have already privately congratulated you on the honour bestowed on you recently.

I wish to speak against the programme motion. I am normally against them in principle; some time should be provided to see how a Bill is progressing and to hear the comments and reservations that people have on both sides of the House before it is decided whether politics is being played with the Bill. There is always an opportunity after a couple of sittings to gauge how political parties are treating legislation. There is nothing to prevent a motion in the middle of a Committee that places a limit on the time to be made available to discuss proposed legislation in Committee. I see no problem with gauging the mood of the Committee. It would be totally irresponsible of any Member to filibuster with the aim of stretching the Committee to a few more sittings.

I have read the Library's explanatory notes and I welcome the thrust of the Bill; we need it to deal with possible eventualities. Last night, I looked at the UK Resilience website. I congratulate the Government on the site; it is fairly comprehensive, and the public should be made aware of it and consult it on a regular basis. The homepage leads with an advance severe weather warning. With the cold weather last night and this morning and the threat of snow—we know the chaos that severe snow can bring—it is right to make

members of the public aware of what might happen and of the precautions that they can take to ensure that they, their families and their neighbourhoods are protected should severe weather occur.

As well as the information on the threat of terrorism, which is vitally important for British nationals travelling abroad, the website lists various areas where emergencies might occur. We want to probe the Government on whether the Bill is sufficient to deal with every eventuality. I suspect that at the back of people's minds is the question of whether we are sufficiently protected against any abuse of the Bill. That is where the balance that the Minister talked about on Second Reading comes in. There must be a balance. We cannot make the Bill totally prescriptive, otherwise we will not be able to prepare for every emergency.

Much of what we say today will be coloured by what happened on 11 September. The United States did not seem to be prepared for the fact that people were prepared to get into jet airliners and fly them into buildings. Looking at what happened on 11 September, I suspect that if those terrorists had known how successful they would be, more atrocities might have occurred on the day, and they might have tried something on a much wider scale.

I assume that many lessons have been learned since, not just on the intelligence front—intelligence seemed woefully lacking—but on a number of other fronts related to the prevention of such a thing happening again. There have recently been delays and cancellations of British Airways flights from the United Kingdom to the United States because of intelligence received, but I am sure that people would prefer to be on a safe flight, rather than take a chance. I think that 11 September will definitely colour our view of future events and the preparations against certain eventualities.

The list on the website refers to aviation. One of the objectives is not only to prevent people flying aircraft into buildings, but to ensure that there are regular flights, and that flights from the United Kingdom to the rest of the world, and vice versa, are not disrupted. It is important that we get that absolutely right. It was not so long ago that we saw tanks outside Heathrow airport. I supported that, because obviously the Government had been given a tip-off and it was right to take every necessary precaution. I know that people were shocked at the use of tanks, but it was right to deploy them. It was deemed that an emergency could take place, and the Government took the right course of action.

Mention is made of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks, chemical accidents, civil contingencies, and energy and power supplies, which are vital. If terrorists were to knock out certain energy sources, the country could be brought to a complete standstill. It is important that the legislation is able to deal with that.

Epidemics are also mentioned. We can see what is happening in relation to the fowl disease that has hit Thailand, Indonesia and number of other countries around the world including China, which believes that it has had an outbreak as well. There could be a state of emergency in this country that involved people dying because of something that we could not foretell. I hope, touch wood, that the disease will not come here, but if it did, we might have to consider whether the entire fowl population should be killed to protect everybody. That is something that the Ministers may have to take on board in the Bill. Even six months ago, who could have dreamt that such a thing might happen? It is important that we get such things right.

Mention is also made of fire safety and flooding. Sadly, flooding takes place in a number of areas from time to time. The Bill mentions the fact that there may be a regional emergency, as opposed to a full state of emergency. Parts of the country may be affected. In the part of Wales that I come from, flooding is a real problem. Regional states of emergency, or whatever they are termed, may well be called to protect people's lives and to ensure the safety of their property. Flooding and flood alerts are vital issues.

The fuel situation is also mentioned. I do not know whether the Minister wants to say anything about that, but I assume that that refers to the blockades of the fuel depots that took place not so long ago and which led to people not being able to obtain fuel. There were huge protests from the NHS because nurses and doctors were not able to obtain supplies to get to work. It is important that that is taken on board, and that people have access to fuel.

Mention is also made of a nuclear accident, terrorism, a train crash, travel, a water shortage, and web and internet alerts. I wondered what that last phrase meant. What problem could there be now that we have firewalls that are supposed to protect computers and networks? I was told that, thanks to Wi-Fi and the wireless network, people could come into one of the Departments, get around the firewalls with a laptop, infect an entire system and bring it down. That might not just affect a Department such as the Department of Trade and Industry. Imagine if someone did that to the Child Support Agency or to the pensions network. It would be an absolute catastrophe if people were not able to get access to the funding that they deserve. It is important that we get enough time to discuss those matters.

Mr. Allan rose—

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman takes interventions, I point out that we are discussing the programme motion. I have been lenient in allowing hon. Members to go wide of the motion, but the hon. Gentleman must now return to it. I give notice to the Committee that I shall not be so lenient later on in allowing people to go wide of the subject under debate.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

The point that I am making is that it is vital to debate all the areas that I have mentioned; it is important that we get the legislation correct.

Therefore, we must have sufficient time to discuss each of the areas to ensure that the legislation will be effective and that there will not be loopholes.

I can only imagine the nightmare for Ministers if, when they take action, in the back of their minds they have to ask, ''Am I doing the right thing? Is this going to come back to bite me later on in a judicial review, which I will be hauled before to explain exactly what I have done?'' That is why we must be given more flexibility in the time allowed to discuss the various issues of importance not only to us but to our constituents.

My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) mentioned that we do not want to scare the public, and that is right too. We want to ensure that the public have the right preparation, protection and training. The Minister could be more flexible in how he approaches the issue of timetabling and could look at ways for us to discuss things such as educating the public in what they can do to obtain protection not only for themselves and their family—we have an ageing population so we must consider elderly people as well—but for communities and people living alone. We must ensure that they are told what they should do in the event of an emergency taking place in the country. That is why I hope that the Government will see how the debate progresses and give it a chance.

I have to say that that applies to both sides of the Committee: this is not an issue of one party against another or two parties against the Government. I am sure that some Labour Members have reservations about some of the things contained in the legislation. As my hon. Friend said earlier, a number of civil liberties groups say that they are not sure about some aspects of the policy either. There may be some areas where we think that the Government should go a bit further; because we think that they are not being sufficiently prescriptive. I hope that the Minister will take what I have said in the spirit in which it is meant and think again about the programme motion.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

In the generous spirit with which the deliberations have started, it might be helpful if I answer the specific point made by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire on the regulations that relate to the part of the Bill that we are discussing today. The part 1 regulations were published on 7 January alongside the Bill. They were clearly developed and discussed with stakeholders during the autumn, but will be further developed in the light of the comments made during the parliamentary process. There will then be a further process of public consultation on the regulations following Royal Assent. The part 2 regulations are clearly of a different order in the sense that there is no precedent for those being published, but perhaps we can discuss the merits of that position from the Opposition's point of view at that stage.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

It may be helpful if I explain to members of the Committee that the motion, even if passed, would be capable of amendment at any time if it were the pleasure of the Committee so to do.

Question put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 14, Noes 4.

Clause 1 - Meaning of ''emergency''

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in

clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out 'a place in'.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 2, in

clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert

'or in a Part or region'.

No. 3, in

clause 1, page 1, line 8, leave out 'a place in'.

No. 4, in

clause 1, page 1, line 8, after 'Kingdom', insert

'or of a Part or region'.

No. 5, in

clause 1, page 1, line 9, leave out

'place in the United Kingdom'

and insert 'Part or region'.

No. 6, in

clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert—

'(1A) In subsection (1), ''Part'' and ''region'' have the same meanings as in Part 2 of this Act.'.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

This is a series of probing amendments designed to test the differences in the two definitions of an ''emergency'' that appear in the Bill: here in clause 1 and later in clause 18. During pre-legislative scrutiny and in discussion and consultation, the Government have moved a long way, and it is right to give credit for the improvements made in the Bill. The other criticism, which we have made forcefully, is that there has been a delay in bringing forward the Bill— by the time this Bill receives its Royal Assent it will be about three years since the events of 11 September 2001. That is too long a delay, so although one gives credit for consultation, discussion and pre-legislative scrutiny, on balance the Government's performance has been sluggish.

We must look at the two parts of the Bill and the definitions concerned. Part 1 deals with county councils, other local authorities and services, and their duties as responders to assess, plan and advise, give help to business and prepare for an emergency. That is at a local level. Part 2 deals with the use of emergency

powers to make emergency regulations for a very wide range of serious measures, such as confiscation and destruction of property and prohibitions on movement.

In clause 1(1) the definition of an ''emergency'' is an event or situation that threatens serious damage to human welfare, or the environment or security of a place in the United Kingdom, or the security of the United Kingdom itself. This concept of ''a place'' is central to the definition in clause 1. The clause then goes on to describe how an event may damage human welfare and deals with the issues that we will discuss in due course.

The bodies that have to assess, plan or advise cover different sizes of areas. For example, the definition covers a county council, which can cover millions of people over many square miles, a district council, which may have perhaps 100,000 or more residents over a smaller area, and health bodies, whose areas can be of all sizes. The amendments ask what, in this context, is the meaning of

''a place in the United Kingdom''.

Does it include, say, the whole of Hertfordshire or Essex? Does it include a city? The responders for London, say, seem to be the boroughs, but some of the other areas concerned seem to be of a variable size.

In clause 18 the emergency must be in a part or a region of the United Kingdom. A part of the UK seems to be a country, such as England or Scotland, and a region is defined as a region for regional development agency purposes. Will the Minister explain at this early stage the structure that underpins those definitions? How will planning advice and so on be undertaken for cities, regions and parts? If a large county council is planning for, say, 3 million people, why is that dealt with differently from a city with a similar population, or is it not? It would be helpful if the Minister could explain that.

To put it into perspective, the Police Federation, which is used to dealing with this type of situation, said that it would like to see a rational organisational structure, so that it is clear where the responsibilities lie. It says that the Bill should

''Make clear and unambiguous issues pertaining to jurisdiction, remit, lines of control and lines of communication.''

It wants proper and effective co-ordination between public bodies and utilities and, as I said earlier, the full backing of the law, with the necessary powers to implement the measures.

We want the Minister to explain the various tiers. What is a place compared with a part or a region, and how does he see that working for cities, rural areas and the country as a whole?

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I support what the hon. Gentleman has just said: the explanatory memorandum takes us no further. Frankly, it makes the situation even worse. Paragraph 13 says:

''This definition differs from the definition of 'emergency' for the purposes of Part 2 of the Bill in that, for the purposes of Part 2, the situation must threaten serious damage in the United Kingdom or in a Part or region (rather than a place in the United Kingdom).''

I cannot understand any of that. It is a fundamental question, and we should be given a proper and clear response.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I congratulate you on your knighthood, Sir John, as I have already done privately, and wish your wife the best of good fortune.

I rise to back up the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and to ask the Minister to empathise with the Police Federation's point of view in this regard. The Minister will be aware that Opposition Members come at the issue from a practical standpoint.

The police have thought long and hard about the way in which they will respond. The Minister is aware of my reservations about the resources at the police's disposal, but the police have little doubt that their regional control centres, basic command units and chain of command are structured in a way that allows the blue light services to respond across the piece. Therefore, will the Minister make clear, in relation to the blue light services, the differences between place, part and region? As the hon. Gentleman has just said, the terms seem to add another layer of confusion, which could be clarified. Only by clarifying the terms can we help the blue light services, in particular the police, to make their point clearly.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I, too, rise to speak in favour of the amendment, because I also seek clarification from the Minister. I want to find out exactly what

''a place in the United Kingdom''

means and what sort of emergency might occur in a place as opposed to a region or a city, a town or a village. Does he have in mind a train accident, of which, sadly, we have had too many in the past?

I assume that, although the emergency services would be used—as they are now, and they do a tremendous job—a train accident would not require a state of emergency to be called. The current legislation already deals with such a scenario and through existing regulations the emergency services already know exactly what to do.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

What would happen if Hertfordshire had an excellent plan to deal with a massive forest fire—not that there are any forests in Hertfordshire, but supposing there were—and the fire swept into Essex? Everybody knows that there are no trees in Essex, but supposing there were, how would part 1 deal with such liaison?

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify what will happen when ''a place'' happens to be moving. To give another example, the Lockerbie disaster was huge and seismic. Is that the sort of area to which ''a place'' is referring? When Lockerbie happened, a state of emergency was not called and the emergency services, which knew that such an event

could happen, already knew exactly what they needed and wanted to do. So, I wonder why the Bill says what it does.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I was keeping quiet because I thought I understood the definitions, but as the debate continues they are becoming less clear. Will the Minister clarify my understanding of the Bill, having sat on the Joint Committee, that the threshold is much higher in part 2 of the regulations; that in very broad terms the planning is for very localised incidents; and that we are trying to set a hurdle whereby we cannot bring in emergency regulations unless a much bigger area is affected? It would be helpful to hear the legal precedent for it and to hear on what basis we can have confidence that place is far more localised than part or region. Those are the two differences in wording.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Would the hon. Gentleman not accept that, in a large county such as Yorkshire or Essex with millions of people, if one is planning for an incident that might affect the whole county, we are discussing quite a high threshold? It is the interplay between that level of threat and part 2 that needs explaining.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the point because it will be helpful to have it clarified. I hope that, as with the definition of place, the two parts are not mutually exclusive. If the trigger level were low and there were a forest fire in Yorkshire, where there are forests, which spread to Northumberland, where there are also forests, I hope that the powers in part 1 would not be excluded from use; in other words that one could go from place right up to part or region, but not introduce part 2 emergency regulations for something more localised. It is important that the powers are restrictive upon part 2 rather than part 1.

I fully accept the hon. Gentleman's point, which is entirely correct. If a part 1 emergency spirals out of control and crosses boundaries, there must be cross-boundary working.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I echo many of the points made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan), which were instructive and helpful. He understood the distinction between a place in the United Kingdom and a part or region more than he gave himself credit for. For the record, I will clarify the definitions.

The definition of emergency that underpins part 1 is crucial and it is essential that we get it right. It is therefore appropriate for Opposition Members to table probing amendments, but I am unable to accept them. The definition of ''emergency'' in the Bill is critical, and in modernising local civil protection, we have been keen to ensure that the definition in parts 1 and 2 is accurate. Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill serve fundamentally different purposes, as the hon. Gentleman just recognised. There is no reason why the duties imposed under part 1 should apply in the same circumstances where regulations may be made under part 2.

Let me clarify the Government's intention on that matter. We intend that part 1 should apply in relation to more localised events or situations, whereas the

scale of an event or situation must be much greater before emergency powers could be invoked. That is why there is a differentiation—which has caused some confusion in the Committee—in the definition of ''emergency'' in parts 1 and 2 of the Bill. The definition in part 2 states that an event or situation must threaten serious damage to human welfare, the environment or security of a part of the United Kingdom or region. In that regard, part of the United Kingdom is defined as meaning England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, and region means a region for the purposes of the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

To give the comparison of the United States, jets flew into the World Trade Centre in New York, and the Pentagon. The US authorities were then worried about the White House, because they understood that a plane was heading there. Would such an incident come under part 1 or part 2 of the Bill?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I hesitate to draw direct parallels with a particular contingency that took place under a different system of government. The US has both a presidential and executive system of government as opposed to the parliamentary democracy that we have in the UK. One would have to consider the perhaps better analogy that the hon. Gentleman raised earlier of Lockerbie. One could envisage circumstances—this is well-known in my part of the world—where the emergency services were obliged to pull together in a wholly distinctive response, as they did in the tragic circumstances of the Pan Am flight going into a village in south-west Scotland.

In such circumstances, we would apply the criteria from part 1 of the Bill, where we consider the response capabilities and planning functions of local authorities and other part 1 and part 2 responders. That case would meet the criteria set out in part 1 of the Bill. There is a separate discussion to be had, in which the Committee will want to take part, on the circumstances in which it is appropriate for emergency powers to be contemplated. That will form the basis of the debate that we will have on part 2.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

The Minister understands my point, but if we move on from there and imagine that there was a terrorist attack in three different parts of the UK, would it be dealt with completely differently, as opposed to the emergency powers in each area dealing with that particular crisis? It would be a threat, and part of the Bill deals with the prevention of possible terrorist attacks in the rest of the country. I assume that in such a case a state of emergency may be called because the terrorist activities were co-ordinated and so might be deemed to constitute a threat to the entire UK.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

We should remember that the focus of part 1 is local response and the capability of local organisations to respond and plan effectively in a range of different contingencies. The need to take action through planning and preparation does not, of course, preclude action that needs to be taken at a national level such as in the event of a catastrophic terrorist incident, for example. The Home Secretary

retains oversight for the security and protection of the people of the UK under the parliamentary system we enjoy, and he would have a view of the need to take action in advance of any incident—which is why legislation was introduced after the events of 11 September—but he also has concern for the resilience capability of the UK, anticipating circumstances that might arise after any incident.

The distinction has to be drawn between a planning capability in part 1, which is necessarily local in its focus because civil contingency planning in the UK for many years has been based on local response and capability—the framework that the Bill establishes honours and upholds the importance of that local response from the emergency services and other agencies—and the need to update our emergency powers under part 2 to ensure that there is a national resilience capability to match the capacity for local response.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I would like to pursue the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). In this country we tend to organise ourselves, as regards counter-terrorism, at the centre—we have a national system for dealing with that. Yet any incidents that occur could well be very localised, so there could be a series of incidents around the country. Therefore, I wonder how one can match the two aspects, the national—knowing what is going on around the country and being sure that the counter-terrorism aspects are being tackled adequately—and the local. If there were a string of events in different parts of the country on one day, how would we swing into action as a country? Would it be a national response, or would we be expecting the local areas to pick it up? How does the Minister's system work with an instance such as that put forward by my hon. Friend?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I fear that some confusion has crept into the hon. Gentleman's remarks on counter-terrorism measures. Of course there is a counter-terrorism strategy—taken forward by the Government—that is national in focus, but specific in circumstances; arrests may be necessary under counter-terrorism legislation in any part of the United Kingdom. None the less, the work is taken forward by the Government on a day-to-day—often hour-by-hour—basis to ensure that intelligence is looked at in the appropriate fashion, deliberations are made, decisions are reached and any necessary action is taken. Those actions obviously predate any terrorist activity that would either require a resilience response or, in the case of a catastrophic terrorist incident, emergency powers.

