Fire and Rescue Services Bill

Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2004.

Standing Committee G

Fire and Rescue Services Bill

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

As one of the two Chairmen—my co-Chairman is Mr. Edward O'Hara—I welcome all Committee members to the first sitting. Looking at them, I have no doubt but that it will be a constructive and agreeable Committee and that it will do its job in properly and fully scrutinising this important Bill.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I beg to move,

That—

(1) during proceedings on the Fire and Rescue Services Bill the Standing Committee shall meet when the House is sitting on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9.25 am and 2.30 pm;

(2) 10 sittings shall be allotted to the consideration of the Bill in Committee;

(3) the proceedings shall be taken in the order specified in the Table below;

(4) the proceedings specified in the first column of the Table shall be brought to a conclusion (unless already concluded) at the time specified in the second column of the Table.

TABLE

Proceedings

Time for conclusion of proceedings

Clauses 1 to 20

11.25 am at the 5th sitting

Clauses 21 to 36

5 pm at the 8th sitting

Clauses 37 to 51, Schedule 1, Clause 52, Schedule 2, Clauses 53 to 61, New Clauses, New Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill.

5 pm at the 10th sitting

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Nicholas. I have had the pleasure of serving under you twice previously in Standing Committees. The first, which I believe we can look back on with mutual pleasure, debated the Bill that became the Greater London Authority Act 1999, which took many Committee sittings. Towards the end of the proceedings, an official told me that it was turning out to be the longest running consideration of legislation since the passage of the Government of India Act 1935. I am pleased to say that the Bill that we are considering in this Committee is not of those dimensions. Last year, Sir Nicholas, I had the pleasure of serving under you on the Committee that considered what became the Local Government Act 2003, which were extremely agreeable and constructive proceedings. On both Committees, your wise and humorous chairmanship was fundamental to ensuring the effective scrutiny and good spirit that characterises Committees at their best. I look forward to serving under you and your colleague, Mr. O'Hara.

I should stress that the Bill is important and historic. It is the first substantive legislative change to affect the fire and rescue service for over 50 years and is a crucial element in our agenda for modernising

the fire service. The Bill will help to save lives through the new duty to promote fire safety, which underpins our strategy for a more prevention-based approach to fire. It will establish a modern legislative structure to recognise the current role of the fire and rescue service in responding to a range of incidents that were not fully anticipated when the Fire Services Act 1947 was passed. It includes measures to deal with road traffic accidents and emergencies such as flooding, and preparations to guard against and respond to the new terrorist threat.

The Bill will also give statutory force to the fire and rescue national framework and place a duty on the Secretary of State to keep the framework up to date and report on it. That is fundamental to ensuring effective national provision of safety through the fire service. The Bill will also underpin the service's contribution to national resilience through responding to specific emergencies, and it will allow fire and rescue authorities to work with others to deliver and discharge their new functions while recognising that fighting fires should be undertaken only by qualified firefighters. Those are all important measures. We will deal with others as we go through the details of the Bill, but I will not weary the Committee with any further reference now.

As for the programme motion, we have agreed on 10 sittings, which is more than might be expected for a relatively small Bill of 61 clauses. The motion recognises the importance of the Bill and the need for thorough scrutiny. The knives allow more time for debate on the earlier parts of the Bill, on which, we guess, there will be the most detailed debate. That said, we intend to approach the Committee in a flexible way to allow the best use of time and thorough scrutiny of all parts. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) is especially keen to have time to scrutinise part 3. If we end debate on the first 20 clauses a little earlier than the knives suggest in order to allow more time on part 3, that will be satisfactory from our point of view. Our aim is to be as flexible as possible in these matters.

I have circulated additional information on the secondary legislation to which the Bill will give effect. I hope that that assists the Committee. I will be more than happy to provide further information, if that is helpful, in the course of our work. That said, we have important work in hand, and I should not delay matters by talking further about the programme motion. I hope that we shall have a well structured and constructive debate that ensures that the Bill, as it leaves Committee, is in the best possible shape to achieve the objectives that I have outlined.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I was interested to hear the Minister apparently yearning for the days when Standing Committee proceedings were lengthier and involved more leisurely deliberation. I remember with great pleasure the Standing Committee on the National Minimum Wage Bill—my first major Standing Committee. Sadly, it was not under your chairmanship, Sir Nicholas; it was chaired by the equally redoubtable hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). Many a happy night was spent

considering that Bill in this very Room. I remember the pleasure of seeing the sun rise behind the Minister's head every Tuesday and Thursday morning, casting him into silhouette in front of me. It was an enjoyable and interesting experience, because many people are under the impression that the orientation of this Building is such that the river fa¢ade is to the south, whereas in fact, as anyone who has spent a night on the Opposition Benches in Committee here will know, it faces due east.

I hope that this Minister's enthusiasm for more deliberation on Bills in Committee will pervade the Government's thinking about the way in which the House of Commons currently conducts its business. Indeed, we may manage to see a return to more leisurely consideration of Bills in Committee in future.

The Opposition support the moves that the Government are making in the Bill to broaden the remit of the fire and rescue services. We are, however, somewhat concerned about the degree of centralisation in the Bill and the wide, general powers that it gives the Secretary of State. Those powers are in stark contrast to the rhetoric about restoring local control and accountability to the fire and rescue services which we frequently heard from Members on the Government Benches during the firefighters dispute in 2002–03, and that is at the root of the modernisation agenda underlying the Bill.

We are also concerned about the status of the national framework document, which will be created, revised and updated by Ministers and officials without being agreed or approved by Parliament and which is given statutory force by the Bill. We are greatly perplexed by the Government's apparent determination in the face of all the evidence and all arguments to the contrary to pursue an agenda of regionalisation of our fire service on the basis of the existing Government offices of the regions.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. I hesitate to intervene at this early stage, but we are considering the programme motion, not the general principles of the Bill. I allowed the Minister to make general introductory remarks, but the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge is straying a bit too far from the motion.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Thank you for your guidance, Sir Nicholas. I am well aware that this is not the time for a Second Reading debate. I was counting carefully in my head to see how long you would allow the Minister's remarks to range across Second Reading-type issues. I thought that I had judged my response to be almost exactly as long, but I may be wrong. I have now made all the remarks that I wanted to make on those issues.

I turn to the programme motion, as the Minister eventually did. I accept that 10 sittings should give us enough time to consider the Bill, and I thank the Minister for allowing that number of sittings. I have not always been able to say that we are satisfied with the amount of time that has been made available. This time, however, we did not vote against the programme motion at the end of the Second Reading debate. I like to think that the reason for this more generous allocation of time is that the Minister quite likes

Committees and enjoys the process of scrutinising Bills line by line. In my experience, not all Ministers enjoy spending their Tuesdays and Thursday in Committee.

I am, however, a little concerned that the morning sittings start at 9.25 am, rather than at the more traditional 8.55 am. In yesterday's Programming Sub-Committee, the Government Whip indicated that if we run short of time as a result of this later start, the Government are prepared to be flexible and allow the Committee to sit later in the afternoons. That is welcome, and it is right that I should acknowledge that. I am, however, a little sensitive to outside perceptions about what we do in this place. I have defended us many times to constituents who have noted that we finish earlier in the evenings than we used to by telling them that Committees now start before 9 o'clock in the morning. Sadly, I will no longer be able to do so. We have to be mindful of how the world outside sees us.

Generally, we disapprove of the use of knives in our proceedings. I was, however, pleased that the Minister reconfirmed that the Government will take a flexible approach to the Committee's proceedings. I do not believe that anyone in Committee intends to delay the proceedings unnecessarily. Some clauses are uncontroversial, and there will be little to say about them except to ask the Minister for clarification. Other clauses give rise to large political questions that will need wide-ranging debate, and I will not repeat those themes now. I hope that we will be able to order our affairs in a way that enables us to spend the necessary time discussing broader issues, as well as asking specific detailed questions raised by large numbers of fire authorities throughout the country which are concerned by particular technical aspects of the Bill. Those questions need to be dealt with, but I am grateful for the Minister's assurance that he will be flexible.

Finally, I do not know whether I am unique in this, but I have not received any further information from the Minister. I have not checked my post this morning, but I had certainly not had that information last night, and I do not know whether other Committee members are fully up to speed. It will be extremely helpful if copies of whatever information the Minister has circulated can be made available in the Room.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

This is only the third Standing Committee on which I have sat, and it is the first on which I have led for my party, so I do so with some trepidation, and I hope that the Committee and the Minister will be as gentle with me as they can.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

It is the Chairman who matters.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I already know of your kindness and gentleness, Sir Nicholas.

In terms of the timing, 10 sittings is more than adequate. As the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge has commented, there will be parts of the Bill that are controversial, but I am sure that the uncontroversial parts will have the support of Members of all parties—not that I wish to put words into people's mouths.