In that sense it is important to remind the Committee that what we are discussing in terms of part 1 of the Bill is not national security per se, but national resilience and the capacity to respond to circumstances that none of us would wish to see, in either a localised or a catastrophic incident of the kind already

described. There are clear means of ensuring that the Home Secretary—working alongside the Prime Minister and other colleagues within Government—is able to ensure that our counter-terrorism strategy is taken forward at a national level, while recognising that the British public would have a reasonable expectation that we would have in place an appropriate framework to ensure that, if a civil or other contingency arose, there was the resilience locally to cope. In that sense, it is important to recognise the distinction between resilience capability and the issues of national security that the hon. Gentleman raised.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

The Minister knows that one problem to be catered for is environmental damage. Can I remind him of the Sea Empress disaster off the coast of Wales? In that instance it was almost fortunate that the accident happened near Milford Haven, where the expertise was situated. Further up the coast, in north-west Wales, from where I hail, there is no such counter-pollution expertise. How would our local contingency plans be knitted in with somebody who was more au fait with what is necessary in that sort of disaster?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

Within Government, there is the elite Government Department principle, which means that in a range of different circumstances—a significant maritime pollution incident, for example—there are Government Departments who have the expertise within central Government in that regard. One of the weaknesses we have identified is that historically, the bridge between the expertise at central Government level and the local response that we have been describing, often led by local authorities, is not as strong as it should be. It is for exactly that reason that, notwithstanding some criticism, we aim to introduce a regional tier at this juncture.

That is not a reflection of inadequacy on the part of local government or other responders, but of the point the hon. Gentleman raised; the need to build a stronger bridge between the expertise, often held at the centre of Government, and a clear-headed understanding of what is happening on the ground, as local responders encounter the circumstances of a particular incident. In that sense, I do not want to get ahead of myself in discussing the regional tier, but I do believe that it has a significant contribution to make. If there were circumstances in which a particular local authority did not have the expertise to cope with some of the challenges that it might face, there would, on a long-standing principle, be support available from the Government in terms of technical expertise. However, I believe that the passage of this Bill would give stronger assurances to local responders than those currently in place.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I wish to probe further the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for North-East Hertfordshire and for Ribble Valley. An example that gives me great concern and which I hope will be discussed later in the Bill is the problem of contamination. Suppose that a dirty bomb goes off, let us say in London. Simultaneously, a number of football matches are going on in London, the crowds

from which are about to disperse to all sorts of different parts, by train, coach and perhaps car. Without any form of training—the point is made later in the Bill—or public awareness of the problem, those crowds become contaminated; perhaps not severely, but severely enough to pose a threat. They then disperse to Liverpool, Newcastle or wherever. Suddenly, we have a traumatic incident in London and health problems in dispersed parts of the country. I am still not clear from what the Minister said how that would be handled; I should be grateful if he clarified it. Would it be handled by authorities in London, Newcastle and Liverpool, or would it be a national emergency? If the latter, who would control it?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

Clearly such a situation would require a response at a local and a national level. A catastrophic incident such as the one that the hon. Gentleman describes would require central Government co-ordination; equally, there would be a need for a local response in the areas that he mentioned. In that sense he makes my point for me. A serious biological or chemical attack with effects that spread across the country would make the case for the Bill, because in such circumstances we must make sure that there is national understanding. That would be our approach in each part of the United Kingdom. At the same time, central Government would have to take a strong view and would stand ready to assist in and co-ordinate the work of a range of bodies.

Let me take another example, which is not a direct parallel but is instructive; the incidence of foot and mouth, which may have been in the hon. Gentleman's mind. One feature of that incident was that—notwithstanding the determination of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to take a lead, together with other Government Departments, in advancing the appropriate response—it was recognised that the link between MAFF and individual local authorities, be they in Cumbria, Yorkshire or elsewhere, was not as strong as it should have been. Again, that makes the case for a regional tier to ensure an intelligent and structured response from central Government, which of course would accept its responsibilities in those circumstances, while recognising the need to reach the incident on the ground. That makes the case for greater co-ordination. That is why the aim of the Bill is not only to provide a national framework, but to strengthen the links of co-ordination between central and local government.

Mr. Heald rose—

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I have been generous, but I will give way one more time.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I have two points, so I hope that the Minister will answer another one later, if possible.The Minister referred to the regional tier. Where is that in the Bill?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

We will come to regional tiers in later discussions. We are now specifically discussing the definition of emergency in terms of planning. I shall be happy to cover the regulations that will accompany the Bill and the work that can be done by

local authorities and central Government later, but I am straying rather far from the particularities of the clause.

As I have said, subsection (1) describes an emergency as

''an event or situation which threatens serious damage to—

(a) human welfare in a place in the United Kingdom,

(b) the environment of a place in the United Kingdom, or

(c) the security of the United Kingdom or of a place in the United Kingdom.''

I can understand the concern expressed by some hon. Members, who think that serious damage in a place in the United Kingdom—which might be as small as a town, a village or even a street—might not seem serious enough to require a risk assessment or emergency planning. I understand that the Joint Committee asked whether a fire in a single house would be enough to trigger such duties. In the Government's response, they made it clear that the threshold for the scale of events by local responders should be one for which they were planning. It is an event or situation

''which would be likely to seriously obstruct the responder in the performance of his functions or in relation to which the responder could not respond in an appropriate way without changing the deployment of resources or acquiring additional resources''.

That makes clear the sorts of event for which local responders should, and indeed do, prepare. I argue that a single residential fire could easily be dealt with under the existing arrangements, but a large industrial fire in a densely populated area, which could well require detailed multi-agency contingency planning, would not be and would fall within the criteria for undertaking the duties.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

If individual fires broke out in two or three areas within a given fire brigade's area and there was a serious terrorist threat to human life in that area, what would be the contingency plan? Clearly, if there were two or three fires, that might overstretch the local fire brigade, which might not be able to deal with the terrorist threat as it would be obliged to do under the Bill.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I can do no better than offer a reminder of the definition that was given in response to the observations of the Joint Committee. That definition is:

''An event or situation which would be likely to seriously obstruct the responder in the performance of his functions or in relation to which the responder cannot respond in an appropriate way without changing the deployment of resources or acquiring additional resources.''

In the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman describes, a local responder might be required to change the deployment of resources or acquire additional resources and, as such, we are talking about something that falls within the responsibilities and duties as set out.

The definition of ''emergency'' is fundamental to the way in which part 1 works. The civil protection duties described in clause 2 all relate to assessing the risk of an emergency occurring or the advent of an emergency. That is why we worked so closely with

practitioners to get the current definition right. I urge the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire to withdraw the amendment.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

What are ''places''? That is our concern. I know that the word is in common use, but it seems that the meaning of ''a place'' in the Bill relates to the sorts of bodies that have duties under clause 2. In other words, in relation to an emergency that threatens serious damage to

''human welfare in a place in the United Kingdom'',

a place means one of the areas covered by, to quote from schedule 1:

''(a) a county council,

(b) a district council,

(c) a London borough council,

(d) the Common Council of the City of London,''

and so on, or a police authority area or an NHS trust area. I think that that is the Minister's point. We are talking about counties, towns and villages. Two counties might be involved, but we are talking about an area less than a region. Anything in that category has to be planned for under clause 2. I understand the point, but there is still the question of how the bodies concerned will liaise and co-operate. If I am wrong, I hope that the Minister will feel free intervene and explain where I have got things wrong, because it is essential to understand the interface between part 1 and part 2, and the escalation of powers.

I mentioned the regional tier because the response in a region is the next level up from the response in a locality or a place, yet the Bill does not deal with a regional response. Under part 2, it is possible to make regulations for emergency powers in a region, but the mechanisms by which that will work are not entirely clear.

Having said that, and on the basis that we may wish to return to the matter on Report, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 7, in

clause 1, page 1, line 16, at beginning insert 'severe'.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 8, in

clause 1, page 1, line 17, leave out 'money'.

No. 9, in

clause 1, page 1, line 18, leave out 'an electronic or other' and insert 'any'.

No. 10, in

clause 1, page 1, line 18, at end insert—

'(ff) spread of fire leading to circumstances damaging to human welfare,'.

No. 11, in

clause 1, page 1, line 19, leave out 'transport' and insert

'air, rail and sea transport, and major roads considered vital to human welfare for the purposes of subsection (1)(a)'.

No. 12, in

clause 1, page 1, line 20, leave out 'relating to' and insert

'and impediment of persons concerned with preservation of'.

No. 40, in

clause 21, page 13, line 44, leave out 'money'.

No. 41, in

clause 21, page 14, line 1, leave out 'an electronic or other' and insert 'any'.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

This group of amendments raises questions about the definition of emergency in clause 1. This time we are talking not about place, but about the issues in subsection (2) and the events or situations that threaten damage to human welfare and therefore form part of the definition in clause 1(1)(a). Amendment No. 7 would add the word ''severe'' to the subsection (2)(d) reference to ''damage to property'' so that damage to human welfare would include situations where severe damage to property was threatened. The definition in subsection 1(1) refers to a threat of serious damage to human welfare, but we want to make it clear that, in that respect, it would only be a severe threat of damage that would satisfy the test in terms of property. I want the Minister's assurance on that.

Amendment No. 8, which is grouped with amendment No. 40 to clause 21, would delete from clause 1(2)(e)

''disruption of a supply of money''.

The other ingredients of a threat to human welfare in that subsection—namely food, water, fuel and energy—are obvious threats to human welfare. If the Government have identified circumstances where a local council or any of the other responders might be able to help with problems caused by a disruption to the money supply, we want the Minister to explain what they are. We are looking to restrict the definition of emergencies to those that require such a level of contingency planning. Perhaps the Minister could explain the reason for that.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the circumstances that could cause a disruption of the money supply is the post office closure programme that is happening throughout the country?

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. I trust that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire will not respond to that.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I shall not respond directly, because I think that that was made as a slightly partisan party political point. The Government may have in mind situations where the vulnerable, deprived of money, might not be able to go about their everyday life and that that might cause a threat to their human welfare. Although the issue about post office closures may be a little too extreme an example, one can imagine that if post offices or local banks were closed and no money was available to local people, it might cause hardship. Does the level of hardship meet the threshold for contingency planning of this sort?

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that obstruction to the supply of money would be more properly planned for and exercised under part 2 on a national or regional basis?

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because I was going to come to the question of where the measure naturally fitted. If we are talking about an emergency in which people literally cannot get money—where there is a disruption to the money supply and all that that means—is that not too serious an issue for a local council to deal with? A council might be able to hand out some vouchers or money, but where there is disruption to the money supply, one really needs central Government action to ensure that the situation is remedied; perhaps even action from the Bank of England. It would be interesting to know what the Minister has in mind.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Would this measure be better in part 2 than in part 1? What exactly might be the disruption to the money supply locally as opposed to nationally? If confidence broke down in the money supply, terrorists or fraudsters might come in with huge supplies of money that resulted in people having no faith in the money supply. How that would happen locally is one question, but it is unlikely; it would be a national rather than a local issue.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

One simply does not know, and the Minister can help us on this. Does he have in mind a situation in which banks and post offices are shut and coins and notes are not available to people, which is one possible scenario, or a serious disruption to the money supply, which would be a national rather than local issue? It is hard to see how bodies such as a county or district council would have much impact. The amendment probes the sort of situation that the Minister has in mind, the necessity of the provision and whether, if it is a national rather than local matter, the measure should not be in part 2.

Amendment No. 9—paired with amendment No. 41 to clause 21—would delete the disruption of ''an electronic'' system and insert ''any''. The amendment is based on concerns expressed by the Law Society and British Telecom. Noting that the definition of an emergency includes the expression ''disruption of an electronic or other system'', BT would like to know why the disruption of an electronic system of communication on its own should be included.

Disruption to BT's system on its own—rather than as a by-product of a more serious incident involving several category 1 and 2 responders—can be dealt with by BT; it believes that it has the expertise and processes to deal with that. It cannot understand why the local council would wish to be involved in the restoration of the service. Why should the disruption to an electronic communication system such as that operated by BT, on its own—rather than as a by-product of a more

serious incident—involve councils or other responders? BT says:

''There could be no value added by involving local or national officials under such circumstances. Government responders are unlikely to have the required knowledge, skills or expertise to direct the details of a telecommunications recovery.''

The Law Society has also raised concerns about the provision.

Amendment No. 10 would add the

''spread of fire leading to circumstances damaging to human welfare''

to the events that threaten human welfare. Fire is not well covered by the Bill. [Interruption.] How appropriate. The Minister has obviously sent out an urgent message and careful fire precautions are now being taken in all parts of the country. Perhaps I ought to just give up on the amendment; I very rarely get such a quick response. There was I saying that the Bill had been far too long delayed.

Some people in this country live in houses surrounded by forests. In places such as California, France and Australia, there have been great tragedies because of fire. As climates are changing—it seems that in this country we have drier, more arid periods than we once did—there is a legitimate question about whether fire should be included in the Bill.

Amendment No. 11 probes what the Government have in mind for transport in part 1. The amendment would leave out ''transport'' and insert

''air, rail and sea transport, and other major roads considered vital to human welfare for the purposes of subsection (1)(a)''.

We hope that the Minister will explain the role of local planning for transport, and whether air, which we have specifically included in the amendment, requires a national rather than local response, given the sort of problems we know about following 11 September.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

Will the hon. Gentleman expand on his reasons for the term ''major roads'' in his amendment? I am not aware that it is a term of art known to law in any part of the country. Why is it necessary? We had a major disaster with the Braer in my constituency. Many of the roads in the southern part of Shetland could not, by any estimation, be called major roads, but they would clearly be vital to human welfare for the purposes of subsection (1)(a).

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. The justification may be that made by the Minister and that may be the answer.

We are keen to test exactly what level of emergency the Government expect local authorities to plan for. In many part of the country, one would not expect a great deal of detailed planning about a road with less importance in terms of its links between towns and villages. A major road within a locality might be a different matter. The fact that a road is narrow, as in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, does not necessarily mean that it is not vital. For example, there are isolated communities in his constituency; a road may be minor, but it may also be vital. The expression ''major roads'' is not a term of art and we do not claim to have parliamentary counsel working on our team, although my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley is excellent.

We are anxious to probe the Minister about the sort of transport links he believes local authorities and others should seek to protect in the context of emergency legislation. I would have thought it proper to probe that in an amendment. I agree with him that some other form of words might be better than ''vital roads'' and we would be more than happy if the Minister were prepared to go away and consider that.

Several hon. Members rose—

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I apologise, Sir John. I was so carried away with my reply to that intervention that I had forgotten that I have not spoken to the other amendments, no doubt much to the Committee's relief.

I have now found the Law Society's comment about the electronic systems to which amendment No. 9 refers. It said:

''In our view an interference with an electronic system does not merit inclusion within the definition of an emergency except where it threaten the lives of individuals or deprives the community of the essentials of life.''

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I should like to speak to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire. There is a lot of sense in many of them. Amendment No. 7, which refers to severe damage to property, relates to justified concern that the scope of the Bill and the powers as we understand them are associated primarily with human welfare, which is repeated throughout the provisions. A major concern for the Joint Committee was that human welfare should remain the focus. The notion of damage to property sits awkwardly within the scope of the Bill and the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire was sensible to propose a severity threshold. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's response to that.

Amendment No. 8 refers to money disruption and, again, the hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill are not mutually exclusive and there may be situations in which regulations are brought into play under part 2. One could imagine that something that disrupted the money supply so significantly that it was causing chaos throughout the country—such as a terrorist attack on the Royal Mint or on a key component of the money supply—might require the Government to bring in exceptional powers under part 2. However, that might also require a local component in relation to the way in which money was distributed to people locally. Should local authorities plan for such circumstances, or are the circumstances so extreme that it is not worth them putting the effort in? Could they do anything useful if such circumstances were to occur? It is incumbent on the Minister to respond—specifically to the money point—to try to explain where he thinks the local authority realistically could perform a function. If it cannot and there is not to be a useful end product, there is not much sense in including the measure in the Bill as a duty on which local authorities will have to spend money.

The most significant amendment that I wish to speak to now is amendment No. 9 on the electronic communications networks. Valid concerns have been raised about the amendment. In particular, there is a risk of confusion about the different regimes that apply to an electronic communications provider. BT is the classic example of a large national provider. We must remember that there are also local providers such as Kingston Communications, which is listed in the regulatory impact assessment as the kind of provider that would be affected, and distributive providers, such as Thus, which has customers all over the country. It is a very distributive network, because it is not obvious that they are concentrated in one region. There is a strong presence in Scotland but, increasingly, there is a presence in many other areas.

All those companies work on tight margins and all of them are naturally worried that they will be brought into a framework in which they will have to answer for the local plans to many different bodies. The regulatory impact assessment says that, to fulfil its requirements,

''each business in Category 2 will in practice need at very most 5 days a year of the time of a senior manager and ten days of a professional at a more junior level.''

It goes on to explain in detail why it thinks the impact will be negligible. It also says that the burden on utilities represented in many different areas must be multiplied by the number of areas in which they must respond. Telecoms providers are worried that the measure could become a burden.

The regional utilities, on the other hand, will be hauled in by everybody. If a key installation is a customer of one of the smaller telecoms providers in a certain area, it might be legitimate under the Bill for the local authority to call in that telecoms provider. However, the provider might have only that one customer and no other significant presence in the area, so the cost to the business in those circumstances clearly will be disproportionate to the value of its business there. Those are valid concerns to which the Government must respond.

The other area of confusion relates to the overlap between the provisions in the Bill and the other regulatory requirements imposed on businesses. Telecoms businesses in particular have requirements to Ofcom to provide a certain level of business continuity and they clearly have requirements to provide business continuity. There is a genuine fear that they will have to go beyond simply demonstrating how they would offer a telecoms service to important local providers in an emergency. They will have to justify how they will keep their network running in all circumstances. They need to do that for their shareholders and for Ofcom, but they should not have to do it for every local authority. The fear is the extent to which that line could be blurred by the wording of the Bill. The amendment is an important test of that.

In his opening comments on the programme motion the hon. Member for Ribble Valley referred to the other side of the electronic communications network. I was tempted to dive in then, but you quite correctly

steered me away, Sir John. I thought that, fortunately, we could come back to electronic communications networks at this point. On a point of accuracy, the hon. Gentleman said that central networks could be hacked into quite easily by people walking in with laptops. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that that is not the case. The Government spend a great deal of money on a Government-secure network, and the whole point of that network and its cost is that it cannot easily be hacked into. Plenty of other systems can be, but I hope that the Government's cannot.

I hope that we do not go away from the Committee with the idea that Government networks such as NHS networks and so on can be brought down so easily. However, the point is valid in the context of the Bill; there is a risk that a local authority will rightly have to assess where essential networks are in place. Whether it is the authority's own network or another government network, the authority will have to assess how resilient the network is.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

The hon. Gentleman has just referred to local authorities. I assume that they have been written to or advised about the matter. Does he agree that they should check the integrity of their networks to ensure that no one can get in? Part of the problem is that the ingenuity of hackers is amazing. There are people who set out with the intent to cause disruption and have no other reason for doing what they do. They seem to get some joy out of that. We have to ensure that every local authority or local network takes precautions against such people.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

The hon. Gentleman is correct. In a sense, he makes the point about the amendment that I wish to make. As regards the responsibility of the local authority for emergency planning, the focus should be on its own networks and what it can control; its own resilience. It should not be seeking to gain information on, or get involved with, the resilience of the entire BT network. The amendment makes that distinction and would limit the scope of the clause to those matters that the local authority can control. The current wording could be interpreted as going far wider than that. The disruption of an electronic system of communications seems to be much greater than that local scope.

My final point on the subject concerns the business impact, which is significant. We all know of cases where local providers have gone down for economic and other reasons and people's telecommunications systems have been disrupted. The obvious response to that is to transfer them to another telecommunications provider that is represented locally. The complexity of the networks means that businesses could be frequently transferred. However, that would obviously have an impact on the businesses if there were a forced migration rather than a normal, voluntary competitive tendering process in which people moved from one provider to the other.

Under such circumstances, we would be asking people who were normally cut-throat competitors to work together in a co-operative manner. We must be sensitive to that and understand that the local

planning of a local authority is essentially asking, ''If this provider goes down, who else can pick up their customers?'' That is clearly a difficult issue for businesses to discuss. I hope that we are not going to break up the partnerships that already exist. I understand that most of the resilience planning that is done already is largely voluntary on the part of companies such as BT, which has always been committed to it. I hope that the Minister will confirm that sensitivity will be shown to those business considerations.

Amendments Nos. 10, 11 and 12 on fire, transport and health, are sensible ones that test the scope of the clause. There are concerns about the involvement of utilities, but we are not testing that under this group of amendments. That subject will have to wait until the stand part debate.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

Amendment No. 12 relates to clause 1(2), which reads:

''an event or situation threatens serious damage to human welfare only if it involves, causes or may cause''—

in the case of paragraph (h)—

''disruption of services relating to health.''

The amendment would change that to

''disruption of services and impediment of persons concerned with preservation of health.''

The amendment is a simple, probing one, and has already been covered in part by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan). I hope that the Minister will allow us to tease out the meaning of the provision.

The amendment is designed to deal with what would happen in the event of destruction of hospitals or the blocking of ambulances, doctors, nurses or other health staff trying to get to hospitals. That would clearly constitute a threat to human life and consequently national security. Similarly, anything that prevents a doctor or nurse doing their job constitutes a threat to human welfare. I wish to probe the Minister on why there is so little definition in the Bill. We seek to introduce further definition to clarify the matter.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I, too, want to do a little probing. Amendment No. 8 would leave out ''money'' from subsection (2)(e). I should like the Minister to explain how he thinks local authorities can help in that area, and the sort of disruption that he envisages in that regard.

Food is mentioned afterwards. I can understand that, particularly in the light of the severe weather warning that has just been given. Food cannot get through to a town if it has been cut off. I remember—I think it was in the 1980s—when there were incredible problems getting bread to our shop in Swansea. The Army was called in to clear the roads because we needed to get food into certain areas. I could not get to a cash-and-carry for about three days, and most of the food that we had in the shop disappeared after one day because people started hoarding. That is what people naturally do. If they need to, they will do it.

In a similar situation, some people might have only £20 in the house. That might disappear on day one, and those people do not have a credit card; if they do,

it is full. They would have nothing to buy goods with. Is that the sort of eventuality that the Minister is thinking of? Perhaps there is one hole in the wall in a village, and that money disappears after one day, too, because people start to say, ''Quick, nip down to the hole in the wall and get as much money out as you can, because we may just need it.'' Cheques may not be accepted. There could be a cash society in certain shops, or the one local shop. Is that the sort of thing that the Minister is thinking about? I can understand that it could be a problem if people ran out of money in a city, town or village because of severe weather; if they were snowed in for 10 days, for example. That would be a real emergency that would need to be dealt with locally. It would be right to include that in part 1.

I hope that we have made progress on electronics and on amendment No. 9. I agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam that in cases involving hospitals—or the fire brigade and other emergency services that rely on communications—it is vital that the integrity of their communications remains intact; otherwise they cannot deal with any other emergencies that may occur. There would be a real threat to the welfare of human beings if communications in the ambulance service or the fire brigade fell. There could be severe loss of life, so that needs to be dealt with.

However, I cannot for the life of me see how a local authority could help on the generality of things. If a BT exchange went down, for whatever reason, there would be a real problem. What precautions would be taken to ensure that, in the event of a BT exchange going down and the local fire brigade headquarters being affected, there would be a secondary line of defence so that the fire brigade could carry on with its local business? That is important.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend. Does he feel that exactly the same points apply to satellite communications? Clearly in these circumstances, satellites will be crucial when it is likely that blue light and military services are to be brought in.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I have been trying to work out how I could bring satellites into the discussion. We have been talking about the United Kingdom and its environment but, in talking about communications, I assume that satellites will also be important. I assume that it is not beyond the wit of terrorists to target some of the low-level satellites. Alternatively, let us say that a major satellite goes down because it is hit by some debris from space. That would have an impact on communications. Will the Minister say what would happen in that regard? What would happen if the communications satellite used by the police, the fire brigade or the ambulance service—any of the blue light services—were affected?

Amendment No. 10 relates to fire. I flew over Los Angeles at the time of the outbreaks of fire, of which there were four in and around the Los Angeles area. The outbreaks were in specific and different parts and

were attacking the city from all over. As I remember, the Governor declared a state of emergency because of the problems they were facing.

Those fires were severe, huge and life threatening. The Minister will be aware that, in such cases, some people do not want to move from their homes; they somehow have an idea that their homes will be safe. As we saw so sadly in Los Angeles and in Australia, people can lose their homes and everything in them because of fire. It is absolutely ruthless when it takes a grip. I wonder whether it would not be better to have something relating specifically to fire, particularly as it is no respecter of borders, of towns, cities or villages. It is no respecter of the environment or of forests; indeed, it lives off these and then starts to threaten local communities. I can only imagine that, at some stage, it will be essential for support to be given not just in one area, but in a number of areas to fire brigades.

We have been fortunate that the fires that have broken out in this country have not been so bad, perhaps because of our weather conditions. However, we had a very hot summer last year, and if, with global warming, we were to have a couple of similar summers, fire could become a huge threat to the welfare of human beings.

I should like to test the Minister to see if he believes that a specific reference to fire is unnecessary because of everything contained in subsection (2), paragraphs (a) to (h); if he believes that this is a cover-all and that every one of those eventualities—including homelessness, damage to property, transport and health and human life—is covered, so that nothing specific is needed. If so, I seek an assurance that the fire brigades in every area are to be given sufficient training, advice and guidance to ensure that this is kept at the front of their minds and that they will take sufficient precautions so that if fire broke out in a number of areas in a part of the United Kingdom, they would be able to cope.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

We have had a wide-ranging discussion on the amendments and I shall endeavour to answer the range of points that have been put to me. Before I deal with each amendment, I should like to make a couple of points by way of context. First, on a number of occasions in this debate the suggestion has arisen that the amendments relate only to local authorities and to local government. It is of course the case that local authorities are not the only local responders to which these remarks are directed. Duties also apply to the police and to other emergency services, and therefore the element of the definition will apply to different organisations in different ways.

Let me begin by addressing the point in relation to electronic networks raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam. With the forbearance of the Committee, I will read out a section of the Government's response to the Joint Committee on exactly the question raised, because I think it is closely linked with some broader points on some of the amendments that were covered. It states:

''Category 1 responders will have a duty to plan in relation to emergencies that are connected with the operation of the utilities, for example, plan for drought or for major loss of water, and possibly for major loss of electricity or telephone supply. However, the duty on Category 1 responders to maintain plans in relation to these emergencies will not duplicate or cut across the duties imposed on utilities as part of their regulatory or licensing regimes. The duty imposed by the Bill to maintain plans in relation to emergencies is not a duty to maintain plans to direct or manage each and every emergency. It is highly improbable that a Category 1 responder would plan to direct the details of a telecommunications recovery, for example. The duty to maintain plans under the Bill is linked to the exercise by the Category 1 responder of its functions. So the plan must ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, that if an emergency occurs the responder is able to continue to perform its functions or to ensure that the responder can perform its functions so far as necessary or desirable for the purpose of responding to the emergency. The functions of Category 1 responders do not include the operation and maintenance of the utilities, but they do have functions which may be engaged by a utility based emergency such as duties towards school pupils and elderly or disabled residents or nursing mothers and hospital patients and to ensure that streets remain open and traffic moving or traffic lights and street lights or fire alarm warning systems are in order. Thus while Category 1 responders and the utilities may be planning in relation to the same event, the content of the plans will be very different.''

I hope that addresses the point that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam made.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

BT make the point that it would be expert at getting its system back up again if there were a disaster. It is just wondering what input the local authority or any other responders might have. The planning has to be BT's. Is there some other point that the Minister would like to explain?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I thought that the distinction was clear from the Government's response to the Joint Committee. For example, if BT engineers needed to access a specific exchange with the assistance of the police, the provision would be an eminently sensible precaution, standing outwith the direct responsibilities of BT, but reflecting the fact that different responders within the category have different roles in the contingency that they are dealing with.

I hope that BT would deem that my assurance, based on the Government's response to the Joint Committee, makes it sufficiently clear that we do not anticipate local authorities tinkering, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam described it, or re-engineering BT exchanges; rather, a collaborative approach would ensure that BT engineers and their expertise could be brought to bear on the particular contingency that might arise.

The effect of amendment No. 7 would be to provide that there must be ''severe'' damage to property before an event or situation can be treated as threatening human welfare. Subsection (2)(d) requires only ''damage to property'', and I agree with hon. Members that for damage to property to constitute an emergency, it ought to be of a certain scale. However, the Bill already provides for that qualification. To meet the definition of serious in subsection (1), the threat to human welfare must be ''serious''. The Bill already requires there to be serious damage to property. It is an important point to probe but the Bill already provides the assurance.

In amendments Nos. 8 and 40, the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire proposed that

''the disruption of the supply of money''

should not be treated as a threat to human welfare. Hon. Members engaged in an interesting discussion, but the starting point for any discussion must see us agree that money is fundamental to human welfare in modern society. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley made the case powerfully: a disruption to the supply of money could undermine mechanisms of production, distribution and exchange with serious implications.

I echo the sentiments expressed in the Government's response to the Joint Committee from which I have just quoted. It explained the circumstances in which other responders could potentially work alongside the Government and banks to ensure that the money supply is re-established. I am cautious of being drawn into a discussion about the merits of broad money or narrow money when defining the money supply, and I am sure that many responders would be happy to avoid it too.

If there were a disruption of the money supply, national efforts to restore the supply would involve effective co-operation with national authorities by other local responders. Equally, where local authorities have direct responsibility for specific individuals, circumstances might arise in which it would be necessary to extend credit for the provision of council services in the absence of money. Of course, were there disruption to the supply of money nationally or locally, it would be a matter not only of direct interest to the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Government, but to the nation. It is therefore appropriate to place disruption to the supply of money locally within the definition of emergency in part 1, recognising that the nature of responsibility placed on local responders would differ from that placed on national authorities.

In amendment No. 10, the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire proposed adding

''spread of fire leading to circumstances damaging to human welfare''

as a threat to human welfare. As the hon. Member for Ribble Valley made clear, preparation for fire is very important. Subsections (2)(a) and (2)(b) adequately cover that threat, however. Fire would threaten human welfare because it may cause loss of human life or damage to property. No other provision in subsection (2) states a threat to human welfare; therefore to include a specific reference to fire would be somewhat awkward given that no other sources of potential disaster are mentioned.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Of course human welfare is critical, but the scope of clause 1 is a little wider than that and refers also to damage to the environment. Would the hon. Gentleman explain how fire would be dealt with in that context?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

Well, clearly there could be circumstances in which the environment of the United Kingdom was affected by a catastrophic fire. Given the weather that we are—or are not—enjoying at the

moment, it seems rather unlikely, but I would not preclude the possibility that fire could fall into the category of subsection 1(b) in terms of

''the environment of a place in the United Kingdom''.

The substantive point stands, which is that given an absence of other sources of disaster mentioned in the Bill, it would adequately be covered, as I suggested, in terms of a threat to human welfare, a loss of human life or damage to property and, potentially, the environment, as the hon. Gentleman made clear.

Amendment No. 11 would make it clear that disruption to certain forms of transport, mainly air, rail, road and sea, are covered by clause 1(2)(g). I am not clear that that would add anything specifically to the definition and it could, in fact, muddy the waters. Does it mean, for example, that disruption to travel by river is not covered? The nature of the preparation required will clearly depend on the circumstances for each responder.

I remind the Committee at this juncture of the function of clause 2(2). The test will be, therefore, whether the disruption to the road is serious enough to obstruct the responder in the performance of its functions, or require additional resources to enable the responder to deal with it? Conscious of that functional trigger, it is more obvious why the definition alighted on by the Government is the more appropriate, rather than seeking to discuss the merits of specific or narrow roads.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for explaining that point. So, disruption of facilities for transport could, on a local basis, include events such as a strike on the tubes and buses in London at the same time? Would power reside somewhere—I am still unclear as to where—to ensure that people were still able to get to work, able to travel to hospitals and so on?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

As I have tried to make clear to the Committee, the circumstances in which there would be disruption to transport would vary from community to community and we would need to be cognisant of what mode of transport is most effective and popular in each locality. If there was significant disruption to all public transport in London—road, above-ground rail and the tube—those would clearly be circumstances that local authorities and other responders would have to have regard to given the demands of a major city.

That would not be prescriptive for other communities, but would depend on circumstances. It may be that roads are vital, be they the narrow roads of Shetland or the major roads of spaghetti junction outside Birmingham. I accept the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. It will clearly be specific to the locality and that is what we aimed to reflect with the use of the word ''transport''.

Amendment No. 12, which we covered latterly, seeks to clarify the definition by ensuring that the disruption of activities of health protection workers be considered a threat to human welfare. I certainly agree

with the thrust of the amendment, but it does not seem to add much to the drafting. Perhaps it would be helpful if I explained the Government's thinking in relation to the draft. We sought advice and discussed with the Department of Health the appropriate wording to capture the spirit of the point that has been raised. It is a broad meaning and will encompass the range of services provided in the NHS, stating

''disruption of services relating to health.''

Discussions with the Department of Health reflected the fact that the Government considered that reference to medical services might be construed too narrowly and there might therefore be some doubt as to the range of services covered by the health service community. I would certainly not preclude the point that the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) raised about health service workers; indeed I am confident that that will be captured in the wording. There will be circumstances where, if there was significant disruption to health workers, that would pose a threat, as described in the Bill.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

If that is the case, I wonder whether the Minister would agree that that ought, perhaps, to be spelt out. Capturing the spirit is all very well, but with the amendment that we have tabled, there is no room for doubt. That would be helpful, useful and add clarity.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

Tempting though the hon. Gentleman's offer is, given the need for brevity in statute and the assurance that I have just put on the record, I feel that the matter is adequately covered. However, if we were to take what might appear to be an inviting path in relation to health workers, we would have to specify the range of health services covered on other points. I hope that members of the Committee will judge adequate my assurance that health workers will comfortably fall within the definition of disruption of service relating to health.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The Minister began his response with amendment No. 9 and whether the disruption of an electronic system should be included in subsection (2)(f). Clearly British Telecom and the Law Society have concerns about that. The Minister says that the Government are not thinking of sending in council workmen to back up BT in doing work on its systems, and I imagine that BT would be grateful for that reassurance. Even so, BT says that it undertakes planning to ensure that it can get its systems back up and running as soon as possible. What is the role of the council or the police in that? Although the example that the Minister gave in his explanation was that it might be necessary to clear the roads to get to the BT installation, we are not totally satisfied with that and shall want to return to the subject at a later stage, but I shall not press the amendment to a vote today.

Amendment No. 7, the lead amendment, deals with the nature of the damage to property needed to ground an element of serious damage to human welfare. If the Minister is right that only where there was major property damage would serious damage to human

welfare arise, I can see his point, but will he accept that there may be situations where relatively minor property damage causes serious damage to human welfare? Does he want to cover those situations too? If he does, the Bill allows him to do that. However, if what he said is right, why does he not agree to our amendment, which simply says that serious damage to human welfare would occur only where there was severe damage to property? As I have said, I am prepared to treat it as a probing amendment and perhaps return to it at a later stage.

I am still not satisfied about the money supply.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

Few of us are.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I am grateful for the wider support of the Committee. I blame the Government, but it does not look as if the hon. Gentleman would go quite that far, particularly today.

We have had a good debate on the amendments, which have raised important issues, and we shall think seriously about the Minister's reply. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in

clause 1, page 2, line 2, after 'biological', insert 'noxious'.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 14, in

clause 1, page 2, line 3, at end insert

(iii) any controlled combustible substance'.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I am grateful for the opportunity to bring into play these two, I hope fairly simple, amendments, which I hope the Minister will agree clarify the intention of the Bill.

Subsection (3) says:

''For the purposes of subsection (1)(a) an event or situation threatens damage to the environment only if it involves, causes or may cause—

(a) contamination of land, water or air with—

(i) harmful biological, chemical or radio-active matter, or

(ii) oil''.

Amendment No. 13 would insert the word ''noxious'' in sub-paragraph (i) so that it reads ''harmful biological, noxious, chemical or radio-active matter''. Amendment No. 14 would add, after ''oil'', a new sub-paragraph,

''(iii) or any uncontrolled combustible substance''.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. The hon. Gentleman said ''uncontrolled''. In the amendment it says ''controlled''. Which did he mean?

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I beg your pardon, Sir John, it should be ''controlled''. To continue, the point of these amendments is that the contamination of the environment, as it is specified here, speaks clearly of the sort of natural disaster that we may have expected in the past, for instance the foot and mouth problems,

oil spills off the coast, or perhaps, if we look to other areas, forest fires—particularly in the way that Australia and parts of south-east Asia have had their environment damaged by smoke and other forms of contamination.

I would like to address particularly amendment No. 13 by pointing out the need to underline the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threat and its precise effects on the environment. That is the point of the amendment.

The Minister and I have already jousted over Project Unicorn, and I would like to quote from that report. It states:

''To the public at large the CBRM threat is undoubtedly the most frightening aspect of the new terrorism; it is also the one that the Government say least about. It is little surprise, therefore, that the media fills the vacuum and the public assume the worst.''

Thus the point of introducing the word ''noxious'' after the word ''biological'' and before the word ''chemical''. It is an attempt to underline the fact that this is an extraordinarily dangerous matter, which, mercifully, we have not had the chance to experience in the past, but which may, in the form of the new terrorism, be something that happens in the future.