I disagree with the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman about the 9.25 am start. It gives us time to arrive at the House, to see our offices and to make contact with people before we come into Committee. I find that very helpful. Having noted that my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) only just made it, and that other hon. Members arrived slightly late, I think that 9.25 might even be early for some. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge made a brief reference to the orientation of the Building—its being north to south, rather than east to west, as one might assume. I am familiar with that concept because, although my constituency is in south Devon, the coast faces east, so I am used to looking south in the morning and seeing the sun rise. I do not find it a contradiction—the sun will rise as it always does.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I do not understand how the sun can rise in the south.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. I do not want a geography lesson.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

People who live or holiday there perceive the sun as rising in the south.

We support the programme motion, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That—

(1) during proceedings on the Fire and Rescue Services Bill the Standing Committee shall meet when the House is sitting on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9.25 am and 2.30 pm;

(2) 10 sittings shall be allotted to the consideration of the Bill in Committee;

(3) the proceedings shall be taken in the order specified in the Table below;

(4) the proceedings specified in the first column of the Table shall be brought to a conclusion (unless already concluded) at the time specified in the second column of the Table.

TABLE

Proceedings

Time for conclusion of proceedings

Clauses 1 to 20

11.25 am at the 5th sitting

Clauses 21 to 36

5 pm at the 8th sitting

Clauses 37 to 51, Schedule 1, Clause 52, Schedule 2, Clauses 53 to 61, New Clauses, New Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill.

5 pm at the 10th sitting

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution in connection with the Bill. Copies are available in the Room. I remind hon. Members also that adequate notice should be given of amendments. As a rule, my fellow Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments, including any starred amendment that might be reached during an afternoon sitting. I would also like to draw to the Committee's attention the fact that the line numbering on pages 1 to 3 of the Bill is slightly out of alignment. Members should count down from the top of those pages to ensure that they are referring to the correct lines.

Clause 1 - Fire and rescue authorities

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Clause 1 defines the term ''fire and rescue authority''. It re-enacts existing legislation with modifications to cater for the creation of unitary authorities following local government reorganisation in the 1990s. A fire and rescue authority can differ in constitution from area to area, and the current framework includes county fire and rescue authorities, metropolitan county fire and civil defence authorities, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and combined fire and rescue authorities. There are currently 24 such combined fire authorities in England, which are the product of previous combinations undertaken under the 1947 Act powers and referred to in clause 4.

The fire and rescue service in Wales is provided by three combined fire and rescue authorities, which are also the product of previous combinations of county or county borough fire and rescue authorities. That may account for the slight confusion to which the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) referred on Second Reading: I think that he had assumed that the reference to such authorities in clause 1 was a definitive statement, without linking it to the combination powers in subsequent clauses.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

As I shall explain shortly, we think that that is the right approach. However, I am trying to understand what the Minister has in mind in defining what I call the underlying fire authorities in Wales. None of them will have the powers of a fire authority because of the effect of clause 4. Could he explain the longer term thinking about defining such authorities in the Bill?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

As the hon. Gentleman will know, because he is experienced in Committee—I have greatly enjoyed our exchanges in other Committees and look forward to them in this one—the ways of parliamentary counsel are indeed mysterious to those of us lesser mortals who have to try to understand the way that they draft legislation to fit with a range of other considerations. The Bill sets out a structure that carries forward the provision in the 1947 Act, and it explains the subsequent arrangements made under combination powers. As the hon. Gentleman said, they are covered by later clauses.

That structure allows maximum flexibility and provides against future circumstances; for example, without clause 1 there would be no legal authority if a combined fire authority were dissolved. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that there is logic behind what might appear superficially to be a slightly convoluted way of expressing the provisions.

We are changing the legal term to ''fire and rescue authorities'' in recognition of the wider role of the fire and rescue service in the 21st century. However, it will be up to individual authorities to decide whether they wish to rename themselves in line with the new definition. Many authorities already style themselves

''fire and rescue authorities'', and it will be up to the others to adopt that title if they wish to do so.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I have to say that I cannot recall the last time I was involved in a Standing Committee on a Bill to which I could not think of an amendment to clause 1. However, I should not like the Minister to read anything into the fact that the Opposition have tabled no amendments to the clause: it is, as he says, straightforward. It provokes some questions, and I have already asked the Minister the most obvious one.

The Bill's main provision, given that the 1947 Act is repealed, is that it re-establishes what I like to think of as the basic building blocks—the core responsible authorities. We can construct larger operational units from that structure. Some larger units already exist, as the Minister explained, in the form of combined fire authorities, many of which exist only because of the creation of unitary local authorities. For example, the Kent fire authority is a CFA because it covers the county of Kent and the unitary Medway towns—the same geographical area previously covered by the Kent county fire authority. Many CFAs are not the result of a conscious decision to amalgamate brigades to create larger geographical units, but I suspect that, in future, there will be an element of amalgamating brigades for the purpose of creating critical mass. We will debate those issues, but I say at the outset that we will not necessarily or automatically oppose that. Each case must be examined on its merits.

It is important that we start from the lowest level—the fire authorities representing the non-metropolitan county councils, unitary districts and metropolitan areas, as specified in the clause—and that the accountability remains with those units. We agree with the Minister on the structure set out in the clause, but we may differ from him on how the pyramid is built on those basic building blocks.

Were it not for clauses 2 and 4, the authorities set out in clause 1 would be the accountable authorities required to discharge the duties of fire and rescue authorities as set out in the Bill. The authorities specified in the clause are based on recognised and democratically viable areas. Unfortunately, clause 4 severely limits the practical and immediate effect of clause 1. However, I welcome the Minister's response to my question, in which he said that clause 1 provides the legal basis for a reversion, if that is necessary for a future reconfiguration of those democratically accountable units set out in the clause.

One of the principal arguments that we will adopt throughout the consideration of the Bill is that those authorities should be the basic units responsible for delivering the service. That is not to say that they must operate fire brigades or employ large numbers of personnel, but there should be accountability for the operation of the service at a level that represents a viable, democratically accountable unit. It will then be possible to move from that level to an operationally viable level by grouping those authorities together for operational purposes.

I fear, however, that the Government propose to go a different way. They propose to create larger authorities and, as we shall see later in the Bill, in

some cases those would be based on the Government office regions—very large authority areas indeed. We believe that that approach will undermine the democratic accountability of our fire and rescue service. The fact that the underlying authorities are set out in the clause is helpful, and it will create a stark juxtaposition to the structure that could result from the Government's agenda as presented in the Bill—only nine fire and rescue authorities to cover the whole of England.

The clause is important; it is not controversial in itself, but as we build on it our differences with the Government will become plain. However, I support its inclusion in the Bill.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

Before turning to the clause itself, I point out that the fact that we have to recount the lines in the Bill is all the more reason for not starting earlier in the morning.

I am pleased that my inability to find an amendment to the clause was not my failing alone, and that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, too, was unable to find a way to amend it. Perhaps that is due to the expertise of the parliamentary draftsmen and women.

What the hon. Gentleman said was fundamentally right. I agree with his sentiments and will try not to repeat them at length. It is essential that the fire authorities described in the Bill remain. It would be a great tragedy if, when we discussed subsequent clauses, the authorities outlined prominently in clause 1 disappeared. I am sure that many firemen and women, as well as local people, would consider that a move to centralisation and away from localisation, to which the Government tell us they are firmly committed. We will cover that at further length when discussing clause 2, and especially the second group of amendments.

Adrian Flook (Conservative, Taunton)

The hon. Gentleman talked about localisation and centralisation. I know that he wants to discuss regional government under the next clause, but will he clarify whether regionalisation would mean localisation or centralisation?

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I am all in favour of accountable localisation and the power to take up a matter at the appropriate level. There will be ample opportunity to discuss that in the not-too-distant future.

I shall now move on to the important change of wording from ''fire authorities'' to ''fire and rescue authorities''. In my discussions with firefighters in Devon and throughout the country, they said that their job title does not reflect the tasks that they undertake. The change of wording might appear small and obvious, but it will be important to them and their feeling of self-worth in their job.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 - Power to create combined fire and rescue authorities

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in

clause 2, page 2, line 11, after 'greater', insert 'public safety,'.

We referred earlier to the centralising tendencies of the Bill. Subsection (2)(a) outlines one of the conditions for combining authorities. It says:

''A scheme under this section may be made only if . . . it appears to the Secretary of State that for the purposes of this Act, in the interests of greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness, there should be a single fire and rescue authority for the combined area''.

Under clause 22(3)(b), similar provisions refer to

''the economy, efficiency and effectiveness''

of changes. However, paragraph (a) refers to ''public safety''. As public safety is a condition later in the Bill, it would be sensible to include it in clause 2. That would mean that change would not be made purely for the sake of economy, which people in my constituency might regard as cost saving, for the sake of efficiency, which they might also regard as cost saving, or for the sake of effectiveness, which cynics would again regard as cost saving. The inclusion of the words ''public safety'' would mean that any change would be made for the right reason—the protection of the public from fire.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I have some sympathy with the underlying sentiment that the hon. Gentleman has expressed. Throughout the debate on the modernisation of the fire service, the Government have argued that changes are principally about improving fire safety and reducing fire deaths rather than about saving money. I will spare Ministers the agony of having to go through the catalogue of reduced Government targets that tend to undermine that claim. We should not pursue that point any further, as it was adequately dealt with on Second Reading.