Moving on to amendment No. 14, it is probably clear that the talk about an oil spill is well understood. I believe that it is equally clear that combustible substances, either controlled or uncontrolled, may be equally dangerous. For instance, large-scale oil spills, large-scale petrol spills, or indeed the use, of a highly inflammable substance, either as a terrorist weapon or as a spoiling device—perhaps by animal rights or other movements—which would threaten the environment as well as the welfare of anyone who became involved. These two amendments seek focus on to two particular parts of the Bill that I believe are currently imprecise.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I have a particular interest in the issue of oil pollution. I mentioned it earlier with regard to offshore pollution, but in fact, one of the problems we will encounter in the coming years is that at least 35 per cent. of all underground fuel tanks will start leaking. In London alone there can be up to 80 individual incidents in one year, so it is potentially a serious problem.

While I am pleased that the phrase has been brought up, I do share the concern of the hon. Gentleman about ''other combustible substances''. Oil covers all oil derivatives, but there are other combustible substances openly available that do not necessarily derive from oil. So it is a sensible amendment and I wonder if the Minister would address that in due course. It is a very important issue—we will undoubtedly face much disruption in the coming months and years. This is something that I welcome in the Bill, but I would also welcome further consideration of the amendment, particularly ''other combustible substances''.

It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.

Butterfill, Sir John (

Chairman

Alexander, Mr.

Allan, Mr.

Campbell, Mr.

Carmichael, Mr.

Dowd, Jim

Evans, Mr.

Heald, Mr.

Lazarowicz, Mr.

Llwyd, Mr.

Mactaggart, Fiona

Mercer, Patrick

Osborne, Sandra

Pope, Mr.

Pound, Mr.

Prentice, Ms

Quinn, Lawrie

Turner, Mr.

Standing Committee F

Civil Contingencies Bill

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 14, in

clause 1, page 2, line 3, at end insert

'or

(iii) any controlled combustible substance'.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

As I was saying, we should consider oil, but other things should be included. That is why this is a rather good amendment: ''any controlled combustible substance'' would cover any accelerants, paints, gases and so on that are used in industrial processes. The amendment is a useful add-on to the clause because ''oil'' by itself does not convey what should be conveyed, and other materials would be covered by those additional four words. I fully support the amendment and hope that the Minister will respond in a like manner because it will improve this part of the Bill.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

I, too, support the amendment, which widens the words used, because we are considering legislation that we hope will last for a long time. The original legislation, which this legislation would repeal, was enacted in 1922 or 1948. It will be a long time before we have to legislate in this area again. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the word ''oil'' does not convey what may happen in that time to what is stored at ordinary, everyday petrol stations. Liquefied petroleum gas, for example, is often stored at a certain number of petrol stations—although not enough—and hydrogen is an extremely combustible material, which will be stored when we get to the hydrogen-powered-car age. Other elements of that sort will develop in the next 10 or 20 years. It would be wise if the legislation spelled that out: the word ''oil'' on its own is a narrow word to cover what could be many different combustible materials.

One aspect of the legislation that troubled hon. Members who spoke on Second Reading, which arises with this amendment, is who is responsible for overall co-ordination in this area. If, for example, an incident at a local petrol station involved petrol seeping into groundwater, I know from my constituency experience that groundwater problems lead to immediate questions about who is responsible. Is it the water utility, the Environment Agency, or the local authority? Who takes the lead? As you, Mr. Benton,

may know, the flooding in 2000 had consequences in my constituency, resulting in residents having to bear some of the costs of drainage systems that were installed in flooded basements. There were then arguments between leaseholders and the freeholders.

Frankly, the question of who takes the lead, and who pays for damage that may be done as a consequence of unforeseen acts that affect groundwater, goes on for ever. There is a good case for extending the words used here. I am not sure what has been said about this and perhaps I am ignorant in this area, but there is also a good case for addressing who takes the lead in the inescapable co-ordinating functions.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I shall endeavour to answer the points that have been made. With regard to the amendments, I have considered them in recent days, and the wording has intrigued me, particularly the inclusion of the word ''noxious''. I shall, in the spirit suggested by the hon. Gentleman, try to answer the two specific points on the amendments.

Clause 1(3) sets out a clear and exhaustive list of the sort of events that may constitute a threat of serious damage. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) suggests adding ''noxious'' and ''controlled combustible substance'' to the list. To my mind, it is difficult to envisage a threat of serious damage to the environment that would not be covered under the Bill, as drafted. Ultimately, I shall urge him to withdraw the amendment in the light of that.

Let us consider noxious substances. It would be helpful, if during our discussions, members of the Committee could give an example of a noxious substance that would not be covered by subsection (3). Equally, comments have been made about combustible substances posing a threat. However, in so far as they present a threat to human welfare, they are covered by subsection (2), and their threat to the environment will either be captured by the chemicals that they contain or the impact that they have on plant or animal life and will therefore be covered by the Bill. I hope that I have dealt with the hon. Gentleman's specific point.

This morning, there was some discussion on the Department's principles and the interaction between local responders and the role of central Government. I am sure that we shall have the opportunity to cover such matters during our debate.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

A particular concern was that, if the substance was gaseous, whether the term ''chemical'', which might imply a liquid, would apply to it. Our worry was that the Bill covers not only land, but the soil below it and the air above.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I can offer the hon. Gentleman the assurance he seeks. It is my clear understanding that

''harmful biological, chemical or radio-active matter''

would capture the gas that he describes, given its chemical constituents.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

Will the Minister amplify his objections to incorporating the words ''uncontrollable substance'' Hydrogen would not be caught under the present wording.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

It is a pretty fundamental principle of statutory construction to achieve brevity and clarity in the same clause. If it were the case that the present statutory wording captures the specific example that I offered the Committee, it is beholden on those who tabled the amendment to offer a clear rationale about why it is necessary. I have given the Committee what assurance I can that, under the present wording of the Bill, the particular example about which concerns have been raised would be covered.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The Minister has been most helpful. I do not want to press the amendment to a Division. We have had a useful debate.

Question, That the amendment be made, put and negatived.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I beg to move amendment No. 15, in

clause 1, page 2, line 9, after 'terrorism', insert

'or a direct threat of terrorism'.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 16, in

clause 1, page 2, line 10, at end insert—

'(c) serious crime leading to circumstances damaging to human welfare as defined in subsection (2)'.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Yet again, we want to probe the Minister about why the Bill cannot be more effective and precise in its wording to ensure not only that we prepare for terrorism, but for the direct threat of terrorism. Clearly, when an act of terrorism has occurred, the legislation will come into effect immediately. There will be no problems with that. Our worry is why we have to wait until there is a terrorist attack before we start to act. Indeed, the threat of an act of terrorism would ensure that the state of emergency could be called straightaway. If sufficient intelligence was in place and there was an immediate threat of terrorism, there is no reason why the blue-light services and several other agencies could not start to put into operation exactly what they need to do to ensure that the public will be protected and their health and welfare guarded. Will the Minister explain why we must wait for a terrorist act before beginning to ensure that the right action is taken?

Amendment No. 16 would insert into clause 1(4) the following threat to security:

''serious crime leading to circumstances damaging to human welfare as defined in subsection (2).''

Some people may think that there is often a fine line between terrorism and crime. The point was mentioned this morning in the context of hacking. I am mystified as to why people do it; they may be motivated by the challenge rather than earning money. Hackers do not say that unless they are paid £1 million or £10 million, they will hack into a system.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

To assist the hon. Gentleman with terminology, those

types of people are known as crackers rather than hackers. Hackers are generally good people whereas crackers are wicked people. Hackers get upset if they are confused with crackers.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for ensuring that I did not, through politically incorrect use of language, upset either group. To be honest, I do not mind upsetting both groups because hacking involves violating someone's system for any reason. Somehow they take joy from penetrating someone's system, perhaps to steal information, but it is a crime.

I assume that ''cracking'', which is new terminology for me, is an attempt to degrade or violate someone's system so that it is inoperable. That is sometimes done by viruses or spamming with dangerous viruses, and I suspect that we have all been on the receiving end of that. That is not terrorism, but I suspect that attempting to violate someone's system to make it inoperable is a crime.

Just after lunch I looked again at the UK Resilience website—that is what I do during lunch—and I noticed that a new virus has come about. I applaud the Government for the fact that the information is on the website straightaway.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

Mydoom.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Yes, it is called Mydoom. They have named a virus after the hon. Gentleman's political life. It is a particularly virulent email virus. It is right that the public should be made aware as quickly as possible and should know exactly what to do. I clicked on the Mydoom section of the website to find out what it was about and what could be done, but it would not download for some reason. If there is a technical problem, I hope that those responsible repair it quickly. It is important that as much publicity as possible is given to the virus.

Some people wish to violate someone's system to crash it, bring it down, and have a go at the Yahoos, Hotmails and Microsofts of this world, simply because it is a challenge. If they feel that they have achieved something, they are living pathetic little lives. It is the equivalent of someone taking a sledgehammer to someone else's wall and thinking that they have achieved something. It is not their wall, but they have been able to bring down a wall and they see that as an achievement. Personally I do not see that. However, we know that there are people out there who, whether they communicate with each other or do it in splendid isolation, want to bring down someone's system. I do not believe that I know any such people.

I am sure that the Minister will agree that part of the problem is that 10 years ago the internet meant absolutely nothing to most people in this country and indeed the world. It was at an embryonic stage commercially for most people. Today, most people—and, I suspect, most MPs' offices—could not operate without the internet in one way, shape or form. I am talking not only about the PDVN network, which has its own safeguards against this sort of thing, but about computers that operate outside that network. The threat might not have meant very much 10 years ago,

and it might have been a lot less. However, everyone is now dependent on computers. That is the problem: that is why I want to extend this measure to cover crime as well as terrorism.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

Like the hon. Gentleman, I enjoy being educated about Liberal Democratic policy. Their new motto—''Know your crackers''—will feature if not on their leaflets, then possibly on ours.

As ever, the hon. Gentleman is making a lucid, fluid and lightning case. Will he explain how crackers or hackers might affect what we are discussing, which is civil contingencies for national emergencies? If, at worst, a hacker or cracker managed to destroy the electricity supply or the water system, that would be covered elsewhere. What is the national disaster on the scale that the Bill addresses that he genuinely feels that hackers or crackers may effect? With all due respect, the loss of e-mails from the Ribble valley is not a national disaster within the province of the Bill.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for leading me to broaden my point. A cracker might get into the commercial sector. We have talked about money and the problems that could be caused to the financial sector. On a much wider scale, businesses in general could be affected: food supplies might in part be affected, as might the running of commerce. If that were the case, we would face a real problem.

The hon. Gentleman is raising a relevant point: the word ''emergency'' is used in a general sense in the Bill. Since the draft Bill was produced, the Government have redefined it to try to ensure that it is not too broad, but because of the very essence of what we are talking about it has to be somewhat broad or else we would not be able to cover some of the eventualities that we cannot predict. That leads on to some of the international terrorism that has occurred: we all joined together to ensure that we can counter the terrorism that exists throughout the world and address every eventuality. I hope that we can address serious crime as well as terrorism.

I shall move away from e-commerce to food and, specifically, to medicines, which are outside the scope of the legislation. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman is old enough to remember the problem that arose in the United States of America with the tampering with a medicine called Tylenol. That was done for financial reasons, so it was a crime rather than terrorism. Someone tampered with bottles of Tylenol and put them back on the shelves of chemists somewhere in the USA.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

It was carefully targeted.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Yes, it was carefully targeted. The aim was to extort money from pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies in return for saying where the tampered supplies were. That led to ways to prevent such a crime from happening being looked at. Tamper-proof tops was a direct result of that. Almost every product on supermarket shelves is now tamper proof. Customers are told that if a seal is broken they should take the product back to the store so that it can be properly checked.

If there were to be that sort of tampering, it could lead to an emergency. If there was a sufficient lack of confidence in the supplies in Boots or Superdrug or some other shop, that could result in people not buying those medicines. That is a problem that we need to tackle. It is not terrorism, although I think that a sufficient group of people would be terrorised by the thought of buying something that had been tampered with, particularly products that they were buying to make them well but that might cause an illness.

In the context of crime, perhaps the Minister could also consider the question of credit card fraud. There could be a breakdown in confidence in credit cards in the UK, because fraud had reached a level at which people stopped using their cards. I suspect that everyone in this Room has had a telephone call from their credit card company asking whether their card has been used in a place where they have not been, because money could have been taken from their account. That happened to me: the credit card company asked whether I had been in Switzerland that day, because someone had tried to use my card to withdraw £1,500, but I had been in Cardiff—[Interruption.] Absolutely right—Cardiff or Switzerland are interchangeable.

The credit card companies are hugely concerned by fraud; it costs billions of pounds. We and our constituents pay huge sums of extra interest on our credit cards to deal with the misuse of the cards. I know that chip technology is now being introduced to try to crack down on fraud. The chip number has to be put in before the transaction is processed. I applaud that—things have moved on a stage further. However, as the Minister will know, the people who get involved in these sorts of crimes are clever enough to work out the data on the back of the strip, and so it will not be beyond their wits to work out a system to crack the code on the chip. It will therefore not be long before we have to think of something more.

About 15 years ago, no one had credit cards: today, everyone has them. If the integrity of the credit card system was brought to a halt, can the Minister imagine what sort of effect that would have in the UK? It would have a huge impact. I hope that when the Minister is replying, he will examine the two aspects that I have mentioned. I hope also that the Government will widen the scope of the Bill, and accept our suggestion that the threat of terrorism should be considered, as well as terrorism itself. I also hope that they will examine crime, as well as terrorism, as an area that could lead to national or localised emergencies that could damage the integrity of the systems of the UK.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

In the spirit of what has just been said, will the Minister say whether the direct threat of terrorism is covered in the Bill? I could envisage an awful situation arising in which there was a telephone call from someone to an airport or a ferry port, and everything ground to a halt. Animals, drugs and people would be left in transit, and air ambulances would not be able to get to people who were sick. That is potentially a big problem, as it is not unknown for such things to happen. Will the Minister confirm that provision for such a scenario is covered in the Bill? It is

right that the amendment should have been tabled in order to elicit such a response.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I look forward to participating, with the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), in the reform of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which I believe that the Government have planned for this year, and which should cover a lot of the issues that he raised. He also made a good case for the Minister to accept an earlier amendment to remove electronic communication systems from the scope of the Bill, so that our debate could be truncated in that area.

I shall not go over that ground, because I wish to speak against both the amendments. The first amendment seems curious to me, given that the scope of the Bill or the plans being made from the outset are described as being in terms of things that threaten damage. I was therefore not entirely convinced by the argument for repeating the threat.

With regard to the second amendment, I am concerned that when we discuss plans that relate to a threat to the security of the UK we do not broaden the scope. We are keen to keep it narrow. There has been much contentious debate about the scope of anti-terrorism legislation and how we define terrorism. There has not always been cross-party agreement on legislation to do with terrorism, but it is more helpful to try to get a common definition and to continue to refer to that definition when we talk about events that are classified as a response to terrorism.

Clearly, there is an understanding that a response to terrorism often takes a different form from responses to other forms of criminal activity. I am therefore rather keen that we do not broaden the measure. I assume that any circumstances in which ordinary criminal activity—non-terrorist criminal activity—had a serious impact on human welfare would be covered by the threats to a human welfare situation. Liberal Democrat Members would prefer to see those circumstances covered in that bracket, rather than in the threat to security bracket, which we want to keep quite tight.

One query was raised in my mind; it involves the crossover with the planning for anti-crime action in a local area. Crime and disorder plans have been put in place at local level. Clearly, some of the same resources, particularly as regards the blue-light services, will be used to deal with ordinary criminal activity, however serious. One can see that there are circumstances in which ordinary criminal activity, such as the activity that was the subject of the recent north London drugs bust, requires dozens and dozens of armed officers to be out on the streets to deal with dozens and dozens of potentially armed criminals. There is considerable overstretch in that respect, and there must be some meshing between planning for that type of emergency and planning for ordinary crime and disorder purposes. That, rather than broadening the scope of the measure, is the part that interests me.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

On the point about the electronic side, the hon. Gentleman said that another Bill is coming and perhaps this issue should have been taken out of

this Bill and we should have tidied things up in one Bill. Is he aware that, on the UK resilience website, one link leads to advice on protection against electronic attack, which is also under the headline of terrorism? It tells businesses what to do, which includes checking that protective security measures are properly implemented and up to date. Anti-virus software should be updated regularly, and patches should be applied to eliminate known vulnerabilities. There are a number of areas in which businesses are told what they should do, and I assume that that type of advice is given to local authorities and other blue-light security areas to ensure that their systems are protected.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

That is very helpful. Should I fail to drop off to sleep immediately tonight, I shall surf over to the UK resilience website and update myself.

The first stage of the strategy, which is ''Give a gong to the boss of Microsoft'', has clearly failed, because we are still getting viruses. I thought that they would stop immediately that occurred. Perhaps with the knighthood, viruses, spam and whatever will eventually go. I am interested to hear that the material described is still being pumped out.

In the context of the clause, we want to keep a tight definition: war or armed conflict, and terrorism. A tight definition is the most helpful one, but that does not prevent us from having further argument about how we should define terrorism.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I am yet again in the rather worrying position of having some sympathy with the points raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan), although I am reassured by the fact that I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) on deferring to the hon. Gentleman's expertise on who is crackers and who is not, given his long experience in the Liberal Democrats.

In respect of the substantive points, we are discussing two amendments. Clause 1(4) sets out a clear and exhaustive list of the type of events that may constitute a threat of serious damage to security. It is clearly important that we strike the balance that has been either implicit or explicit in the contributions that we have heard. I welcome the probing amendments to that effect, but the approach that the Government have taken holds good, for reasons that I shall come on to.

Amendment No. 15 would mean that

''a direct threat of terrorism''

was treated as a threat to security, in addition to terrorism as it is generally defined. However, the definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000 includes a threat of action as well as the act itself. It may assist hon. Members if I remind them that that Act defines terrorism as

''the use or threat of action''

that

''involves serious violence against a person . . . involves serious damage to property . . . . endangers a person's life . . . creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public . . . or . . . is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.''

In addition, the use or threat of action must be designed

''to influence the government or to intimidate the public''

and be

''for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.''

The points that have been made about whether threat is implicit are captured by the Terrorism Act 2000. I trust that the amendment will be judged unnecessary on that basis.

Amendment No. 16 would make certain serious crimes a threat to security. Crime is obviously an important threat, but the threats of crime to human life and property are already included in the definition of emergency as threats to human welfare. For illustrative purposes, I remind hon. Members again that the Bill is not intended to deal specifically with crime. Many other arrangements already exist to deal with the consequences of crime, although that is not to say that crime cannot lead to emergencies. However, the Bill already covers crimes that are relevant, such as terrorism. To trigger the duties under the Bill, an incident would need to be on a sufficient scale to stretch the capability of local responders to deal with it collectively, as set out in clause 2(2). An arson attack affecting one person or a fraud affecting only a small number of people could clearly be dealt with within existing arrangements. On that basis I hope that the hon. Member for Ribble Valley will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I thought that it was worth while probing in those areas to get the Minister to elucidate the points that he described in his response. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

We have covered most of the detail of the clause, and I shall not go over that ground again. However, subsection (2)(e) deals with disruption and, although we discussed money, we did not discuss energy or fuel, nor did any amendments touch on those issues. I have some points about energy suppliers and the utilities—category 2 responders—that echo the points made about telecommunications providers this morning. Given the complexity of the market, how does the Minister envisage the gas and electricity suppliers responding to their duties as set out in the clause? Some distribution companies are quite separate from the retail companies that are in contact with customers, and in the electricity market the situation is sometimes confused.

My understanding from the regulatory impact assessment is that, in the context of the clause, Transco is relevant for gas, and the regional distribution companies for electricity. However, that may not be obvious to the customer. During the recent Eastern Electricity disaster, for example, a lot of power was lost in the region that that company covered; Eastern Electricity was clearly responsible for the infrastructure, so the local authority had to deal with

the company, but the public may now perceive themselves to be customers of British Gas, London Energy, Scottish Hydro-Electric or other companies in the market. Can the Minister assure us that the ways in which public now interact with electricity and gas markets can be properly factored into local authority action to deal both with the public and with those who are responsible for infrastructure?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I hope that our debate on the clause can be brief in light of the fact that, as the hon. Gentleman observed, we have covered a number of points in detail this morning and so far this afternoon.

In response to the hon. Gentleman's point, I return to this morning's parallel discussion about British Telecom and the need to be clear about the responsibilities on local responders other than local authorities, which may include blue-light services. We must put in place the means to ensure the appropriate ground-level working relationships among those local responders—energy providers in the present case, and BT in the case discussed this morning. Rather than focus on who is facing the customer, it is important to have clarity about who is responsible for participating. We can assure customers that a number of the organisations that the hon. Gentleman mentioned operate under regulatory regimes for the energy sector that will endure. In this part of the Bill, our aim is to ensure that there is an appropriate working relationship between other responders in recognition of the fact that energy providers will have a key role in getting utilities back in place after the contingencies that the Bill anticipates.

I am aware that a significant amount of work was undertaken by Government, led by the Department of Trade and Industry, following the power outage that London suffered in August last year. Both ministerial and departmental work has been undertaken to ensure that we have the correct relationships with the energy sector and, in that case, with the electricity utilities. The challenge is not so much providing information to the public—a matter on which we shall touch this afternoon—as making sure that the sector is represented in discussions at local level, and that the companies' relationships with local authorities emergency services and others are appropriate.

The starting point of the Bill is the framework for planning and for responding to emergencies. That has been clearly and logically set out for the Committee. The purpose of clause 1 is to establish a clear definition for the purposes of part 1. Thanks to a number of probing amendments, we have managed to offer some useful clarification to members of the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 - Duty to assess, plan and advise

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I beg to move amendment No. 17, in

clause 2, page 2, line 26, leave out 'from time to time' and insert 'every three months'.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 18, in

clause 2, page 2, line 27, leave out 'from time to time' and insert 'every three months'.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

The amendments are similar. Contingency planning is about preparation, and it is vital that we get everything right. Clause 2 focuses on the duty to assess, plan and advise: if we do not get those things right, planning is a pointless exercise. I have reservations about the lack of audit to ensure that all the responsible bodies are doing exactly what is required of them, and I do not want to leave subsection (1) as weak as it is. It states that

''A person or body listed in Part 1 or 2 of Schedule 1 shall—

(a) from time to time assess the risk of an emergency occurring,

(b) from time to time assess the risk of an emergency making it necessary or expedient for the person or body to perform any of his or its functions''.

What does ''from time to time'' mean? If one asks a child to clean his bedroom from time to time, it simply will not happen.

The sort of contingencies for which we are planning include the 11 September plane attack, which has been mentioned time and time again, and the prior attack on the twin towers; the Tokyo subway gas attack, which I am sure is still in people's minds; and bombings of ships. Those are all well-known international incidents. We are lucky that, although we have tremors now and then in the midlands and thereabouts—we had one in Wales once—we experience nothing on the scale of the earthquakes that occur in other countries. In Iran recently, thousands of people were killed in an earthquake, and there was criticism that the authorities were not prepared, even though the region is prone to earthquakes. I am not certain we prepare we can prepare for a disaster on that scale. Turkey and Greece have been hit several times by earthquakes, and there have been problems in a number of other countries.

We do experience severe weather. We may be hitting some now, and in future an unforeseen severe weather incident may arise that cuts people off for days on end. Advice is given about staying in the car, or carrying in the car a blanket that we can wrap around us to ensure that we stay a bit warmer than we otherwise might.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

Many category 1 responders are mentioned in schedule 1, and different responders have different attitudes to the regularity with which they check their procedures. We talk about local authorities stocking salt, for example. Other organisations have an inspection routine for emergencies that may occur once a year, or once every 10 years. Who will decide when and how consistently the various utilities should examine their emergency procedures? The traditions of different utilities may differ, and the problem lies in achieving a concerted approach that will satisfy the Government and the local authorities.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

My hon. Friend is right. Relevant authorities, such as the police, will not always examine their emergency procedures every three months or every six months: each police force may have a

different policy. Some police forces may decide to examine their procedures every three months, and others to do so every 10 years.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

The Bill also mentions health authorities and miscellaneous authorities, such as the Environment Agency. Health authorities may be extremely pressed because they have emergency problems of their own to deal with. How often will they carry out systematic review of their procedures?

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Again, I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. Everyone can see in schedule 1the sort of bodies that we are talking about and that the problem can be a real one.

Although I was a West Glamorgan county councillor for six years, I am still a little vague about what our emergency planning procedure was. I do not believe that we ever discussed emergency planning or procedures. That might have been because it was before 11 September 2001 and international terrorism was not so much in our minds. I assume, however, that someone was looking after such matters. We had a bunker in West Cross in West Glamorgan that was fairly famous, because although it was there for protection against nuclear attack, it was the only bunker in Britain with windows. None the less, some preparations were made during the 18 glorious years of the Conservative Administration. We also had a bunker in Clitheroe, which was part of a cinema. It is still there.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

Tell us more.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I am tempted to. Today, I found out that six full-time members of staff are involved in emergency planning. Ribble Valley has one part-time member of staff, who also has responsibility for building. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) is referring to the fact that local authorities are so strapped for cash and time, and the Government have piled so many extra regulations, rules and requirements on top of them, that emergency planning is simply one more obligation.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

The hon. Gentleman has helpfully tried to get local authorities to re-examine their emergency procedures every three months.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I will explain why in a moment.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

Far be it from me to dig the hon. Gentleman out of the hole that he is in—I am sure that he can do that himself. However, the Joint Committee heard evidence from about 300 sources, and every local authority—perhaps predictably—said that it needed a ring-fenced sum for the purpose. That is right, because the money available to authorities is finite, and given the choice between social services and care of the elderly and planning, people may well opt for the bread-and-butter stuff—even post–9/11. There is, however, a valid point to be made. I am afraid that if I were to ask a local government officer to do X, Y or Z ''from time to time'', that would not elicit a very positive response in the long term. I say that with great respect to many local government officers, many of whom are friends of mine. Giving that person a deadline to meet, however, would be fairly productive.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman because he has spoken about two issues: finance, and the targets that must be achieved. On finance, all members of the Committee will know from representations from the Local Government Association about the problems that local authorities face due to the extra regulations and provisions of the Bill. If we want them to do the job, we have to ensure that they have the resources. It is as simple as that. I would like to return to the matter during the clause stand part debate, because local authorities do not have the full resources to deal with the rules and regulations that are being imposed on them.

To take that point one stage further, given all the pressures that the local authorities and other organisations—including national health service trusts and hospitals—are currently under, emergency planning is going to be somewhat towards the bottom of their priorities. They do not believe that there will be a debilitating emergency tomorrow, or next week, or a month down the line—indeed, it has already been said of the legislation that we hope never to have to use it. We sincerely hope that no terrorist threat or threat of such a nature that we have to use the powers of this legislation arises. From reading through the procedures, I understand that a state of emergency has not been called since the 1970s—almost a quarter of a century. There is plenty of precedent there to say that we hope that, when the Bill passes, we will not have to use it.

It concerns me greatly that the Government want the police, given all the extra things that they now have to do and the bureaucracy that they have to deal with, to ensure that they are as high profile as they can be. With all the extra things that they have to deal with, emergency planning is going to be way down at the bottom of their list of priorities. From my experience on West Glamorgan county council, I can say that emergency planning was not uppermost in my mind at that time because it was not uppermost in the mind of others in the council. They had lots of things to do in relation to education, social services and transport—that is where the resources and the officer time were going. One or two chairmen of committees might have been called in to look at things, but I do not know because we never discussed it in our local authority. Each of the authorities mentioned as a category 1 or 2 responder will have better things that it could immediately spend its time and money on. Emergency planning is something that they will probably do now and again, then put on the shelf.

I am reminded of the preparations that were put in place for foot and mouth. We all remember that preparations were put in place after the 1960s outbreak, and we were told, ''This must never happen again''. We were told that we had to make absolutely certain that the requirements and guidelines were in place so that an outbreak would never happen again, and if it did, it could be sorted out properly. We do not have to think back too far. Any Member representing a rural area who talks to farmers will have been told, with great feeling, exactly what happened. The guidelines were apparently drawn up, but my goodness, how often were they pulled off the

shelf to be examined? How often were they revised to ensure that they were properly up to date and met the requirements of the changing nature of farming in this country?

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

Perhaps part of the reason for that is the fact that, when in government, the Conservative party cut the number of vets employed by the state veterinary service in every year between 1983 and 1997.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

The hon. Gentleman wanted to make a partisan point, which he has done with great effect. My point is equally serious. For whatever reasons the deficiencies arose, there is not a single person in this country who would not admit that the preparations for foot and mouth were quite appalling. Businesses and farming jobs were sacrificed unnecessarily, and the number of animals destroyed as a result of the outbreak was incredible. Only now is our farming industry getting back on its feet. I assume that, somewhere along the line, the Government have learned their lesson and have said, ''This must never happen again.'' We must ensure that we have up-to-date guidelines in place, so that we know what the requirements are. We know what farming is these days: animals go from area to area far more than they did in the 1960s, and abattoirs are all over the place. The guidelines must reflect that if we are to control a future outbreak of foot and mouth.

Let us suppose that we have to deal with an emergency relating to a dirty bomb. My goodness me, what guidelines are already in place for our emergency services? I assume that they are considering the matter and that guidelines will be drawn up that everybody will have to follow. The clause is intended to ensure that the authorities, blue-light services, and the NHS trusts have in place their own guidelines and contingency plans in case an emergency occurs.

Let us think about what could happen after the Bill becomes law. Everyone will be keen to get involved if there is money; if there is not, they will make token gestures. Let us say that what we all dearly hope does not happen happens and the water supply is contaminated, or a dirty bomb explodes, or there is a chemical incident that affects a number of people. We may be talking 10, 15 or 20 years down the line. It will be like the experience of foot and mouth: something happens 20 years down the line, and the contingency plans have not been revised. Some of the authorities have not looked at their plans for 10 or 15 years because there are other priorities, or because they have moved on. We will go through the same turmoil that we went through with foot and mouth, and the repercussions would be huge. Contingency planning is a pointless exercise unless we get it right.

The amendments are helpful. I know that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam said that authorities have many extra responsibilities and that we would just be giving them more by requiring them to consider the contingency plans every three months, but surely he would applaud that? If we are to introduce the provisions and require bodies to do something sensible by way of preparation, is it not right that we carry out regular checks?

Later, I will speak to other amendments relating to the education of the public, which is vital. We are asking certain bodies to do things, and we will also have to ask the public to make preparations. That element is woefully lacking from the Bill. We will have to make absolutely certain that everybody is ready for the eventuality in question, be it a terrorist act or some other incident that means that emergency planning is necessary.

Will the Minister consider the amendment carefully? If he has any reservations about the three months requirement, he should say that the period should be up to three months. There may be some bodies that are very much involved in contingency planning, and that may wish to assess the risk more frequently than every three months. Perhaps they could carry out assessments as part of a continuous rolling programme, as incidents occur to them.

The Minister will know that Scotland Yard is to consider a number of areas in relation to threats to this country or parts of it. It and other authorities that will be ordering people around will want to know that the legislation is absolutely right and that the bodies that they will be ordering around will be prepared and ready, will have the right tools in place and will not have any problems. The bodies can be in that state only if they consideration is given to the matter at least every three months. If they leave it 10 years, the preparations will be stale, we will have another foot and mouth incident on our hands, and it will be an absolute disaster.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I commend the hon. Member for Ribble Valley on a valiant effort to make his way back to the Front Bench and for holding the line in the absence of any other Conservative Front Benchers. I differ from his colleagues: I thought that there was no good reason for him to return to the Back Benches, and I am sure that he will be back in time.

I am not persuaded, however, that his amendment is desirable. I accept his point that ''from time to time'' is perhaps not the most elegant wording, but it achieves its aim. To set a tight timetable as rigid as the one that the hon. Gentleman seeks would be counter-productive and would defeat the ends that he seeks to achieve. If he is trying to achieve a regular and thorough review of the emergency plans in place, setting down a rigid three-month period in the Bill would not achieve that. It would mean that the plans are taken out of the cupboard every three months, made the subject of a half-hour meeting and put back in. My understanding is that when the plan is created, it includes as a term of its own assessment the date by which it ought to be reviewed: that seems eminently sensible. Perhaps the Minister could confirm or deny that?

I accept that resources must follow if the clause is to be meaningful. However, I do not share the enthusiasm of some hon. Members for ring-fencing money. There will be gross disparities between different authorities on the work that they will have to do on emergency planning. I am thinking, for example, of a number of local authorities in central

Scotland, of which the Minister will undoubtedly be aware. Authorities such as Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire could all work together to arrive at similar plans. My local authorities will produce very different plans that will be unique. To try to ring-fence money in such circumstances is next to impossible.

Furthermore, we all know that when money is ring-fenced, the least amount is ring-fenced. The plans will have to be well resourced, but resources must be allocated on the basis of need. The effectiveness of the clause, when it is implemented, will come not from central control, such as the hon. Gentleman seeks to impose, but from the ability of local authorities to do their jobs.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

I fully accept that there is an argument, which the hon. Gentleman has just advanced, that three months may be far too tight a schedule regularly to consider these matters. However, does not he think that the wording of the Bill is far too lax? The phrase ''from time to time'' is an extraordinary one to use in these circumstances. Perhaps it is a conventional phrase, being used casually as in ordinary conversation, that is used to indicate that the plans must be considered from time to time on a regular basis, and there is an understanding inside the Administration—any Administration—that that means something that may not be obvious to any ordinary citizen. Perhaps the Minister could explain? Perhaps it has a special meaning in this context but, on the surface, it seems to be a sloppy use of English.

If the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) seeks something more thorough and relevant—I think that he does—surely ''from time to time'' errs too far in one direction, and ''three months'' goes too far in the other direction. Perhaps there is a hidden or more exact meaning to the words that might be more evident to civil servants. It might also be the case that there was no consensus on what should be put in the Bill, so ''from time to time'' was inserted simply as a fallback phrase for reasons of convenience and time, rather than doing the necessary thinking now as to why there should be something more systematic and more pointed put into the Bill.

After all, my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley made an important point in his excellent speech. A large number of organisations must make such decisions, including local authorities, emergency services, the police, the fire authorities, health authorities, primary care trusts, health boards and the Environment Agency. All will have different views of what is relevant and timely in terms of how often they should review procedures.

A relevant and pointed example is the foot and mouth disease outbreak. When all was said and done, it turned out that in the archives of the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food there was a plan, arising from the previous outbreak, on how it should be handled. Perhaps there was a failure of collective memory—the problem was certainly not a lack of vets, although there may have been a lack of vets—but although there was a plan for dealing with such an emergency, that plan was not adhered to during the panic that ensued from the latest outbreak. We do not know why it was not used.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

My hon. Friend may recall a number of rumours that appeared in the newspapers. One was that it was the duty of someone in MAFF to ensure that there were sufficient pallets throughout the country so that if it were necessary to burn animal corpses, there would be sufficient wood readily available to do so. Someone somewhere knew that there was a plan, or they were at least relying on some guidance somewhere along the line, but there was no overall coherence. That is why there was a shambles.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

That is precisely the point. There was no time framework. In a normal situation, plans are taken out and reviewed and some thought is given to whether they are satisfactory and up to date and whether account has been taken of more recent trends. If that had happened before the latest foot and mouth outbreak, the story might have taken a different turn from the tragic one it took. In essence, we are suggesting three months, which is a nominal period to enable us to have a debate, but no one is stuck on that period. We are discussing terrorism, not just foot and mouth disease, and we must have a framework that forces civil servants—even new civil servants who are unaware of what happened in the past—to consider such matters regularly.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The sheer range of emergencies for which plans must be prepared will be such that they will have to be determined on a case-by-case basis. That is why each individual plan should include the date for its own review. That seems to be rather more sensible than putting a time limit in the Bill, whether it is three months, six months, nine months, a year or whatever.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

I fully accept the logic of the hon. Gentleman's position and am sympathetic to it. Our amendment may not be ideal and he may not want to support it, but does he accept that what the Government have put in the Bill is not right either? Something is needed to provide greater certainty, or we will end up in a situation similar to that of the foot and mouth disease outbreak. That is not acceptable when we are discussing the threat of terrorism.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I fear that certain inconsistencies crept into the argument of the hon. Member for Ribble Valley as he advanced his amendments to the Committee. On the one hand, he seemed to be arguing that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland had indulged in partisan points; on the other, he commented on the 18 glorious years of the Conservatives, which certainly passed me by, if they ever happened.

On a more substantive point, the argument of the hon. Member for Orpington that great and onerous burdens were being imposed on the police that prevent them from doing other important work—while the hon. Gentleman was advancing an amendment suggesting that what his hon. Friend was kind enough to acknowledge was a nominal date for reviewing such plans—was effectively demolished. I do not accept the need to require local responders to conduct risk assessments every three months, as suggested in the amendment, and choose to retain

the current requirement to do so from time to time.

The hon. Member for Orpington asked whether the phrase ''from time to time'' is common in statute. I am given to understand that it is a common legislative term, but I will come to the basis on which it is used in the Bill in a moment.

As the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland was kind enough to acknowledge, the risk of terrorism in any major city may need to be assessed on a day-to-day basis, in contrast to other circumstances in fundamentally different localities. At the other end of the spectrum, the risk of a bridge or building collapsing will need to be assessed far less frequently.

The amendments would cause the wasteful use of valuable resources in particular circumstances. The current wording ''from time to time'' recognises the time-consuming, resource-intensive nature of risk assessment and the diversity of risks that local responders must assess under the Bill. It may assist the Committee if I answer the charge that the wording ''from time to time'' is too vague. Clause 2(1)(e) requires category 1 responder bodies to consider whether to modify a plan in the light of a new or revised risk assessment, which are required from time to time. Those requirements are obviously necessary to keep planning arrangements up to date; a concern that has been expressed during our discussions.