However, there is a problem with public perception. Ministers must surely be aware that the public are cynical about Government exercises in reconfiguring public services. The public will be inclined to see such changes as cuts if there is any opportunity to do so, and the changes required as integrated risk management programmes are implemented could be portrayed locally as cuts.

The Minister will be aware that some people will have an interest in portraying the changes as cuts. I am not thinking of Opposition Members, as there are people at different levels in the fire service who are not completely sold on the modernisation agenda. I have received mail-in postcards from firefighters and their supporters in my constituency, arguing pre-emptively that closing or downgrading certain fire stations as a result of integrated risk management plans would represent a cut in a public service. I am sure that other hon. Members have had the same experience.

The problem of perception in presenting changes in delivery that are supposed to be about improving safety and service has been heightened by the fact that

the Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister have repeatedly said that the pay settlement awarded to the firefighters after the strikes at the end of 2002 has to be self-financing from the savings derived from modernisation. In other words, they defined the modernisation process as one that would produce cash savings to meet the firefighters' pay settlement. That gives rise to real concerns about the balance between economies to be derived and the intention to use the modernisation process to improve safety. We should also consider how fire authorities see the situation.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

The hon. Gentleman is making some exceedingly good points about public perception. I was talking to friends in outer London, where, if the Bain report recommendations are implemented, there may be major status changes with whole-time fire stations becoming retained fire stations. The hon. Gentleman's point about public perception will be valid if the changes are seen to be made for cost savings—which they would if the clause remains unamended—rather than in the name of public safety.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The hon. Gentleman is right; there is a concern on two levels. The first concern, which I shall explain later, is that modernisation and a risk management approach at fire authority level will in practice turn into a cost-saving exercise. Secondly, even if that does not happen and the approach is genuinely risk based, there is a danger that the changes will be presented by the local media and refuseniks in the fire service as merely a cost-saving exercise. The Minister must be conscious of that.

I want to explain what I mean by the first potential problem. I do not have the exact figures in front of me, but the Government say that in the first year of the three-year period, there will be a substantial cost of implementing the risk management approach and meeting the firefighters' pay settlement. In the second year, there will be a small net cost, and in the third year there will be a massive saving that outweighs the net cost of those first two years. The Government propose that fire authorities manage the cash-flow implications of the process by taking advantage of what is effectively a loan to all fire authorities across the country from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister of £30 million, to tide them over that cost impact in the first year, and that they should repay that loan in the second year.

Most, if not all, of the fire and rescue authorities that I have talked to are enthusiastic about the risk management approach. They see it as an opportunity to change some practices in ways that will improve safety, enhance public security and do away with some outmoded and irrelevant practices such as responding to automatic fire alarm calls in commercial buildings. There is no dispute about the wisdom of going down that route. However, none of the fire authorities that I have spoken to believes that substantial savings will be made by establishing a risk management approach, reconfiguring services and meeting the firefighters' pay settlement, which is essentially centrally determined. If the Minister wants to have an argument about that, we can have one, but from the evidence that I have seen

there is little doubt that ODPM civil servants effectively set the agenda of the pay settlement negotiations at the end of that dispute.

Indeed, in many cases—I am sure that the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) will make this point repeatedly, representing, as he does, an area in the fire authority that has the largest percentage of retained firefighters of any fire authority in the country—the opportunities to benefit from savings will be disproportionately distributed around the country. Many fire authorities will want to seize the opportunity to use the IRMP process to improve the service that they are delivering to their public, but they will find it impossible to do so and at the same time meet the ODPM's requirement that the pay settlement and the costs of restructuring are self-financing from the savings of that process over a period of three years.

Richard Younger-Ross rose—

Jim Knight rose—

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I give way first to the hon. Member for Teignbridge.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. He referred to the Devon fire authority. He is exactly right in what he says about the number of retained firefighters in the county and the two adjoining authorities. One consequence of a large number of retained firefighters is that the percentage increase in the salaries under Bain is greater than the figure of 16 per cent. that appears in the documents. The figure that I have for Devon over three years is 23 per cent., but we face the threat of a cap. Given perception of cost-cutting exercises and such financial pressures, the public will believe that any further changes are being made for the wrong, not the right reasons.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. Before the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge replies, may I remind him that he is ranging a little wide of the amendment, which deals with public safety? I suggest that he directs more of his remarks to public safety.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am grateful, Sir Nicholas. I suspect that the hon. Member for Teignbridge intends that public safety should be contrasted with the words in the Bill, which might be seen to be about the economic approach to the delivery of fire services. He seeks to draw that distinction and I was seeking to build on that. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but I will move on, suffice it to say that the public are somewhat sceptical. I am sure that the Minister is apprised of that and is concerned to try to dispel that perception over time.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify his party's position? Is it to allow combined fire authorities to raise council tax to whatever limit they like, or is he making a commitment that if he were in power he would provide more funds?

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. We are debating a Government Bill, not Opposition policy, although I am sure that that will come up during the debate.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Thank you, Sir Nicholas. I am sure that the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) and I can have that discussion in the Tea Room later.

Hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will recognise that combined fire authorities in particular, which are precepting for the first time this year and have no reserves but have to build some, are in a difficult position. There is a danger because capping is a real threat and because the transitional funding that is being made available is distributed proportionately to existing grant moneys, which means that the transitional costs of more rural brigades will be underfunded.

There is a danger that authorities will respond to the pressures by using the risk management approach to cut costs and will not start with a clean sheet of paper. That is what is intended, as I understand it. I am referring to zero-based engineering of service IRMPs. People should start with a clean sheet and ask what the risks are to public safety and to life in their area, and how they should respond to them—never mind where their resources are now and what shape their service is in now. They should start from scratch, ask where they want to be and work out how they get from where they are to where they want to be. That is an entirely commendable approach, but it will not necessarily produce financial savings—yet the Government require financial savings as a by-product of the process in order to make the firefighters' pay settlement self-financing.

I have a good deal of sympathy with the sentiment underlying the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Teignbridge. However—I never like to do the Minister's dirty work for him—I suspect that the word ''effectiveness'' is fatal to the argument in favour of it, because provided that the definitions are right and the functions are properly designated, the requirement that arrangements be made in the interests of effectiveness deals with his point. However, it was important to raise the matter. Perhaps parliamentary draftsmen are not politically sensitive, but one might wonder why they did not refer to effectiveness, efficiency and economy in that order, rather than to ''economy, efficiency and effectiveness''. I am sure that there was no steer from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and no intention that a sense of priority should be read into the order of those words.

The amendment is unnecessary, although articulating the sentiment that lay behind it and inviting the Minister to confirm that public safety must be the driving consideration was a worthwhile exercise and worth the few minutes of the Committee's time that it has taken to consider it.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

You will be pleased to hear, Sir Nicholas, that I do not intend to make a long contribution. Given that I have made two interventions already and you have ruled me out of order both times, I hope that I can sustain your patience when addressing the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Teignbridge. Before doing so, I should like to reiterate my interests, which I made clear on Second Reading: I am a director of the Fire

Protection Association and I chair the fire protection council.

We should not apologise for economy. As long as we achieve the effectiveness to which the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge referred, it is right that we achieve economies of scale. If we can do so by combining fire services, such as those of Dorset and Devon, that would be highly admirable, given the current debate about levels of council tax. The hon. Gentleman talked about public perception of cuts, but public perception is also that council tax is too high. Hon. Members should bear in mind that they cannot have it both ways.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

The hon. Gentleman may note that I have not removed the word ''economy'' from the clause; I have just added the words ''public safety''.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am grateful for that, but the context of the hon. Gentleman's amendment is the word ''greater'', so he is saying ''greater public safety'', economy and so on. I am content for safety to be neutral and to achieve economy because that would be in the interests of the council tax paying public.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I respond briefly to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge. The reason for tabling the amendment, which the Minister should welcome, was to allay the suspicions that we all acknowledge. Certain interests, such as the Fire Brigades Union, will ground people's suspicions about this legislation. So we must address such suspicions, which are not well grounded.

We ask only that a noun be inserted. I am sure that the Minister will say that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said that effectiveness means public safety: a fire brigade could not be effective if it did nothing about public safety. When the record of our proceedings is published, people will forget that the Minister gave that assurance. I can visualise a day soon when indignant firefighters will approach hon. Members, pointing to the legislation and telling hon. Members and members of the public what they think it means. It is therefore important that the Minister indicates at the outset that public safety is paramount. That effectiveness involves public safety is logically correct. When the legislation is examined—it will be examined far more thoroughly than by this Committee—the insertion of ''public safety'' will be necessary.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The purpose of clause 2 is to modernise and update provisions that already exist in the Fire Service Act 1947. The provisions permit the voluntary or compulsory combination of fire authorities on the ground that combination is

''expedient in the interests of efficiency''.