The frequency with which risk assessments need to be carried out varies enormously with the type of risk under consideration. The frequency of assessments relates to the nature of the hazard and is effectively built into the normal functioning of the body carrying out the assessment. The police are used to making regular assessments of the risk of terrorism and are resourced to do so. The borough engineer is used to assessing the structural safety of bridges and is resourced to do so. The Bill is unlikely to impose new burdens in that regard.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

I entirely take the Minister's point, but will anyone in the Government be tasked with monitoring the regular reviews and ensuring that they happen?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

The hon. Gentleman anticipates what I am about to say. With his forbearance, I will come to that point in a moment. Before that, I wish to clarify another issue that was identified in relation to risks and individual responder bodies; how do we avoid duplication of risk assessments? Under the regulations, the Bill will oblige responder bodies to co-operate with each other.

One form of co-operation will be through local resilience forums based on police boundary areas, which all responder bodies are obliged to attend. A key item on the agenda of those forums will be specified in regulations and outlined in guidance that will be prepared; a community risk register. Its aim will be for each responder body to bring to the table its own risk assessment. From those multi-agency discussions, an overview of the risk to the community will be prepared. That is the community risk register. It will help organisations better to understand how the other organisations view the

potential emergencies that their communities face. It will also enable the forum and the organisations to assess their priorities. Responder bodies will each assess risk according to their own functions. Duplication will, in many instances, be relevant to the overlapping functions of respective bodies. Equally, the envisaged collaboration between bodies will ensure that separate bodies do not go into unnecessary detail.

I return to the point made by the hon. Member for Orpington on whether there will be assessment by central Government. Responders will have a duty to assess risk from time to time. If they fail to perform that duty, they can and will be held to account through the auditing and inspection regimes that we will, no doubt, discuss later in our deliberations. Enforcement action is covered in clause 10.

The hon. Member for Ribble Valley asked about audit arrangements. Most category 1 responders are subject to audit or inspection regimes by bodies that have been established under their sectoral legislation. Examples include the overview and scrutiny committees of local authorities and Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary. In addition, many category 1 responders are subject to audit and inspection to ensure that they are performing their functions while having regard to the base value principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. The Secretary of State can issue directions to such bodies if they are failing in that regard.

I hope that I have answered the substantive points raised in relation to the fact that we recognise that various different responders will take forward their own risk assessment on different timetables rather than the nominal timetable set out in the amendment, and that there is a comprehensive series of steps in place to ensure that central Government have a view of risk assessments at local level.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Sadly, the Minister has not reassured me. I intend to press the amendment to a Division. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said that we were being too prescriptive. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington said, although three months may not be long enough, we are at least putting a time scale on it, which is vital; it is better than being vague about it. We would be making a requirement of those bodies.

My hon. Friend said that the terminology was sloppy, and clearly it is. Every three years is ''from time to time''. If we are asked, ''How often do you go to church?'' we will say, ''Oh, I go to church from time to time.'' I suspect that some may not, but it our ordinary response to questions on things that we should be doing regularly. How often do we check that the battery in the smoke detectors in our homes? From time to time, I guess. Some, like my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Mr. Trend), check it regularly. The phrase ''from time to time'' is sloppy; and ''regular'' is not be as prescriptive as I would like.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I fear that the hon. Gentleman stretches the analogy too far. Would he not accept

that, in the case of attending church on a Sunday morning, or even every day, we are not issued with guidance, nor is there an inspection regime to ensure that we attend?

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

The Minister should know that there is greater guidance than from the Prime Minister on that matter.

My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor said ''regularly'', but once a year is regular. Three months, too, is regular. We need to focus the attention of those who are responsible in an emergency. Part of the problem is that if terrorists are going to perpetrate an act that would cause an emergency to happen, they will do it when people least expect it. They will not take an advertisement in The Guardian or The Times to tell people that they are going to perpetrate a terrorist act next week. They will do it when they think we are least prepared.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

In the spirit of consensus that we have managed so far, will the hon. Gentleman not accept that it is a matter that is not best expressed in the Bill but rather that it is an appropriate matter for guidance?

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

No; yet again, I do not. I specifically believe that ''from time to time'' is far too vague. The Minister said that different bodies have a different sense of emergency when dealing with different things. I fully agree, but it does not mean that they should be able to abdicate their responsibility for making contingency plans. That is what we are asking for in a number of areas in the Bill. I remember from this morning's discussion that the areas that could be determined to have an emergency is rather wide.

One of our criticisms of the Bill is that it too broad, although I accept that the Government have narrowed its provisions. Not only can the emergency take place in any part of the United Kingdom, but the definition deals with the loss of human life, homelessness and damage to property; it then deals with money, food, water, energy and fuel. It then introduces communications, disruption to transport and to services relating to health. I suspect that almost any incident that one could think of would fall within the scope of the Bill. That is why it should include effective measures to ensure that whatever happens, people will be ready.

That brings me back to the point that terrorists will try to cause as much damage as possible. Those insane suicide bombers want to cause terror, but they also want to perpetrate as much damage, loss of life and carnage as they can. Sadly, we have seen far to many examples of that happening around the world. Terrorists will take advantage of an element of surprise. They are not going to advertise the fact that they are going to act. Chilling as it is, we are the right body to discuss such matters, as we do not want to scare members of the public unnecessarily.

However, such incidents happen around the world, and sometimes we see it up front. I went to New York shortly after 11 September. I was there when the Foreign Secretary gave the readings in St. Thomas's church and Trinity church, and we gave a bell cast at the same London foundry as the Liberty bell. We met

some of the relatives of those who had died. Nobody thought that anything like it could happen; there was always a sense of security in the United States. The disaster happened on a huge scale. It could have been even worse had the other plane hit, as I understand that other terrorists were ready to fly a fifth plane. It is hugely worrying.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

Surely it would not have made a blind bit of difference if the New York civic authorities had acted according to the strictures that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting and undertaken a three-month review of their emergency services. The authorities in New York reacted not on the basis of the nightmare scenario that he describes, because all that was after 11 September, and they did not have to produce a civil contingency plan every three months. They responded well, and I challenge him to point out any area of municipal or civil organisation in New York where there was any failure.

What is the problem? Why cannot the hon. Gentleman simply accept that continuous assessment applies in all groups listed as category 1 responders in schedule 1, and that to implement a three-month timetable would be utterly limiting, making no difference to the scenario that he describes in Manhattan?

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I disagree. The proposal might have made a difference to the number of fatalities in the emergency services. Security personnel acting as fire marshals for the buildings might have been better prepared. In Portcullis House, members of staff are fire marshals; despite the regular false alarms and fire tests, if a fire broke out and all the brown doors closed, it would be a bit of a nightmare to get out because the building is a bit of maze.

The unexpected forms part of the problem. Unless we train people properly, including amateurs, in the guidance that they must give, as is mentioned in this part of the Bill, there will be severe problems. Unless training is properly and regularly updated, we may see a greater loss of life.

The hon. Gentleman says that nothing would have changed on 11 September. Many things could have been changed to make the emergency services more effective, and they now are more prepared for atrocities; indeed, they have to be.

I hope that suicide bombing will be considered very carefully. To date, the UK has been protected from it, but what would we do if someone were able to enter—I could name any crowded place but I will bring matters close to home because it is pointless shying away from it—the Palace of Westminster? Until recently security has been woefully inadequate, but the increased security on the front gates is now more effective. What would we do if someone strapped with explosives managed to reach the Chamber or Central Lobby?

I assume that we have precautions in place, that exercises are taking place and that there is a plan. If there is not and we do not think that we are a target, we should think again. I was in Australia on

11 September, and one of the first things I did when I heard about the atrocities was to phone my staff at my office and tell them to get out of Portcullis House, because I thought that it would be a target as well.

My point is about contingencies and ensuring that people concerned with planning take a look at their procedures every three months. The hon. Member for Ealing, North made a proper point when he asked whether it would have made any difference if the authorities in New York had looked at that every three months. But it must have done, if those authorities had looked at procedures regularly. I do not know what precautions they took, although we all applaud the emergency services, having seen how they behaved.

Later we will come to the issue of a volunteer force. Such a force might well have been called on as well. What if, five years before 11 September, someone in New York had had a bright idea and said, ''We could have a volunteer force in place to help us in case of emergency''? It could work in the way that the lifeboat service does, employing people who do other jobs, but have certain specialisms. We are not talking about people with no expertise, but about those with expertise who take regular training. That might well have made a difference. That is what I ask for: that regular preparation should take place.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

The interaction between what we are discussing and clause 9 may be the key. By my reading, clause 9 deals with monitoring by a Minister of things that need to be done to comply with preparations. How often does the Minister think that Ministers would monitor what is happening on the ground in local government? That could be a key to the matter.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I agree with that. That would be key, but monitoring must be done in an effective way.

I come back to foot and mouth, because that issue is important. The Minister said that there will be some form of audit and that Ministers will impose requirements on bodies. From time to time, I guess, a Minister will phone those bodies and ask how they are preparing for eventualities and emergencies. The Minister said that if somebody was deficient, that person would be brought to account by that method. I am still trying to work out who was brought to account over the deficiencies in the handling of the foot and mouth crisis. Nobody was. An entire industry was devastated, but nobody can point to anybody who was deficient.

Nobody has been able to say that the plan was not carried out properly. Nobody has said that the plan was not up to date or effective, or that exercises were not regularly done. I suspect that we are still at a loss because we have not had a proper and full public inquiry, but we will take that by the by. We need to be told that the Minister will be responsible for checking up on some bodies. However, we do not know how often he will do that. As we know, Ministers change on a regular basis. We may see changes later this week—who knows? [Interruption.] I could not possibly name names. I am surprised that we have not heard more from Government Members, who may be vying for ministerial positions. They will want to shine during the passage of this Bill to try to draw attention to

themselves. Perhaps we will hear more from them later on.

The Minister tried to give us an assurance. What sort of things would he be doing? Will he ring up all 365 local authorities himself? [Interruption.]

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but there is far too much background noise.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Will the Minister phone the local authorities himself and ask what sort of emergencies they have been looking at, what exercises they have been on and what sort of training has taken place? This is a detailed issue. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) talked about expense earlier; it will take a lot of money to do all this effectively. There are no two ways about that, and it will have to be done effectively.

It may well please the Government to keep matters vague, because local authorities and other bodies can then get away with not being as effective as they might be. When they are strapped for cash and the Government say that they will be capped if they try to raise the council tax above a certain level, how do we know that the councils will carry out everything that we are going to ask them to do? How do we know that they will not have to put up the council tax above the capping level to do it? When the Bill is enacted later this year, after the council tax rises that come in April, there will be a further requirement on local authorities. The phrase ''from time to time'' seems to be the get-out clause in case the Government do not provide enough money. That provides an opportunity for a chief executive or somebody else to say, ''Right, this is what we need to do. We have demands on education, huge demands on social services because of an ageing population, and other problems that require spending.'' The last thing that would be said is, ''And by the way, let's have a training exercise on contingencies, just in case there is an emergency.'' I have huge reservations about that, which is why we tabled the amendment and why we will press it to a Division.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

To some extent, the Minister has done himself a disservice. If he had been more forthcoming about the practical arrangements that the Government have in mind for monitoring the situation, he would have helped himself. The truth is that ''from time to time'' seems a vague phrase to any member of the public. He used the word vague, and I think that that is right. He made a reasonable attempt to assure me that there was something more exact in the Government's mind and that it was a conventional term that had been used before, which I accept, but he should none the less have gone further and been more forthcoming.

Presumably, there are some arrangements—the Minister referred to clause 9 and the Bill's monitoring provisions—in Government and in his Department for an overview to be taken. It cannot be left to a particular Department, such as the Scotland Office or the Department for Environment, Food and

Rural Affairs, to decide when it wants to monitor an agency in its area. There must be greater co-ordination than that, given that we seek a disciplined and systematic attempt to ensure regular arrangements for reviewing emergency procedures. That would reassure the public, and this is a question of public confidence, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley rightly pointed out.

Although we are in Committee and there may be vastly more interesting affairs taking place in the Chamber, what is said here will have some effect on public perception. It will affect the perception of the relevant authorities, and through them, that perception will be disseminated to the public. It would be helpful if the Minister said a bit more about the extent to which he and his Department—I assume that it must be the Cabinet Office—will exercise a co-ordinating role.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

The Minister knows that everyone who gave evidence, especially those from local government, said that we need an extra pot of money. I am interested to know whether it will be forthcoming, and if so, in what form. How will the Minister judge how much is appropriate for each authority, whether it is a local authority, a health board, a fire service, the police or whatever it may be?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I have already responded to the debate, and I am conscious of the time. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the position of the Local Government Association is that we should move away from ring-fenced funding? It has accepted that view and articulated it in discussions in preparation for the Bill.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I can say only that local government people in Wales have told me that they would not be able to do much unless they were given funds. With the best will in the world, they want to obey the law. They understand that there is a risk and a need to act. As the Minister knows, they have all said, ''Yes, we need a Bill to draw together the various parts of the legislation that we have had over the years. We need a new approach to this matter and we need to codify the legislation and to strengthen it.'' All of that is fine; none of that is argued with. I saw no evidence to suggest that they do not want the Bill. However, they all say that they cannot function properly and obey the law in its true spirit unless they have additional resources. That is an obvious point.

I know that local authorities plead for extra money and that there is sometimes a case of special pleading, but in this instance, in the notes that accompany the Bill, there is a reference to new obligations being imposed. If they are imposed, it will cost money to introduce them. If local authorities are ''from time to time''—or whatever phrase we use—to observe and ensure and assess, somebody must be paid to do the work. They cannot add that cost to what they already have.

The Minister may be able to assist us, if not today, then during the Committee's future deliberations, on how the money will be distributed. Will distribution be decided by a simple head count or will it take the form of a pseudo-ballot? Both options would be wrong.

Money should be distributed according to need, and some places have a greater need because of greater risk. The Minister may look at me with amusement, but that is an important core matter, which we must get right. If we are to improve the Bill, we must tease out responses.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

The hon. Gentleman is right. The risk will vary from area to area. London will have an extremely high risk, whereas the risk in some villages or towns will be almost non-existent. I suspect that the two bridges that run between England and Wales are prominent terrorist targets, as some bridges were in the United States and extra precautions against terrorist attacks were taken. Resources will be needed.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right, and I would certainly not assist any terrorist. In my constituency, which is a rural area, there is a decommissioned nuclear power station, which is a high risk. Needs will vary. Will the Minister respond in detail to that concern, if not today then later?

Michael Trend (Conservative, Windsor)

I thought that I heard the Minister use the word ''guidance'' in an intervention. That may be a conventional phrase, but it is fairly loose. He argued that it would be a waste of resources to be more specific than that. However, if I were a member of one the bodies mentioned in the Bill, I would take comfort from greater clarity about my precise responsibilities. Will the Government issue detailed guidelines that would protect the interests of the Government and of public bodies? In that way we can ensure that the duties prescribed in the Bill are carried out properly.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I assure the hon. Gentleman that guidance will be issued. I return to the substantive point that the debate has moved widely in terms of the responsibilities of local responders. Those responsibilities are defined in the Bill and clarity will also be given in the guidance. Rather than impose a nominal or arbitrary figure in the Bill, it makes more sense to say that appropriate review periods will be discussed in the guidance. That common-sense point seems to have eluded certain hon. Members.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 3, Noes 13.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to discuss all the things in the clause on

which we did not table amendments. This debate might allow the Minister to be more specific about the extra guidelines and how prescriptive he will be with regard to how often the Government will check up on them.

I am interested in the duty to assess, plan and advise in respect of subsection (1)(g), which refers to maintaining

''arrangements to warn the public, and to provide information and advice to the public, if an emergency is likely to occur or has occurred.''

I agree with that; it is very important. However, we need to know exactly what it means and how much it will cost.

As the Minister knows, after the Bali bombing the Australians managed to send out a pack to every household in the country about homeland security and the threats that they could face if there were terrorist acts on Australian soil. Nobody ever considered that Australia was a likely terrorist target. It was not thought to be high on the list of countries that might be attacked, unlike the United States of America and the United Kingdom—especially since the Iraq war, I suspect.

The Bali bombing came out of nowhere. A significant number of Australians were killed, although I cannot remember the exact figure. Australians used to go to that part of the world for their holidays. Many of the victims were youngsters. They should never have been thought of as a target for terrorism, but they were cruelly executed.

The Australians have risen to the challenge. John Howard has ensured that the sensitivities of all Australians with regard to terrorism have been significantly heightened. They have been sent a pack to warn them about what they should be doing. It lists the items that they should have in their homes in case of an emergency. I assume that that is the sort of thing that paragraph (g) refers to. It mentions the advice that the authorities should give to the public. I assume that that includes what they should do and what they need to store.

The UK Resilience website is relevant on this subject. If members of the public who have information relating to terrorism dial 999 their names will be known. However, there is also a confidential terrorist hotline on 0800 789321. I understand why the Government have made that confidential. Somebody who has seen their neighbour doing something that they think is peculiar might not want to raise the hackles of the authorities by saying that they suspect that their neighbour is a terrorist and for it somehow to get back to the neighbour that they reported those suspicions. Confidentiality is important. Members of the public who have shopped people such as terrorists will almost certainly not want to advertise that they have done so.

There are sensible precautions that the public should take in case of an emergency. I assume that they will be included in the advice. It is right for there to be a warning about the possibility of losing access to power, water, telephones and roads. The public should ensure that they have certain things in their homes. I

will give a short list of them, and it would be useful if Committee members were to ask themselves how many of the items on it they have at home. The list includes spare batteries and a battery-powered torch that actually works. I have been in a hotel where there are torches in drawers in the rooms which light up as soon as they are pulled out so that if a fire blacks out the hotel's electricity supply, people are able to get out immediately.

The list also includes a battery-powered or wind-up radio. I do not know where to buy a wind-up radio, but they have enjoyed a renaissance in popularity because people do not have access to batteries in some developing and emerging countries. The list mentions ready-to-eat food, such as tinned food. I assume that we would not have to add water to that food because if the water supply is contaminated or turned off, a cup-a-soup would be useless. A few bottles of water, which could be eked out over one or several days, and blankets or duvets would also be useful.

Also included in the list are the phone numbers of police, local authorities and utility services, and advice on ensuring that, in an emergency, people know where to locate the main switches for electricity, water and gas in their homes. There is separate advice for businesses. Do they know who their members of staff are, and have they been properly security checked? Are the managers aware of how to handle such emergency incidents? There is also advice about protection against hacking.

I commend the Government on their advice, but it is available on the internet. When did people last look at the UK Resilience website? I look at it regularly, but only since I started reading about some of the issues in the Bill. Otherwise, I would not have heard of it. Only a minority of members of the public—about one third—have access to the internet. I am sure that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam will tell me if the figure is higher than that, and I would be happy to stand corrected

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

About 55 per cent. of the public have direct access and, through proxies, that figure increases to almost 80 per cent. Access is quite good these days.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Access is increasing all the time, and the internet is a way of informing and updating people about what they need.