They do not incorporate the concepts of economy, efficiency or effectiveness that are fundamental to the current best value performance arrangements. Clause 2(2)(a) will remedy that gap.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

How many combination schemes made under the 1947 Act have been made compulsorily on the Secretary of State's initiative?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman that information immediately, but I can tell him that all such cases have flowed from decisions made by the Secretary of State to re-organise local government. The Secretary of State has therefore played a critical role in all of them.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

If the Minister is telling us that the critical role played by the Secretary of State is that a combination scheme needed to be made in order to retain the status quo when a unitary authority was created out of what was a county, that is different from suggesting that the Secretary of State has been proactively involved in creating combined fire authorities different from those that existed before their creation.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

As I have already told the hon. Gentleman, I will seek further advice on the history of combinations in the long period since 1947. The process that took place in the 1990s almost invariably followed decisions on local government reorganisation.

Subsection (2)(b) does something different. It allows combination on a regional basis and is included in the Bill to deal with a situation that might arise when the voluntary approach to establishing regional management boards is unsuccessful. Let me make it clear that that is not what we want to happen. We are working closely with the Local Government Association to make regional management boards work. That policy approach was agreed with the LGA as a means of ensuring that matters that must be dealt with at a regional level, for a variety of reasons about which I will say more in due course, are dealt with effectively through regional co-operation, while enabling existing fire authorities to continue to deliver at local level those services that are best delivered locally. That is implicit in the policy, but because it is vital that those regional arrangements are in place—not least for resilience reasons, which all hon. Members recognise are very important—we could not allow a situation to arise in which it was simply not possible for a regional framework to exist because of a failure of all the parties to agree an effective regional management board structure.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister is telling the Committee that subsection (2)(b) is simply a fall-back in case voluntary regional management boards fail, but the Minister himself said—on Second Reading, I think, and publicly and openly elsewhere—that if elected regional assemblies are created, it is the Government's intention to create a regional fire service. That is not merely an extension of the regional management board, but a separate agenda.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

If the hon. Gentleman had waited a moment I was about to come to that point, as it is important to clarify the policy. We made it clear in the draft national framework and on Second Reading that we do not seek regionalisation by the back door; only where voters choose to have an elected regional

assembly will there automatically be a regional fire and rescue authority. That has been made absolutely clear, and it has been our policy from the time of the publication of the White Paper last summer. In such circumstances, the legislation that creates elected regional assemblies—

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. I hesitate to interrupt a Minister, but I show myself to be even-handed. We are discussing a fairly tight amendment relating to public safety. Regional government, regional assemblies and elected regional assemblies are part of the Bill, but not of this amendment.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Thank you, Sir Nicholas. I was simply explaining why the provision in subsection (2)(b) is drafted in a way that describes a combination scheme made if the area constitutes a region for the purposes of the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998, which is the definition used in terms of the elected regional assemblies legislation. Listening closely to your strictures, Sir Nicholas, I say straight away that that will be handled separately by the measure that gives effect to elected regional assemblies. We are not discussing it as a mechanism for establishing regional fire authorities in such circumstances.

As I stressed earlier, our sole objective in including the provision is to ensure that effective regional arrangements can be in place in all regions. That is a fall-back to guard against circumstances in which the voluntary regional management boards do not achieve that objective.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister has lost me. I sat on the Standing Committee of the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill. Is he telling us that the provision under subsection (2)(b) will not be used to create fire authorities for a region if an elected regional assembly is in place? If so, will he draw our attention to the legislation that will be used for that purpose?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The answer to the hon. Gentleman's questions is yes. We have always said that we will publish the substantive legislation that will give effect to elected regional assemblies as and when there has been a vote in a referendum in favour of regional assemblies. That will be the framework in which the matter will be handled. I detect that you do not wish me to pursue the matter further, Sir Nicholas, so I hope that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge will bear with me as I continue to deal with the matters raised specifically by the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Teignbridge.

Several functions must either be fulfilled at regional level, or will offer significant benefits if so delivered. That is why we have insisted on the establishment of regional management boards. We must deal with the possibility that a regional management board might not succeed, perhaps because of differences between the authorities in agreeing on a vital matter of public safety, for example the establishment of a regional control room. In those circumstances we would need to create a regionwide authority to ensure the necessary resilience in the interests of public safety. Those are the only circumstances in which we envisage

subsection (2)(b) being used, and they are specifically related to public safety.

Richard Younger-Ross rose—

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I will come to subsection (2)(a) if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am still confused. The Minister is anxious to present regional management boards as a light-touch arrangement between independent sovereign fire authorities. Does he not think that creating a combined fire authority because of a squabble over how to run a regional management board is an extreme response? Could he have taken a different power to direct, for example, the structure and operation of the regional management board?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

We have always made it clear that we regard as fundamental appropriate arrangements at regional level, to deal with matters such as resilience and the establishment of joint control rooms. It is not a matter in which a light touch, to use the hon. Gentleman's phrase, is appropriate. It must be achieved in the interests of national resilience. I do not share his view that a failure to deliver can be treated lightly. That is why the provisions, as I have made clear, are designed to be a failsafe in the event of failure to reach agreement.

Given that explanation, I hope that the hon. Member for Teignbridge will accept that amendment No. 4 would not achieve its ostensible purpose of improving public safety. However, I agree with his objective, and the Government are wholly committed to improving public safety. He referred to clause 22: perhaps he overlooked clause 21, which is more relevant but in which the same phraseology applies. Clause 21(4) imposes obligations on the Secretary of State to discharge his functions under the fire and rescue national framework in a way that is best calculated to promote

''(a) public safety, (b) the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of fire and rescue authorities, and (c) economy, efficiency and effectiveness in connection with the matters in relation to which fire and rescue authorities have functions.''

That is a clear indication that in the Secretary of State's actions through the national framework, which promotes exactly what we are now discussing, he is bound to pay proper regard to public safety.

Several hon. Members rose—

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I will give way in a moment. As hon. Members know, I tend to give way readily, but I want to finish my sentence. We are committed to public safety. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for Teignbridge will recognise that his amendment is not necessary. I give way to the hon. Member for Southport.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

Just for clarity, I point out that clause 21 uses the phrases ''economy, efficiency and effectiveness'' and ''public safety'' as though they were different things. We were expecting the Minister to say that effectiveness was, in essence, public safety, but that clause leads me to believe otherwise. Is that the case?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

There are different ways of interpreting legislation. I certainly believe that, in the case of fire services, effectiveness is a requirement to operate in the way that is best designed to achieve public safety. It is difficult to imagine an effective fire service that does not deliver that. However, to avoid any possible ambiguity, we have inserted in a separate subsection the phrase ''public safety'' to make it clear that there is an overriding obligation on the Secretary of State always to act in the interests of public safety. It is not necessary in the context of the combination schemes to which I will return in a moment. [Interruption.] I will explain the reasons for that, but in the meantime I give way to the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I was not trying to cut the Minister off in mid-sentence, but I have learned over the years to try to determine by his pitch when he is about to finish his remarks. He has a tendency to finish a sentence and then sit down abruptly which encourages one to begin seeking to intervene in mid-sentence for fear of losing the opportunity altogether.

I want to go back to the Minister's last answer to me about the use of powers under clause 2(2)(b) to deal with the failure of a regional management board. The boards are not mentioned in the Bill; they gain their role and relevance through the national framework. Clause 22 deals specifically with the Secretary of State's power to intervene to ensure that an authority acts in accordance with the framework. Why is that power not sufficient to deal with the situation where authorities fail to operate a regional management board in the way that the Minister wants them to?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will reach that point but I owe it to the hon. Member for Teignbridge to explain why the phrasing that he proposes in the amendment is unnecessary and also potentially unhelpful. It would exclude the option of combination in situations where there may be perfectly adequate arrangements to ensure public safety but where there are not arrangements that guarantee economy, effectiveness and efficiency.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset rightly highlighted concerns about council tax and the fact that the need for economy should not be downgraded as an objective. There could be circumstances in which a combination was desirable for cost-effectiveness and for delivering the service more economically and efficiently. Individual authorities might seek a combination for that purpose, but the inclusion of the public safety provision, in advance of consideration of economy, effectiveness and efficiency, might preclude such a result if it were not possible to demonstrate that there was a public safety benefit.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister argues that because of the pressure on council tax, it ought to be possible for the Secretary of State to create a CFA in the interests of economy. Surely in that situation it is for local people to use their democratic power to hold the fire authority and the underlying bodies accountable and to require them to deliver economy. Why does the

right hon. Gentleman think that a matter that the Secretary of State must dictate from Whitehall?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The hon. Gentleman fails to recognise that the provisions in the clause allow combinations in several circumstances. Subsection (2)(b), which he seemed most exercised about, deals with circumstances in which services that must be delivered at a regional level are not being delivered because of a failure of regional management boards to work effectively. As I explained, there is a fall-back provision for the Secretary of State to impose a combination in such circumstances.

Subsection (3) makes it clear that the powers can be used to give effect to combinations that are proposed by existing authorities. In such a situation, the Secretary of State would simply be effecting a combination that the authorities thought was desirable. It would be odd if we were prevented from doing that because the hon. Member for Teignbridge had his way and an interpretation of the provision in amendment No. 4 required the demonstration of greater public safety as well as economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge is experienced and knows that legislation must be framed carefully. I hope that I have given him the assurance that public safety is at the forefront of our mind and that it is provided for in the Bill. In developing the national framework, the Secretary of State is bound to act in a way that promotes public safety. Equally, we need to have regard to the benefits of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Clause 2 achieves exactly that.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I understand the thread of the Minister's argument. However, both the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge and I mentioned public perception. Does the Minister agree that if the clause were rewritten to include the provision that public safety, as well as economy, efficiency and effectiveness, should be paramount, that would remove many of the public fears about the powers being used to create a combined authority?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

As I have said, the Bill's structure, which may not appear to be the most logical to the layman, clearly imposes on the Secretary of State the obligation to put public safety at the forefront of all his actions. The relevant provision is in clause 21, but that does not make it any less forceful.

Richard Younger-Ross rose—

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I shall give way in a moment, but I am trying to answer the hon. Gentleman's question.

Clause 2 deals with a technical process of powers to make a combination, and it is important that we do not inhibit the scope for those powers to be used in the circumstances that I have outlined, which is why the addition of the phrase ''public safety'' would not be helpful in this clause. I have already assured the hon. Gentleman that public safety is a pre-eminent consideration and that it is provided for in clause 21.

Richard Younger-Ross rose—

Mr. Stephen McCabe (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab) rose—

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I give way first to the hon. Member for Teignbridge.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

As the Minister said, the provisions relating to public safety are in clause 21, which concerns the framework, and clause 22, which is about the intervention of the Secretary of State. That is why I referred to clause 22 earlier. Does he not accept, however, that people outside this place may want to interpret his words in a way that he does not want them to? Such people may spin the wording of a clause to mean something different in later debates. It may be a horrible thing to say, but I am saying it for the good of the Minister and the Government. [Interruption.] I am trying to be helpful. If the Government included a provision to refer to public safety either on Report or in another place, I believe that the Minister would find that helpful.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I will say three things to the hon. Gentleman. First, he acknowledged that this was his first Committee leading for the Liberal Democrats. Experience will show him that Ministers are always wary when Opposition spokesmen propose amendments in a charming way, saying that it is in the Minister's best interest to accept them. I do not always find that approach convincing.

Secondly, I will take a constructive view of amendments that will genuinely tackle problems identified by Opposition spokesmen. If the hon. Gentleman allows us to make sufficient progress, he may discover that in one area we are more than prepared to take such a view. Thirdly, however, I am pretty rigorous in ensuring that measures do not end up being over-complicated by unnecessary additions that confuse, and thus prevent the Bill having the effect that we want. I will resist the hon. Gentleman's blandishments.

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe).

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

My right hon. Friend anticipated my comments. We are told that the public are concerned about spin and the actions of politicians. Does he not find it a touch disconcerting that the Opposition have spent the last 40 minutes talking about the perception of the Bill and the spin that we might put on it rather than the reality, which is providing a more effective fire service determined by public safety? Is my right hon. Friend slightly alarmed that if that is typical of what is to happen in the rest of the Committee's sittings, the real focus will be not on the substance of the issue but on the perception that certain people might wish to spin?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

My hon. Friend makes a very telling point indeed.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I listened to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green. As I said, I do not necessarily subscribe to the Liberal Democrat proposal to change the wording in the Bill, but I have been waiting a long time to enjoy this moment: the Minister should cast his mind back to the proceedings on the Fire Services Bill in 2003, when he accepted an utterly meaningless piece of verbiage which began:

''For the avoidance of doubt'',

simply to send a message and ensure that the Bill was not spun as meaning something that it did not mean. He accepted at the time that those words did not add anything to the Bill other than ensuring that the message did not get distorted. In dealing with fire and rescue services, the Minister has a history of accepting that the wording, and the message that it sends, is important.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I have always been concerned to ensure that the people who are to read the legislation, whether they are lawyers, members of the public or interested parties, have a reasonably clear understanding of its intentions. Therefore, if there is an element of doubt, I am prepared to make an amendment to clarify the position to avoid that doubt, and the hon. Gentleman quoted a particular case. However, in general, I am reluctant to complicate or obfuscate by the addition of words that are, in the hon. Gentleman's own judgment, unnecessary. He concluded that the amendment was not required; I do not intend to change my position on it.

Other points were made in the debate and I shall take them in turn. The hon. Gentleman said that a condition was imposed on the pay settlement requiring it to be self-financing. That is not an accurate depiction of what happened. He will recall the Bain report, which made a clear recommendation that there was scope for significant economies and savings through modernisation of the service and that the pay increases for firefighters could be justified only if those efficiency savings were made.

That was the thrust of the Bain report, which the Government accepted. We discussed its conclusions with the local authority representatives, who in their negotiations with the Fire Brigades Union insisted as a condition of the deal that certain changes had to be implemented, with verification by the Audit Commission to ensure that the economies would come through to justify the settlement. The Government offered the £30 million transitional payment to assist local authorities or fire authorities implementing those arrangements according to the sensible principle, which the hon. Gentleman set out, that there would be additional costs in year 1 and small additional costs in year 2, and that it would be only in year 3 that those costs would be offset by significant savings. That was the basis of the transitional arrangement that we agreed with the Local Government Association, and it is the basis on which we are proceeding.

The hon. Gentleman also suggested that no fire authorities believed that there was any scope for them to make savings, but that is not my experience. He may have spoken to different fire authorities. He will probably have encountered a tendency that I have come across, which is for fire authorities to identify the scope for savings that other authorities could make. I would be a very rich man if I had received a pound for every occasion on which I was told that it was not possible for a particular body to make savings, but another one could do so and the first body hoped that it would. That tendency exists in the fire and rescue service.

Bain identified savings that could be made, and we know that there is scope for savings. Indeed, contrary to what the hon. Gentleman suggested, some fire and rescue authorities have publicly stated that they can make savings. The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority has identified scope for savings of £1.75 million through redeployment of some existing aerial appliances while ensuring the full effectiveness of its fire safety work. That is just one example. I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman delves more deeply, he will discover many more.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I should not like to mislead the Committee and I should not like the Minister to do so. The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority has not only identified that £1.75 million, but implemented the proposal—it has redeployed those aerial platforms. For clarification, I point out that the fire authorities to which I have spoken have made it clear that they can identify savings that could be made. The question is whether those savings will be more than offset by dealing properly with the additional duties that are, quite rightly, being placed on them. I was making the point that the fire and rescue authorities to which I am talking do not envisage, over the two or three-year period, net savings after meeting the cost of the pay settlement.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The hon. Gentleman will need to talk to a wide range of fire and rescue authorities. Some—unsurprisingly when they are negotiating—express concerns in public about their ability to deliver savings that they were prepared to sign up to when the pay settlement was reached. Privately, however, many authorities recognise that there is significant scope to achieve economies and, at the same time, to improve effectiveness, so that there is a better service, delivering safety more effectively and saving more lives, and doing so in a truly cost-effective way.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Costing less?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

In some cases, costing less. In other cases, a service will be cost-neutral or it will cost more. That will vary from area to area and from aspect to aspect of the service.

The hon. Gentleman asked why subsection (2)(b) was necessary and why we could not use the direction and intervention powers in clause 22 to direct authorities to deliver a co-ordinated service at regional level in the circumstances that I envisaged, in which the regional management board failed to put in place effective arrangements. He will know that the powers in clause 22 relate to individual fire authorities. If it proved impractical for those bodies to work together, any Government would be a little wary about relying on directions given to individual fire authorities to achieve the most satisfactory outcome. There is no power other than the provision made in clause 2(2)(b) to enable the Secretary of State to insist on arrangements for effective regional co-ordination to achieve the objectives. That is why it is necessary.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order May I again remind the Committee that the amendment relates to subsection (2)(a)? We keep coming on to paragraph (b), but there

will be opportunities to discuss that provision in a debate on a subsequent amendment.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I bow to your judgment, Sir Nicholas, so although I was led into temptation by the questions put to me I shall bring my remarks on them to an end. I shall return rapidly to subsection (2)(a).