The Government want to ensure that all the information is available and are putting the obligation to distribute that information on local authorities. The one thing that local authorities do is send out the council tax demand once a year. Most also provide a magazine to say how brilliant they have been over the past 12 months and how the council tax increase is nothing to do with them. Leaflets from the police and several other bodies are also included. That information is already sent out. As local authorities will be obliged to inform the public, why cannot we issue them with a document each year that gives advice on how people should prepare for any eventuality or emergency? Those are common-sense matters. People will not know exactly what will be affected—whether

the electricity will be working, the water supply contaminated or the gas cut off. No mention is made of candles, which might be useful if an emergency lasts for some time.

I know that the Government have links with the BBC so that they can get messages across in the various avenues and media in which it operates. When I was in the United States of America in the late 1980s, I used to see test broadcasts on television of the emergency service so that people would know that a particular signal meant that they should listen to the Government's statement. It will be more difficult with the onslaught of satellite television to get through to people who watch not only four or five, but the current choice of 150 channels, and the situation will only get worse. How will the Government get their message across to the public? I hope that they are looking at ways in which, for instance, they could interrupt MTV and the other pop channels, which may be watched by young people who do not watch the traditional terrestrial channels.

The Government will also have to take into account what will happen if the electricity is out. Televisions or radios will work if they are run by batteries, but only if generators are available to the broadcasters to enable them to get their message out. There are all those issues to consider. The internet is available at the moment, which is great for preparation, but will it be available during an emergency? Perhaps not. It is a similar situation with telephone lines.

We all rely on our mobile phones these days, but the battery can be charged only for a certain length of service. If the electricity supply is out, once that charge is gone, it is gone unless we have a spare, recharged battery. We cannot just put fresh batteries into mobile phones and once a phone is dead, it is dead. We could go to our cars and start the engine and perhaps recharge the mobile phone in that way, but that might also be limited, as the passage of traffic would, I presume, be restricted. That is going to be a real problem.

In looking at every eventuality of an emergency that will be covered by this Bill, the Government must ensure that the public are properly informed. It is quite simple. We could be doing it now; in schools, and in packs sent to homes. I cannot even think of the last television programme that I watched that talked about the things we should be looking to do in a time of emergency. I hope that the Government will take this seriously.

These preparations do not come free. However, not taking any of these steps will have a larger cost if there is an emergency. A terrorist incident would cause not just loss of life but huge disruption, and could have a significant cost. Foot and mouth disease cost billions to try to put right. It is not as if we saved anything by not taking the precautions and contingencies seriously enough, or by thinking that we would save a few bob. It cost us billions in the end when we got it woefully wrong. These measures also will cost a lot of money.

Clause 2(5), paragraphs (l) and (m) require a plan to include provision for the carrying out of exercises, and

a plan to include provision for the training of staff or other persons. Let us first of all look at the plans. We have asked the Government to reassure us when the Bill returns to the Floor of the House that these plans will be up to date and effective. If we are to involve schoolchildren and young people it should be clear what they should do in cases of emergencies. Teachers in schools and colleges will also need to know what to do. We are talking about a very large programme.

I assume that the staff here at the House of Commons will know what to do in the case of an emergency. I assume—because this is what we are asking our local authorities and other responders to do—that there is a plan somewhere, specifying that, within the House of Commons, if there is an emergency, a group of people will be able to direct the rest of us. If not, I would have not the faintest idea of what to do. I suspect I would be standing next to the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope), who no doubt would make a suggestion such as, ''Get another one in, Nigel, it is your round''. Seriously, we would not know what to do, so there has to be sufficient training in that regard.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

My hon. Friend will recall that there was a trial of the House's emergency procedures two or three years ago. It was noticed that all Members who had offices along this corridor, or who are participating in a Committee, as we are, had to go to the far end of the Committee Corridor and down that small staircase. That was shown to be perfectly inadequate for the numbers who would be using it. I do not know whether that has been looked at since then.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

This is what we are trying to smoke out from the Minister. I am not certain where the emergency plans for the House of Commons are. We are surely a terrorist target, so I assume that guidance will, at some stage, be issued to us, and to people who will want to train others who will then give guidance to us in the event of an emergency. I have not the faintest idea whether the point my hon. Friend made has been looked at since the trial. Clearly the exercise found procedures to be wanting in certain areas; that is the purpose of exercises.

There was an exercise recently to show what would happen on the tube if there were a chemical outbreak. No doubt lessons were learned about the sort of precautions that had to be taken and the atmosphere that emergency workers would face. The fire brigade does exercises and training all the time and needs to do so to ensure that it is not opening itself up to further risks than it already faces. Its plans must be up to date and the training must be effective; both the levels of training and the exercises to ensure that that training is appropriate.

Somebody should be considering the training that needs to be taken in each local authority, the police authority, the fire brigade and the health trusts. The training will be different from area to area. As the Minister knows, the things that they deal with in hospitals may include chemical spills, people suffering from toxic poisoning, explosions, trauma and fear of what is going to happen.

I was in the Grand hotel in Brighton when the bomb went off. I was with a group of people and the last thing that we expected was a bomb. The one thing that terrorists want to do is cause surprise. We were chatting away in the early hours of the morning when the explosion happened.

Greg Pope (Labour, Hyndburn)

It was 3 in the morning.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

We were discussing education policy and the debates that were to take place the next day. There was a noise, followed shortly by another noise. The lights went out, a fire alarm went off and a journalist sitting there shouted, ''Everybody down, it's a bomb.'' That was when I threw myself onto the floor. There was a sprinkling of glass. People had been leaving through the main door and the fa¢ade, where the door was, came down. People in the rooms were injured as it collapsed into the main well of the hotel.

A member of staff came into the bar area with a torch and said, ''Everybody follow me.'' We could not get out through the front door. When any of us stay in hotels, we are not familiar with them. The first thing we think when we walk in somewhere is not, ''How do I get out of here if I can't get out through the normal entrance or exit?'' That is the last thing that we think of. Thanks to the training that had taken place in the hotel, we were trekked out of it safely. That is the sort of thing that we must be looking for. Training is vital.

Training involves a huge cost. It means that we are taking people away from the job that they normally do and training them up in responsibilities secondary to what they otherwise would be doing. The training may last half a day, one day or may be extensive in some areas; people may be away for a week. The police, for example, receive training for certain drivers so that if someone wanted to attack a member of the royal family, they would know how to drive in those circumstances. That is a special skill. Police officers receive training to guard against any terrorist attack on a member of the royal family and, I suspect, some Ministers as well. That training is special and it takes a long time for people to be up to speed with it. They have to retrain regularly to ensure that they retain those skills.

In local authorities, a number of key workers will be trained to ensure that they have the right skills to do what they need to do and to follow all the guidelines that we are putting in the Bill and fresh guidelines that may come out afterwards. What estimate has the Minister made of the extra cost that will be put on local authorities and other relevant bodies who will have to train? We know that it will cost a lot. Later, I will mention the representations from the Local Government Association, which the Minister has used for his defence to date.

Exercises are also hugely expensive. Workers are taken away from their normal jobs and undertake role-playing of certain circumstances. London used to be a centre of terrorism; for example, there was the explosion in the City of London several years ago, and the centre of Manchester was also targeted by an IRA bomb. We have had more than our fair share of terrorist activity and preparations and exercises would

have taken place. However, the threat that we now face from international terrorism is more real, ready and violent than ever before. We must always be prepared for the threat of terrorism. How much does the Minister estimate

''the provision for the training of staff'',

as outlined in paragraph (m), and the exercises covered in paragraph (l) will cost?

The Local Government Association has briefed us on its concerns, and its major concern is about the costs. It wants a full review of the funding, otherwise it warns that

''local authorities may well be unable to carry out the essential role in the protection of the public''.

We cannot ignore that. If the LGA wants a full review of funding, we cannot simply say, ''Well, we gave a 35 per cent. increase last year''; that was an increase on a low sum of money.

The LGA has provided figures for the funding of emergency planning. In 1991, the Government grant was £24.5 million, which strangely enough is more than the current figure. The figure dropped to £14 million for the period between 1997 and 2000.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

The hon. Gentleman just missed the other figure in the brief, which tells us that between 1991 and 1997 the figure was cut from £24.5 million to £14 million. It is important to understand the time scale in which big cuts were made.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The decrease has happened over a period of time, whereby the impression was almost that emergency planning was not a priority for the Government. The figure was slowly whittled down to £14 million in 1997, before the increase of 35 per cent. to £19 million for the period from 2001 to 2002. The Government grant in 2003 was just over £19 million, but local authorities have to raise an additional £17 million. The total amount spent on funding of emergency planning is £36 million, and the LGA points out that,

''unlike the emergency services (police, fire etc), local authorities have received no extra funding to undertake additional anti-terrorism work expected of them by the Government as a result of 9/11.''

Post–11 September, everyone else has opened their eyes to what may happen, but local authorities have not received a single extra penny. That must be addressed. The Minister cannot ask a host of other things of bodies and get away with the fact that there is no extra funding. The local authorities may embrace him more if he could be more open about his discussions with the Treasury. He may then give us some insight into those discussions and tell us how much money will be made available.

The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy talked about ring fencing. The Local Government Association may not be too happy with ring fencing because it, too, wants flexibility. Local authorities and others may be spending a specific sum on, say, anti-terrorism emergency contingency planning; an area

that clearly could be downgraded in times of pressing need if they wanted to spend the money elsewhere. I am minded to suggest that the money be ring-fenced and that we look to ensure that everyone is at least confident that a certain amount of money in the pot is being used solely for the preparations for contingency planning.

I hope that the Minister will shed more light on where the funding will come from and what the estimated costs are, so that we know the sort of sums we are talking about. The amount must be well in excess of the £36 million that is currently being spent. If it is four or five times that amount, so be it. At least let us know, so that we can work out where the money will come from.

Greg Pope (Labour, Hyndburn)

Where is the money coming from?

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

That is the question I am asking the Minister. I know that the hon. Member for Hyndburn wants me to know where the money is coming from, but this is the Government's Bill, and I want to know what preparations they have made.

Greg Pope (Labour, Hyndburn)

The hon. Gentleman says that he wants more money to be spent. Where is it to come from? What is his proposal? What is his party's proposal?

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

What my honourable neighbour is saying is not where we are now. We may be the Government in a few months' time. In that event, the hon. Gentleman will know exactly where the money will come from because we will let him know. However, we are not in that boat now. Surprisingly, his party's Government are; it is their Bill. We want to know that they have made preparations. We know that the black hole that the Chancellor of the Exchequer must now face is massive and the Bill may well add to it. Perhaps the Minister will let us know when he responds. I assume at least that the preparations and the estimates have been made so that we can know what they are.

Requirements are also placed on other bodies in an emergency and a terrorist attack. Yet again, British Telecom has told us that certain requirements will be made of them, and I assume that the same will be required of water, electricity and gas boards. They may be asked to do things that are outside their responsibility. Whoever is responsible for directing them says that they want to ensure that this or that exchange is switched back on or that certain actions are required to ensure integrity of the communications system. They want to know who will pay. We were sent a briefing that says that the time is right to codify exactly what will happen. Everyone wants to know who will do what in an emergency, but that should also apply to funding. That demands clarity about who pays for what for all parties involved. The funding of all activities associated with an emergency need to be addressed. BT believes that the Bill should include a statutory duty on the Government to fund the costs of category 2 responders for costs incurred.

Other responders in category 2 want to know where the funding will come from and what will be their position if they are engaged in activities outside their normal business operations. Who will fund such

activities? I have asked the Minister enough questions so I shall give him time to respond.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I should like to cover three areas in a short space of time. First, the question of funding is relevant to the new, comprehensive duty on local government; clause 2 is, in a sense, the meat of part 1 as it places a duty on local government. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley mentioned the figures, and it is clear that between 1991 and 2001, central Government did exactly what we fear that local government will be tempted to do; they de-prioritised civil contingencies. Developments in eastern Europe and the perceived end of the cold war at the end of the 1990s cut the funding from £24.5 million to £14 million over that 10-year period. In 2001—before 11 September—a judicial challenge by the local authorities created the impetus for an increase to £19 million. Since then, local government has contributed from general funds to support the planning work.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland pointed out, we are not in favour of ring-fencing per se; we support local government's view that it is full of big, professional people who are able to manage their budgets. We must ensure that the overall budget for local government is sensible and fair and reflects its needs, but it should then be up to local authorities to decide how to spend the money. Funding is clearly a difficult area and, as I have argued, we must seek commitments from the Government that there will be adequate support for local government to do what it needs to do.

The second area of local government concern raised by the LGA concerns the definitions in clause 2. In particular, if a judgment is to be made about whether local government has fulfilled its obligations under clause 2, the phrase ''likely to occur'', which occurs in several places, causes the LGA some concern. Its worry is that it may be liable for not having planned for something that is ''likely to occur'' where it was not reasonable to think that it could occur. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley mentioned all kinds of incidents that he said are extremely improbable—such as large-scale earthquakes and 11 September-type incidents—which had not occurred before. The test for local government is the extent to which it must plan for incidents at the improbable end of the spectrum. I hope that the Minister will respond to the concerns that have arisen from the phrase ''likely to occur''.

Finally, I should like to refer to the draft regulations that are relevant to clause 2, and which the Minister has made available. Three, in particular, caught my eye. First, draft regulation 9 refers to guidance and risk assessments issued by the Minister. I assume that there will be periodic states of alert when the Government will be notified of a terrorist threat, for example, and will issue guidance to local government, asking whether such a threat has been factored into its plans and insisting that it make changes if it has not been. Can the Minister flesh out how that central Government guidance and risk assessment will work?

Secondly, draft regulation 13 concerns compulsory plans under section 2(1)(c) and (d). It says:

''Each category 1 responder must maintain a plan under section 2(1)(c) and (d) in relation to''—

and then there is a blank space. It is always helpful to have the draft regulations at this stage, but the only important part of the regulations—the matter in relation to which local government needs to have a compulsory plan—is blank. Will the Minister fill in that blank so that we make a judgment about it?

Finally, I congratulate the Government on draft regulation 17, which concerns not alarming the public unnecessarily. I take a slightly divergent view from the hon. Member for Ribble Valley. I remember that ''Protect and Survive'' was a horrible book; it haunted my childhood. It told us that whenever we went into a room we should look for the table under which we should go, and that we should pile heavy material around it and get into the brace position and kiss our backsides goodbye. I remember being aware of sirens, and so forth. ''Protect and Survive'' sticks in my mind as something horrible that I did not want to be issued to my household.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I take on board the hon. Gentleman's point that we do not want to frighten people unnecessarily, whatever ''unnecessarily'' means. However, is it not right to give them the right guidance about items they should have in case of an emergency? Is that not a common-sense thing to do?

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I agree; there should be rational planning and sensible preparation. However, sometimes things become producer-driven. There are people who have an interest and a stake in creating a climate of greater fear to justify their own positions, such as the people who produce such books.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Like with the millennium bug.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

The millennium bug is a classic example. It almost became in the interests of the people who were going to solve the problem to talk it up. That is what I am worried about. It is helpful to have a measure that says, ''Let's have rational planning, but let's not go over the top.'' Sometimes, there is a tendency to think that we can dot every i and cross every t when we should be thinking about sensible planning.

The impact on children, in particular, was raised on Second Reading. My childhood suffered as a result of unnecessary scare stories. I have been trying to remember the title of the wonderful Raymond Briggs book about the elderly couple. Such stories stick in people's consciousness and fear can be very debilitating. It is important that people should be able to live their lives while making rational preparations and should not be subject to irrational fear; that matter must be respected. I hope that the Minister will say that these measures are aimed at getting that balance right, and that anyone who steps out of line and generates an industry of warnings and fears will be brought back into line.

Clause 2 is a significant measure. I hope that it will be properly resourced and that the regulations will be fleshed out a little more so that we can take a proper view about them.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I, too, shall make a brief contribution to what has been an unexpectedly interesting debate. We have just been given a telling insight into the childhood traumas of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam, which was a revelation.

The other revelation was the Damascene conversion by the Conservatives about the need to resource emergency planning. That will be particularly welcome in my constituency. For many years, we told successive Conservative Ministers with responsibility for shipping that we needed all-year-round emergency tug cover in the northern isles. We were told that we were silly and we did not know anything. Unfortunately, it required the tanker Braer to run aground in Shetland and Lord Donaldson's inquiry and report ''Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas'' before we got part-time cover from the Conservatives. We eventually got all-year-round cover, for which I give credit to this Government. That is important emergency planning; there is a tangible benefit and the sort of meaningful resourcing that we need.

It is worth saying that when one is dealing with emergency planning, one can never cover every eventuality. What is required is a mature and sensible assessment of the quantum of risk. I hope that that will not be resource-limited or resource-affected. It is not possible to cover every eventuality, but the risk must be assessed as well as the cost of addressing it.

I wish to explore with the Minister the provisions in schedule 1. All the bases have been covered in respect of schedule 1 and parts 1 and 2, but I should like confirmation of that. I am mildly puzzled that part 1 has been labelled ''Category 1 Responders: General'' and part 2 is entitled ''Category 1 Responders: Scotland''. With the exception of paragraph 12, listed under ''Miscellaneous''—

''The Secretary of State, in so far as his functions relate to maritime and coastal matters''—

all the provisions that are listed under part 1 relate to England, Wales and Northern Ireland exclusively. None of them has any impact on Scotland.

It would have been more appropriate to label that part as ''Category 1—responders: England, Wales and Northern Ireland'' and add a new paragraph 19 under ''Miscellaneous'' in part 2, saying: ''The Secretary of State, in so far as his functions relate to maritime and coastal matters''. It would be possible to construe part 2 in such a way that the Secretary of State's functions in relation to maritime and coastal matters were not to be considered under category 1 responders for Scotland. Given that trouble has been taken expressly to list those matters that apply to Scotland, the Secretary of State's functions ought to have been included, too. The only saving grace of the schedule's drafting is that it is headed with the word ''General'', rather than ''England, Wales and Northern Ireland ''.

There appears to be no definition of a local authority in Northern Ireland in the list of local authorities in paragraph 1 of part 1 of the schedule. Is that because the Minister is, in principle, excluding

local authorities in Northern Ireland from an emergency planning role? Although there might be many practical reasons why the same roles would not be given to authorities in Northern Ireland, I cannot, in principle, see any reason why they should be excluded. I should be grateful if the Minister could explain that.

It occurs to me that a Sewel motion on this matter might have been passed by the Scottish Parliament. I do not know whether the Minister knows if that is so. I hope that such a motion was passed, because that might explain the somewhat inelegant bolt-on approach that the Government have taken of including Scotland in this section. In particular, subsection (5) says that it should be read as it applies to Scotland with the necessary changes made. It would not have taken a great deal of effort to include that in long form. It would be much easier for anyone reading the Bill in the first instance. That takes me back to a point that I explored with the Minister during the passage of the Enterprise Bill. There is a danger that when Scotland is being dealt with by Whitehall Departments it has a tendency to fall off the radar screen.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

We have had a wide-ranging debate. With the indulgence of the Committee I should like to set out a brief context and endeavour to answer the points made by Committee members.