I hope, given our long discussion, that hon. Members—particularly the hon. Member for Teignbridge—will recognise that, although we share the objective of giving a high priority to public safety, the proposed formulation is neither necessary nor helpful in achieving that objective. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

This has been a helpful and fruitful debate, because it has enabled the Minister to put on record his views on public safety and how he feels that they are covered both by the use of the word ''effectiveness'' and by provisions later in the Bill. The Committee will be relieved to hear that I will not press my amendment to a Division.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

That is a very wise decision.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I make them all the time. The hon. Member for South Dorset mentioned that I used the words ''public safety'' after ''greater''; I accept his point that, if it is agreed that greater public safety can be obtained by combining fire authorities in a local government reorganisation, there could be a difficulty. When we read the Bill initially, we were considering the circumstances in which a combined authority was created for other reasons. In that case, we should have considered that public safety could be improved as a consequence or at least maintained as prominently as it should be. In that sense—and to prove that I do not work in the Public Bill Office and that I am not a parliamentary draftsman—I should, of course, have put the word ''public safety'' before ''greater'', and thus had ''greater efficiency'', because that would have removed the complaint against my amendment that the hon. Member for South Dorset made so eloquently.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

And succinctly.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

Always succinctly.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge about the necessity for the amendment, I am still not convinced that inserting the words ''public safety'' would not be beneficial. I wonder whether, if the word ''effectiveness'' has the meaning that some hon. Members have tried to adduce to it, there will be amendments to remove the words ''public safety'' from clauses 21(4)(a) and 22(3)(a). I sincerely hope not, as that would not be helpful, but, following some of the comments that have been made, it would be logical. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I beg to move amendment No. 9, in

clause 2, page 2, line 12, leave out from 'area' to end of line 14.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 1, in

clause 2, page 2, line 14, at end insert—

'Subject to a review of the boundaries by the Boundary Committee for England which shall take place before April 2005.'.

Amendment No. 12, in

clause 2, page 2, line 39, leave out subsection (9).

Amendment No. 14, in

clause 2, page 3, line 1, leave out subsection (10).

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

In one sense I feel as though we have already had this debate, because amendment No. 9 would delete subsection (2)(b). The Minister has somewhat pre-empted some of my remarks: he said that he would not use paragraph (b) to create regional fire authorities in regions that had chosen a regional elected assembly through a referendum. The Committee is in a difficult position: no legislation provides any other mechanism for creating combined fire authorities in regions that have regional elected assemblies. No such legislation will be passed before the referendums on elected regional assemblies take place, yet the Minister made it clear—although not when we were considering the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill in 2003—that if elected regional assemblies are created, regional fire authorities will be created.

We must consider the paragraph in the context of the body of legislation that exists. It would be a mechanism for creating CFAs as a result of creating an elected regional assembly. Perhaps more alarmingly to the Conservatives and indeed to the Liberal Democrats, who support the idea of fire authorities for elected regional assembly regions but not for other regions—a finely balanced position—paragraph (b) gives the Minister a mechanism for creating a regional structure for the fire and rescue service even if elected regional assemblies are not created.

I have a great concern about the provision. What really offends me about subsection (2) is that it provides a proper test for the creation of CFAs in every case except that in which the boundaries are coincident with those of a Government office region. A CFA can be created only if it is

''in the interests of greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness'',

and we all share those operational and economic objectives. However, if the CFA is for a Government office region, it does not have to fulfil any of those requirements.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

It is implicit.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

If it were implicit, the wording on the Bill would be symmetrical. It is explicitly excluded. There are no hurdles for the creation of CFAs in regions identical with the RDA regions—the Government office regions. That outrages my sense of how a public service should operate. It is subordinating the appropriate operational criteria—effectiveness, efficiency and so on—to the political agenda of the Government, which is the regionalisation of England according to entirely inappropriate regional boundaries. I can think of no arguments for allowing the Secretary of State to create fire authorities for regions without proving that the entirely sensible criteria in paragraph (a)—

''greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness''—

have been met or would be promoted by the scheme proposed under paragraph (b).

The Government have not attempted to demonstrate that the Government office regions would be the most appropriate operational boundaries for fire authorities. Indeed, a glance at the annexe to the White Paper, ''Your Region, Your Choice'', which shows the disparity between the regions, suggests to any lay observer that those regions cannot be the appropriate boundaries. The south-east has a population of 8 million; the north-east has a population of 2.5 million. The north-east has an area of 8,500 sq km; the south-west has an area of 23,000 sq km. It is almost inconceivable that the most effective way of managing a fire service can be for some units to cover 8,000 sq km and others to cover 23,000 sq km. That beggars common sense.

I assess subsection (2) as bluntly subordinating the agenda of ''economy, efficiency and effectiveness'', which is the agenda of public safety, to the Deputy Prime Minister's political agenda of regionalising England. As I said in an earlier intervention, the Government must convince a sceptical public that the aim of modernisation is not to promote a political agenda for the regionalisation of England, nor to save money, but to improve our fire and rescue services.

There is much in the Bill that we support, and we would seek to reassure the public about many of its provisions. However, this subsection undermines much of what the Government say, because it does not promote the effectiveness of the service, but aims to do something quite different: to reorganise the fire service along the lines of the Deputy Prime Minister's agenda for the English regions.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

The hon. Gentleman has repeatedly referred to a political agenda. Does he accept that he also has a political agenda that prevents him from seeing that the regional proposals included in the clause may be appropriate in terms of efficiency and effectiveness?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

No, I absolutely do not accept that. I started with an open mind [Laughter.] I do not start with an open mind on the question of elected regional assemblies or the current boundaries of the English regions. However, at the beginning of the debate on clause 1, I said that the Opposition recognised that although it is appropriate to have underlying fire authorities that represent democratically viable areas and entities, it is not necessary for those fire authorities to operate a fire service. It is, however, appropriate to look at combinations of those to operate the fire service, when that is operationally the most sensible thing to do.

I approached that issue with an open mind and searched the literature and the work commissioned by the Government for evidence supporting the contention that the existing nine Government office regions are the most operationally effective units for a fire and rescue service. However, I found no such evidence. I found one document that makes the

tendentious argument that those regions are appropriate for the operation of control rooms and a radio system—I hope that we will find a way to debate that later in the Committee's deliberations—but I found no attempt beyond that to demonstrate that the Government office regions are the appropriate regions.

The Minister knows that if we were starting with a blank sheet of paper, if there were no Government office regions or Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 and if the matter were being dealt with from a purely fire and rescue service perspective, the answer to the question of how best we should carve England up to deliver fire and rescue services would not be the current Government office regional boundaries. I doubt that the Minister would have the front to deny that.

To give the Minister credit, he has consistently argued that he has to use the existing Government office regional boundaries, imperfect as they are, because of his need for speed. That is a political need, and I make no apology for having referred—repeatedly, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) said—to the Deputy Prime Minister's political agenda.

David Drew (Labour/Co-operative, Stroud)

What arrangements would the hon. Gentleman prefer if the current Government office regions were not used?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

If the hon. Gentleman is talking specifically about the fire and rescue service, I imagine that it will be in order to answer that point and I shall be happy to do so, although I thought that I already had.

I favour the structure set out in clause 1; democratically accountable fire and rescue authorities based on viable, recognisable and publicly understood administrative units. However, we also recognise that not all services can be delivered at that level because of economies of scale, the need for specialisation and reinforcement patterns and various other aspects about which we have no disagreement with the Minister. It is entirely appropriate that fire and rescue authorities should work together in collaborative units. I use the term loosely because some may wish to combine fire authorities, but others may wish to organise themselves into clusters for certain purposes only while retaining their independence for other purposes. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that it is self-evidently the case that the most effective boundaries and groupings are not the Government office regions.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

No.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister says no. Let me give him the example of the fire and rescue service in Surrey. Surrey borders London—the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority area—but it is in the south-east region. It is required, by the Government's diktat, to work with the Kent, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire fire services and to organise its response to incidents—at the highest level, perhaps major terrorist incidents—with those other fire authorities.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Yes.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister confirms that. Yet when I talked to the chief fire officer of Surrey about the service's ability to respond to a serious incident, it became apparent within minutes—it is obvious to anyone who thinks about it—that Surrey's critical relationship is with London, as is that of all the inner home counties fire authorities, some of which contain vulnerable targets. They work with the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. How much decontamination capacity does Surrey fire brigade have? The answer is none, because it relies on and has arrangements to work with London. In the event of needing such specialist equipment, it would look to the London fire brigade to support its activities.

Hon. Members from constituencies throughout the country that are close to other metropolitan areas will readily find other examples of natural operational relationships that cut across and make a mockery of the regional boundaries.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

In South Dorset, which I represent, there is an important relationship between Hampshire and our biggest population centres of Bournemouth and Poole. However, boundaries are boundaries and there will be always be issues about them. I ask the hon. Gentleman to look at clause 13, entitled ''Reinforcement schemes''. Subsection (1) states:

''A fire and rescue authority must, so far as practicable, enter into a reinforcement scheme with other fire and rescue authorities.''

Surrey fire authority could achieve economies of scale by working with other authorities in the region while still having a reinforcement scheme with London.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Of course reinforcement schemes play an important role in mutual support between fire and rescue services, but the Minister, with his regional structure, has in mind something rather more than would be delivered by a reinforcement scheme. It is an overarching provision, and he dismissed the idea that it was a light-touch arrangement. I thought that the Government's position was that the structure would not be a large bureaucracy, but would have a relatively light touch sitting over the fire authorities. The Opposition fear that the structure will rapidly become the basis of a regional combined fire authority, so I am interested in the Minister's dismissive approach to my generous suggestion that there would be light-touch arrangements.

The fact that we are having this debate should suggest to Committee members that the case must be argued. It is not an a priori truth that fire and rescue authorities should be organised around regional development agency boundaries. The case needs to be demonstrated. I concede that, in some places—by coincidence—it may be appropriate to organise fire and rescue services around the regional development boundary. The one that perhaps springs most readily to mind—apart from London—is the north-east. It is a relatively small area of 8,500 sq km. I do not know how people in the rural parts of that region feel, but the urban part is, geographically, a relatively tight area. However, the Government have not even tried to demonstrate the case. They have not commissioned any work or asked anyone to consider what would be

the optimum division of England for fire and rescue purposes. The onus is on the Government to demonstrate the case.

Amendments Nos. 12 and 14 are in this group and are consequential on amendment No. 10, which is in the next group. If amendment No. 10 is agreed to, a new combined fire and rescue authority could be created only by agreement with the existing authorities to be combined. In such circumstances, the concept of combining yet-to-be created authorities, which subsections (9) and (10) provide for, would not be possible. They would disappear into a circularity; authorities yet to be created could clearly not agree to their own demise. I understood the amendments as consequential amendments, which leaves me in some difficulty.

I seek guidance from the Chair. Is it possible to have a separate Division on amendment No. 10? After the debate on that amendment, it would be necessary to have the consequential amendments Nos. 12 and 14 available to us. If we dismiss them now, it would become impossible to move amendment No. 10. If a separate Division were allowed on that amendment, would it be possible for amendments Nos. 12 and 14 to be taken separately? I do not attach great importance to those amendments, Sir Nicholas, but they are necessary consequential amendments to amendment No. 10.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Perhaps I can help the Committee. When I am in the Chair, I am always prepared to consider additional votes if they are required. Clearly, there is a complication, as the hon. Gentleman said, if I agree to a separate Division on amendment No. 10, which is grouped with amendment No. 3, and there are consequential implications that are covered in amendments Nos. 12 and 14. I shall give the matter consideration while the hon. Gentleman is speaking. Others also wish to participate in the debate. We are labouring matters at the moment and I hope that when I can clarify the issue we will make good progress.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am grateful to you, Sir Nicholas. I hope that I was not labouring matters; I did not want to be caught out later on a technicality. I am sure there will be plenty of time for the Chair to consider the matter, as it looks unlikely that we will complete our debate on the group of amendments before 11.25.

The Liberals are ignoring the key issue that is raised by subsection (2)(b). The amendment does not make sense, because any boundary committee would presumably revise the boundaries under the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998. The amendment also says nothing about the terms of such a review. We are not expecting the review, nor has it been created by other legislation; it is simply referred to but has no further embodiment or status.

I understand that the hon. Member for Teignbridge's motive is to have a debate about whether there should a review of the boundaries of the English regions. I have enjoyed that debate with the hon. Gentleman's colleagues on many occasions, as we agree on the matter. I suspect that it will not be an appropriate debate to have now, but I concur with his underlying sentiment. I suspect that he is making

the point about broader regions for reasons of regional policy and structure. But narrowly, in the context of the fire and rescue service, I agree about the need for a review of the appropriate boundaries on which fire and rescue authorities would deliver their services with the greatest efficiency, effectiveness and economy.

Dr. Pugh rose—

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. Before I call the hon. Member for Southport, I must tell the Committee that I have taken advice on the matter raised by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. I am prepared to move amendments Nos. 12 and 14 to the next group and, if the hon. Gentleman wishes it, to grant a separate vote on amendment No. 10. I believe that will be for the convenience of the Committee and I hope that the Minister and the usual channels on the Government side will agree with my decision.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I am in agreement with the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge to a disturbing extent. He was right about our amendment's motives. We want to highlight the fact that written in the heart of the Bill is a deep unhappiness about the current definition of the regions. For that reason we wish to press the amendment to the vote. The amendment also makes it clear to the Government that an appreciable amount of work is to be done to satisfy people about the current regional structure and it enables us to open up the debate.

I say that as someone who comes from the north-west where we are quite happy with the existing regional boundaries. They are clear geographical entities. We have the Pennines on one side, the sea on the other, Scotland at the top and the Mersey at the bottom, which leaves Cheshire in a somewhat anomalous position. That is the way that some people in Cheshire feel about it, Sir Nicholas. They are not entirely sure whether they are in the north-west region. Cheshire is the exception. It is one of the few areas in the north-west where people do not play rugby league to any appreciable extent. That again makes it somewhat an oddity in the north-west.

As the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge pointed out, there is a distinction between regional identity, which is a cultural phenomenon, and the optimal arrangements for the efficient delivery of services. Regional identity can be quite hard to comprehend at times. I lived in Kent for a while and apparently there is a subtle distinction between men of Kent and Kentish men; I was never able to understand it, but it clearly matters to people in Kent.

Regional identity—people's feelings about their region—is a subtle thing. The Bill speaks of efficiency, effectiveness and economy. As the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge says, a natural region may not necessarily be the most satisfactory basis for an effective, economical and efficient fire unit. There are factors to be taken into account such as geography and logistics, which is a clear issue for the fire service, running across regional boundaries. Sometimes the most practical way of organising a service is to have wide co-operation across existing regions.

If one has regionalisation and local authorities are to deliver efficient services, there must be inevitably a trade-off between public recognition of a region and its identity and downright efficiency. What is equally transparent is that regions will differ in size. If the Government are aiming at economies of scale through size, they will not get the same economies of scale in every region. They are simply not available in every region.

Having said that—and having agreed to some extent with the analysis offered by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge—this is not a new problem. It is a problem in delivering any Government service on a localised or regionalised basis. Anyone who is familiar with boundary reviews of local authorities will be aware that there are long discussions before boundaries are fixed or revised about how to achieve the merits of both efficiency and local identity. As such, there is a debate to be had on how to achieve the merits of both regional identity and regional efficiency.

That is why we are concerned that the Government get the mix right. We are trying to help them, and I hope that they do not put amendments from the Liberals in the same category as Greeks bearing gifts. They could sell their package much better if they reconciled themselves to the fact that a review of the regions is needed and that it should be taken in the context of defining their powers. At the moment, the powers are nebulous and undetermined, and the regions have been artificially drawn, particularly in the south of the country.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that an additional factor in the creation of combined fire authorities is that they are not democratically accountable bodies? There will be no elections for the combined fire authorities.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

We will come later to consideration of how the Government propose to run the regional bodies. We would favour a system similar to the one in Merseyside with which I am familiar. The body is democratically accountable in the sense that the Merseyside fire authority is a consequence of the old Merseyside county, which is now represented by nominees from all local authorities. Such bodies can be democratically accountable to some extent, but that is a separate issue.

None the less, we want to press the amendment to a vote because it is an important marker to set down.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

In summing up on Second Reading, the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Corby (Phil Hope) referred to the issue at some length. I should like to remind the Committee of a couple of his comments and ask the Minister to respond. He said:

''It is important that public authorities meet the expectations set out in the framework, because failure to do so might have an impact on national strategies to deliver essential emergency response services.''

That is key to the provisions we are debating, but the Government have not clarified those definitions. In the context of moving to a regional authority, it would be helpful to have greater clarity. The Under-Secretary went on to say:

''To make it clear, we are not regionalising the service, except in areas where voters themselves choose to have an elected regional assembly.''—[Official Report, 26 January 2004; Vol. 417, c. 123.]

My understanding is that the Government will use clause 2(2)(b) to establish a regional authority if authorities have failed to work together to develop a framework. Unless I am misreading the Second Reading debate, that seems to contradict what the Under-Secretary said to the House.

If those powers are used, it is essential that the size of the authority is pertinent. That is particularly important for regional control rooms, which we will debate later. As has already been said, the authorities in the north-east are considerably smaller than those in the south-west. I note that three other Committee members represent parts of the south-west. They will all know the common views of their constituents, who are pointing out that the regions are massive. The people in Penzance do not relate easily to those in Gloucester, and it is almost as quick to go from Penzance to London as it is to go up the Severn valley. That shows the size of the region. Indeed, if we asked the people of Penzance whether they wanted to cross the Tamar to come into Devon, we would find a great reluctance. It would be even greater if we asked them to join a region that was created by the Conservatives for entirely different purposes from what the Government propose to use it for.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

This is a fascinating insight—

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.