Clause 2 establishes a clear framework of duties to perform activities that are, by common consent, crucial to effective civil protection. It will deliver clarity of responsibilities and expectations, as well as consistency and confidence in the fit of multi-agency planning and response arrangements. It will ensure, for example, that significant risks are identified and resources are focused in the right area; that local responders plan and prepare for significant risks; and that the public are made aware of risks where appropriate. It creates a clear trigger for the scale of events to which local responders must react and prepare for, and qualifies the duties to ensure that they are reasonable. The regulation-making power that it contains will enable the Government to strike the right balance between giving stakeholders the clarity about which we have heard during our discussions and maintaining the flexibility to amend the framework of civil protection as it evolves.

I should like to deal with two points raised by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. First, the Sewel motion is a matter that my Department and I have discussed with the Scottish Executive. I understand that the present position is that it is intended that there should be a Sewel motion; therefore, that is the intention in the draft before the Committee, although it has not passed through Holyrood.

In the light of the observations that the hon. Gentlemen made in relation to the inelegance of the schedules, I will certainly consider this matter. I am sure that he knows of my history as someone who is determined to ensure Scotland's place within the Union, and so if there is a better way of presenting the material in terms of schedules I will certainly give it consideration. It came to me in the course of his

observations that clearly both the Health and Safety Executive and the British Transport police also exercise functions within Scotland, and if there is a manner in which we can express the situation more elegantly to capture that reality, we will give consideration to it.

I hope that I can deal reasonably straightforwardly with the other points made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam. First, regarding compulsory plans, that is something that we are considering, but any requirement to prepare a specific plan would have to be properly considered and resourced. That is why, when we have our regulatory consultations, I would welcome the views of the hon. Gentleman and indeed other members of the Committee on this matter.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

The hon. Gentleman said that the Government were considering the matter. Who is considering it within the Government—his own Department, or the Deputy Prime Minister's Department?

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

We work collaboratively within the Government. We have a Cabinet system, rather than a system as in the United States where there is a single Department that considers all of these matters. If it would be helpful, I will write to the hon. Gentleman. As I said this morning, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman was present, my understanding on the basis of discussions with officials would be that we intend to consult on this matter on Royal Assent. By way of context, these regulations, which have already been developed and which were published on 7 July, have already been the subject of widespread consultation. We have an emergency planner, who—uniquely, I think—has been working directly with the Bill team on this matter. We will continue with this collaborative approach in framing these regulations in the light of the observations of members of the Committee and those of Members of the other place, and then we will consider the observations of members of the public following publication of the regulations.

Mr. Horam rose—

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I have been generous in giving way, and I am keen to make further progress

Regarding the legal liability on responders, which was also raised by the member for Sheffield Hallam, all of the category 1 duties under the Bill are potentially susceptible to judicial review proceedings in respect of the way that they carry out their duties under the Bill. It is impossible to speculate in advance as to whether a responder would incur legal liability for its actions in the circumstances of a particular emergency, but the broad guiding principle which would be applied by the court is clear: a responder must act reasonably, and if it fails to do so it can be held to account by judicial review or, depending on the circumstances, by another form of legal action. ''Acting reasonably'' would be assessed with reference to what the responder knew at the time. It is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which a responder acting reasonably and in good faith could therefore be legally liable.

The final point raised by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley was the threshold of the statutory duty on the Government to fund UK Resilience for private

sector organisations. We have heard discussion about both utilities and telephone companies. It was curious that this morning the hon. Gentleman seemed to be saying that BT was simply getting on with the standard job of a utility company in making sure that electronic networks work effectively, but this afternoon he was somehow asserting that a range of duties were being imposed on BT which lay outwith the normal technical competence of a telephone company in getting its systems and electronic networks back into organisation.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I was concerned with activities that utility companies are not normally involved with from day to day—if there were something exceptional, for example, an act of terrorism, where they were instructed to do certain things that they would not normally be doing.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I am sure that we can find common ground in Committee in recognising that the utilities already carry out a wide range of civil protection work as part of their standard work. The additional duties for utility companies described in the Bill are minimal. I would pray in aid the case study identified in the regulatory impact assessment concerning the position of the united utilities. I understand that the figure in question there was about £2,000. It is important to have a sense of proportion in recognising both the mainstream responsibilities and other potential burdens or other duties under which utilities would find themselves operating.

The key element underpinning the whole of this clause stand part debate, however, is the question of funding for local authorities. The first thing to place on record is the fact that Government funding is not the only source of investment in local authority emergency planning. Local authorities have for many years made additional funding available to support the function of such planning, which boosts the resources for local civil protection in each community throughout the country, and we know that local authorities have concerns about the level of funding. Consistent with the collaborative and discursive approach we have taken, we have been in discussion with representatives of the London Government Association. Indeed I have met LGA representative to discuss a range of matters related to the Bill. We are working closely with the LGA to resolve this issue and establish what burdens if any the Bill might add.

Any additional pressures will be considered as part of the established public expenditure processes, which will be addressed in due course. Local authorities have received a substantial injection of new funding for emergency planning since 2001—an increase of 35 per cent. Significant new investment has also been made since 11 September 2001, particularly into front-line local civil protection activities such as those of the fire service or of the police. Local authorities have been able to build agreement with the authorities into their plans and improve their capacity to respond in those circumstances.

On the point about the LGA survey and estimated spending of £36 million, the civil defence grant is a contribution to the cost of civil protection at a local level. Local authorities have always supplemented the

level of grant, which again I clarify is provided for emergency planning rather than being in any way broader than that. We are working closely with the LGA to resolve the issue and it will ultimately reach its conclusion in the 2004 spending review process.

I must emphasise that the essence of the Bill is a framework of civil protection. Funding is a separate matter to be considered as part of the spending review process. In that regard, the Bill is largely organisational.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

Can the Minister offer any explanation as to why local authorities in Northern Ireland do not seem to be category 1 responders? That is on the principle.

Douglas Alexander (Labour, Paisley South)

I shall be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman on the specific point of Northern Ireland because I am keen to move on and, in the limited time remaining, to cover the question of warning and informing the public.

The Bill will effectively reinforce arrangements at a local level to provide information about risks and planning preparation. The Government are committed to giving the public as much information as they can about threats and risks. Our guiding principle is that whatever, whenever and wherever information is available that will help to protect the public, we will give detailed advice in advance about how to handle every threat. We heard about several threats in the course of our discussion that could be misleading and unhelpful and could lead to confusion in an incident where members of the public, shorn of the local responsibility that I will describe in a minute, could misinterpret the circumstances that they were encountering.

It was suggested that a better system operates in Australia. Certainly, the Government are considering—and keep under review—the need to communicate directly with the public about what is an appropriate and sensible way forward in sharing information with them. Before any incident, it is appropriate and right to assure the public that measures are in place for their protection, but it is not always appropriate to specify in each and every circumstance the precise nature of those measures that are being taken.

We have heard compliments paid to the UK Resilience website, operated by the Government. Far from being overly secretive, such sites are designed to address the public's information demands. The Government, however, keep under review how we communicate with the public and how they should respond in the event of a major incident. We take that responsibility seriously. We have a long track record of having been able to work effectively with local responders—not least, the experience of Irish terrorism for more than 30 years has meant that the British public are well used to taking direction in circumstances of an incident, particularly from the emergency services. The public have a great deal of common sense that has been brought to bear in particular circumstances such as those we have experienced over the past 30 years.

Part 1 of the Bill is about making information available during the response phase. Local responders need to be able to issue warnings to make sure that the public stay out of harm's way or seek appropriate help. The Bill refers to arrangements and it is our intention to use the regulations to ensure that local responders work together to develop common warning arrangements based on jointly owned resources or protocols for who will take the lead in certain circumstances. That is more appropriately dealt with in the regulations.

By and large, those organisations with responsibility for warning the public, will retain those obligations under the Bill. The question of the range of exercises that have been run past government was raised, and the suggestion was made that no preparatory work was being undertaken, or at least questions were raised as to whether emergency exercises were being undertaken. I hope that I can offer the Committee some assurance on that point. It is simply not the case to suggest that exercises have not been undertaken. Indeed, the hon. Member for Ribble Valley recognised Operation Osiris on the London tube, which I attended last September.

The Government and emergency services train regularly and practise their responses to all kinds of major incidents, including natural disasters and accidents. In addition, the Home Office runs a programme of major exercises that specifically deal with terrorist scenarios. The proportion of live to simulated elements in each exercise varies according to the exercise scenario. The type of exercises that have taken place include table-top exercises, command-post exercises and full-scale live exercises. Depending on the various scenarios that have been undertaken in this work, they can involve any or all of the following: Government Departments, the emergency services, the military, local authorities, scientists and technical experts, utility companies and the security services.

In July 2000, Exercise Trump Card simulated a release of chemicals in London without any warning, which would have led to casualties and deaths among members of the public and the emergency services. Throughout the exercise, other dangerous devices were located and disrupted around the city, including on the underground. This was one of at least three full-scale live terrorist attacks and approximately 12 to 15 table-top exercises that take place each year. Other recent live exercises have included a hijacked aircraft, terrorist occupation of an offshore oil well and ships, the release or threatened release of chemical and biological agents, and nuclear devices. Of course, all exercises are fully evaluated and participants given detailed feedback, as was the case with Operation Osiris. I believe I have covered the funding points raised.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 - Section 2: supplemental

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

We have not tabled any amendments to this clause, which is fairly short. It deals with a Minister of the Crown issuing guidance to a person or body listed in part 1 or 3 of schedule 1 about the matters specified in clause 2(3) and (5), the same applying in Scotland. However, I wish to press the Minister a little further on guidance. Exactly when will the general guidance become available, so that proper evaluations as to the cost and the likelihood can be made? I heard what he said earlier about the grand settlement for next year not yet being made, and this will not come into force until then. Today, we are giving best guidance. We are updating the Emergency Powers Act 1920, and various Acts that have come since. I assume that bodies are not waiting in splendid isolation before they start to update their plans, but are actually doing so. I am sure that the Minister is approaching the bodies mentioned in the Bill and that they are making representations to him. I hope he can give us some assurance that they have already begun to ensure that the plans they have in place are up to date in connection with every eventuality.

I am also seeking information as to when this guidance will come about. We have praised UK Resilience to the hilt and the Minister could, under clause 3(1) regarding issuing guidance, ensure that bodies mention that website somewhere in the literature they put out to members of the public. I found the website useful, but had it not been for the Bill's supplementary guidance notes, I would never have heard of it. We should encourage members of the public to visit the website now, as it is pointless to do so once an emergency happens, then nip down to the shop to get candles and all the other things needed, because there will be pressure on those items. Once it is rumoured that there will be a shortage of something, members of the public will go out and buy it, creating a shortage. Any manufacturer who has a stockpile of something should let it be known that there will be a shortage, and it will soon get rid of the excess.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

There speaks a shopkeeper.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I have certainly never done that.

The clause requires the Minister of the Crown and Scottish Ministers to issue guidance, so many people will receive orders and guidance well before the Bill comes into force. There may be issues in the preparation of the plans that the bodies will want to make sure are up to date. They will need equipment that they may not currently have to deal with chemical outbreaks, dirty bombs or a plane crashing into a building in some part of the United Kingdom—all the awful eventualities that we can possibly think of, including terrorist bombs. Local authorities may then have to say, ''Actually, we do need this extra bit of kit''. It will cost money; some of it may be expensive. The Minister may be au fait with the sort of equipment that I am talking about, but there will certainly be resource implications.

Some things that I have read in the newspapers recently about the lack of kit with which our soldiers went to war in Iraq worry me. We were told that they would get kit, but it is clear from the stories direct from the front that kit was not getting through, for whatever reason. I hope that the Minister can assure me that it will not be because of a shortage of money that the responders do not get information and that they will not be kept short of the resources necessary to obtain equipment.

The Minister of the Crown will also be able under subsections (1) and (2), through guidance no doubt, to direct bodies as to what they need to do. As we have said, a number of bodies will be involved, not only organisations such as BT. The Minister said, ''It should cost only a minimal amount of money. What are they worried about?'' However, if the mobile telephone network is down, the Government may direct companies to put landlines into parts of the country where they have been destroyed, get the network up and running or hire another satellite. I can only imagine that the costs of hiring a satellite at emergency rates are astronomic. At some time, the company will have to make the money back. Has that been taken on board? If BT had to spend hundreds, thousands or millions of pounds on hiring satellites—[Interruption.] We had the same fire alarm announcement this morning, Mr. Benton. It is just testing the Committee to see how we will react in the event of an emergency. As we can see, the members of the public know what to do.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

I suggest that we keep going for the time being.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

It is apposite that our debate should take place while alarms are going on. I only trust that there is not an emergency. We know that the staff have been trained to come in and give us guidance. The possibility that we will carry on with the debate while the rest of the building empties fills me with dread, but I assume that somebody will let us know if that is the case. If there were a failure now and the chap's voice disappeared, we would not know, so I assume that training has been done to ensure that someone will come in to let us know that there is a problem.

As the bodies go through their plans, they may write to the Minister, and I would encourage them to do so, and to ask him to look into the equipment that they will need and its cost. If firms in the private sector, such as BT, have to hire emergency satellite links costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, they should be comfortable in the knowledge that the costs will be picked up somewhere, and they will want to know where.

The guidance that the Minister will give the various bodies and authorities may say that—[Interruption.]

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

I shall suspend the Committee until the fire alarm has been investigated.

Committee suspended.

On resuming—

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

Thank you for your protection, Mr. Benton. I have to say that even I could not understand some of the things that I was saying. I was waiting for the next ''Order''. I know that not understanding what I say is common to everybody else in the Room, but normally I can understand it.

I want to refer again to my previous point, before I go on to the next one. BT may have to hire some equipment or a satellite, which I imagine is hugely expensive, particularly at emergency rates. I remember the time when a transponder to transmit pictures cost £6 million a year, although I know the cost has come down a lot since then. I simply seek an assurance that if the Government say that mobile telephony must be made available in an emergency because landlines are down, and if BT has to hire a satellite at short notice at a cost that could run into millions, the company will be told how that cost will be met.

Michael Trend (Conservative, Windsor)

There is a further problem. The Government have massive powers under the Bill, and if they were to order a public utility—a private company—to undertake an action that later turned out to have been unnecessary, one would assume that reimbursement of the costs would be automatic. My hon. Friend mentioned foot and mouth. On the two occasions on which I recall that disease occurring in the UK, the Government footed much of the bill. The Government cannot therefore avoid responsibility.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out. I remember that during the foot and mouth epidemics farmers were directed to clean up a lot of the land and equipment around their farms to cut down on the spread of the disease. That was quite right, but the farmers bore the cost because they had to hire equipment and do various things that they otherwise would not have done. There was no cost on their time, because they were not farming, and money and resources were made available. As my hon. Friend rightly said, for that job to be done effectively, that money ran into billions.

The utilities might be required to do things that they otherwise would not do or to direct their people away from certain jobs into other jobs that might have a resource implication. A number of bodies—not just the commercial bodies, but other bodies that examine Government activity—have expressed such concerns. They want to a reassurance that the costs will be met.

The hospital trusts, the police, the ambulance service and the fire brigade are always brilliant in emergencies. They are great all the time, but in emergencies they may be asked to do things that they are not usually required to do. I assume that in an emergency, when hospital trusts would be working flat out, the working time directive, which will, I believe, be introduced for them later this year, would be suspended. If doctors were required to work 60, 70 or 80 hours in an emergency, would that legislation be applied?

Helen Jackson (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman has ever experienced a major event in his constituency. About 10 years ago, as hon. Members will know, the Hillsborough football disaster killed 90 people in a

very short space of time. I assure him that when that sort of thing happens, there is no question of anyone in the NHS or the associated services saying, ''Oh, I'm sorry, it's time to go home for my tea now.''

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I fully accept that. That is why I said those services are brilliant all the time. Moreover, when there is an emergency, people volunteer, and not only in this country. For example, members of the fire service went to Iran to give voluntary help. However, I want to ascertain whether, if extra resources need to be made available—for example, to bring extra people in—they have been costed so that that money would be available.

The scale of the emergency is also an issue. I remember Hillsborough: it was a complete and absolute tragedy. People who worked in the NHS, who were in their cars going somewhere, heard that the disaster had happened and went directly to the hospitals. There was no question of them telephoning to ask whether overtime was available—they just did it. I fully accept that that is the case.

However, there may be some emergency cases that we cannot imagine now, for which people may volunteer their time. Would they be allowed to do the job that we asked them to do, whatever the requirements of the working time directive? I hope that that would be the case. Will the Minister give an assurance that the working time directive would be waived in the event of an emergency and that anybody volunteering their time after a full shift would be allowed to do so?

Trucks and other vehicles might be requisitioned by the Government, because under subsection (2)

''A Minister of the Crown may issue guidance to a person or body listed in''

that part. Goods may need to be shifted quickly around the country as a matter of emergency. What sort of guidance would be given to truck firms or coach firms if a large number of people had to be transported? Would the tachograph, which we know is there to protect people's lives, not act as an obstruction? Would red tape be waived because of the urgency of the case? [Interruption.]

Some hon. Members scoff at what they consider to be pedestrian questions, and ask why I am even putting them. I will tell the hon. Member for Ealing, North why: we expected the people serving in Iraq to get the resources for the job that we were asking them to do. In some cases, they did not get them and had to buy their own equipment to take with them. When they were ordered to give up that equipment, which was there to protect their lives, they did so. That is why I asked the question. Who would have thought that members of our armed services would have to buy their own life-saving equipment for a war that we asked them to fight on our behalf? I ask the Minister for an assurance that when we ask people to help us in emergency situations, we will not ask them to dip into their own pockets to buy equipment. It should be provided for them. The issue should be properly costed and the Government should ensure that the local authorities get the money for the job that they ask them to do.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

In relation to subsection (2), the Minister will see that

''Scottish Ministers may issue guidance to a person . . . listed in Part 2 or 4 of Schedule 1''.

As I read it, that means that Scottish Ministers could not give guidance to the British Transport police. As the Minister pointed out, they come within part 1 of schedule 1, but are not a UK-wide body. It would be sensible, and in the interests of joined-up government and the integration of policy, for Ministers in Scotland to be able to give guidance to the British Transport

police on the implementation of civil contingencies in Scotland. Subsection (3)(b) states that any

''person or body listed in any Part of Schedule 1 shall . . . have regard to guidance under subsection (1) or (2) above.''

Apparently, the British Transport police will have to have regard to guidance that was not issued to them.

Debate adjourned.—[Ms Bridget Prentice.]

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past Five o'clock till Thursday 29 January at half-past Two o'clock.