Standing Committee G

Fire and Rescue Services Bill

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I know that this afternoon's sitting will be useful and that we will make good progress.

Mr. Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con) rose—

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Before we move on, I want to point out that that was not an expectation, but an instruction. Although the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) was in the middle of an intervention, there is now a point of order from the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond).

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. I hear your instruction, but good progress, like many things, is open to various definitions. At the start of this morning's sitting the Minister surprised me by referring to a letter and documents that he had circulated to all members of the Committee, and I indicated that I had not received them. I have checked with my office and the document was e-mailed to me at 10.27 am by a civil servant from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister who would probably prefer to remain nameless. Therefore, I had not had a chance to scrutinise the documents and I assume that as the names of other members of the Committee were on the ''send'' list, they were in a similar position. Will the Minister ensure that other documents required during the Committee are circulated in time for hon. Members to see them before the sitting starts?

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I can only say that it is not a matter for me, so it is not really a point of order. I am sure that the Minister will have heard the hon. Gentleman and will provide an explanation.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Further to that point of order, Sir Nicholas. I hope that that did not apply to every member of the Committee. When I spoke to you yesterday evening, Sir Nicholas, in the Programming Sub-Committee, I said that I had addressed the missive to your colleague, Mr. O'Hara, who I assumed would Chair the sitting, and I assumed that the letter was sent out. I will make inquiries with my officials, but it was my understanding that the letter was issued yesterday to reach the Chair and the members of the Committee well in advance of today's sittings. However, I will certainly investigate that.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. I do not wish the matter to be protracted. I am sure that the Minister will try to ensure that every

member of the Committee receives relevant documents relating to the Bill or to a particular sitting of the Committee. I now ask the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green to complete his intervention from earlier today.

Clause 2 - Power to create combined fire and rescue authorities

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments: No. 1, in

clause 2, page 2, line 14, at end insert—

'Subject to a review of the boundaries by the Boundary Committee for England which shall take place before April 2005.'.

No. 12, in

clause 2, page 2, line 39, leave out subsection (9).

No. 14, in

clause 2, page 3, line 1, leave out subsection (10).

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

Herein lies what we might describe as a continuity problem. I was suggesting before the interval that we were witnessing something fascinating. The benefit of a three-hour interval means that I have had an opportunity to reflect on my use of hyperbole. None the less, I was suggesting to the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) that we are witnessing something interesting in terms of his views, and those of his Liberal Democrat colleague the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh), on regional and localised participation. That is confused, because they do not differentiate between primary and secondary mandate in some situations.

The real point that I want to put to the hon. Member for Teignbridge is that the Bill is about modernising the fire and rescue services. Has he had letters from constituents saying that when they are in need of the service, they are concerned about the administrative organisation under which the service is provided? If so, how many? Surely we are trying to provide a modern fire service that is fit for use, effective and efficient. That is the meat of the Bill, and that is what the Committee should be concerned with.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I am glad that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green has had a good three hours to complete his intervention: it must go down as one of the longest interventions.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. I am the judge of the length of interventions. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was not showing any disrespect to the Chair.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

Heaven forbid, Sir Nicholas.

My response will not be as long. The hon. Gentleman referred to regional policy and asked what concerns have been expressed to me. I cannot give him a count, but a number of concerns have been expressed to me. Even in the context of this debate, I have heard from constituents who are concerned about regionalisation, and a region that stretches all the way from Land's End almost to the west midlands.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

It just occurs to me to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he thought it rather odd that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green was intervening in the way that he did in order to suggest that our constituents are not interested in the mechanisms behind public service delivery. I was going to invite the hon. Member for Teignbridge to ask the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green why he thinks that so many of his colleagues felt compelled to vote against their own Government on the issue of foundation hospitals, which is surely an issue of the organisational structure—

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. I am extremely liberal, but I suggest that the hon. Gentleman does not respond to that question.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

Thank you, Sir Nicholas. I hear exactly what you say and I shall follow your instructions.

The issues greatly concern my constituents. At lunchtime, I was dealing with an e-mail from a lady in Newton Abbot about regional assemblies. She thought that she had heard a BBC reporter saying that we already had regional assemblies, and I had to write back to her to say, ''I know that the Government can spin and move things fast, but even the ODPM cannot move that fast to create those bodies.'' There is a genuine concern on the matter.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

Just for the purposes of accuracy, with regard to the communications between the hon. Gentleman and his constituent, he should be aware that we do have a regional assembly but it is unelected: it sits in Taunton with 80 employees.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I am aware of the body that already exists, but my constituent thought that the reporter was referring to the elected regional assembly rather than what was the regional conference and all the other existing bodies.

Adrian Flook (Conservative, Taunton)

The secretariat is based, sadly, in Taunton; the unelected regional assembly, sadly, meets in Exeter.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I am amazed that the hon. Gentleman is sad that jobs have been created in his constituency.

Adrian Flook (Conservative, Taunton)

At taxpayers' expense.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

It is still local employment. I suspect that you, Sir Nicholas, will soon stop us wandering away from the subject of the clause. I

appreciate that we want to make progress this afternoon, so I shall not delay the Committee any longer on this clause.

Mr. Raynsford rose—

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I almost put the question, but I now call the Minister.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I was remiss, Sir Nicholas, in not rising quickly enough.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister was asleep.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I was not asleep. I was reading a relevant section from a fire and rescue document. I shall come to the point under consideration.

Unlike amendment No. 4, which we debated before lunch, amendment No. 9 would not stop the combination of fire and rescue authorities where it would promote the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the fire authorities concerned. However, it would stop any move to a regional structure for specific public safety reasons—above all, civil resilience. As I said about amendment No. 4, we must deal with the possibility that a regional management board might not succeed, perhaps because of differences between the authorities involved in reaching agreement on a vital matter of public safety, such as the establishment of a regional control room. In such circumstances, we would need to take action to create a region-wide authority to ensure the necessary resilience in the interests of public safety.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister said that the deletion of subsection (2)(b) could prevent the creation of a combined fire authority for reasons of enhancing public safety. I thought he said earlier that the term ''effectiveness'', which is used in subsection (2)(a) embraced public safety. I would therefore have thought that subsection (2)(a) could be used for those very purposes. Is the Minister now saying that effectiveness does not embrace the concept of public safety?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

No, I am not. I made it clear that my interpretation of effectiveness is, if I can remember my words precisely, that I could not imagine an effective fire service that did not ensure the enhancement of public safety. However, I believe that it is necessary to have the alternative definition to cope with circumstances such as those for dealing with emergencies or resilience needs that, sadly, are increasingly in the forefront of our minds and for which we have to plan on a sensible basis.

I made it clear that the only circumstances in which we envisage clause 2(2)(b) being used were those in which there was a failure by authorities to work together to achieve the results through the regional management boards. It is a fail-safe option, but it is necessary to protect public safety. Amendment No. 9 would prevent that, and I cannot support it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Will the Minister elaborate on the interaction between this part of the Bill and the Civil Contingencies Bill, as that is highly relevant?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Once again, the hon. Gentleman has anticipated what I was going to do in the context of amendment No. 1, which is even more problematical than amendment No. 9. Amendment No. 1 would require the boundary committee to review the existing regional development agency boundaries before we could use the provisions of subsection (2)(b) to establish a regional combined fire and rescue authority. Hon. Members may be concerned that boundaries established for one purpose may not be suitable for all others, but since the RDA boundaries are the current basis for civil resilience, and each Government office has established regional resilience teams within those regions, modelled on the successful arrangements already in place in London, it makes sense to use them as the basis for regional planning.

The Civil Contingencies Bill, as the hon. Gentleman said—

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

Will there be a point at which the Minister's Department will consider looking at the RDA boundaries?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I am potentially incurring your wrath, Sir Nicholas, in straying into this territory, but we have always said in a wider context that we could at a future date consider changes to boundaries. However, we made it clear that in the short term there was no logic in pursuing boundary changes as that would simply lead to protracted debate, argument and delay, and so prevent the opportunity for extending the option of regional government to those people who now will have the option because the Government have proceeded on the sensible basis of the existing regions.

We have not precluded changes at a future date; we are moving ahead on a sensible and pragmatic basis and, as I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise, if we were to try to implement his proposal for a boundary committee review before anything else happened, it would put the kibosh on any prospect of rapid progress, either on elected regional assemblies or effective resilience because the need is here and now.

Part 2 of the Civil Contingencies Bill contains emergency planning powers that are based on the Government office boundaries. It introduces the concept of a regional co-ordinator who will typically be a senior police officer taking responsibility for co-ordination in that region. As I said, Government offices have already put in place regional resilience teams.

The experience of the last two and a bit years in London is that that regional basis for bringing together all the bodies that need to be involved is essential to ensuring effective resilience. That is why we have adopted a similar framework in rolling out the arrangements nationally.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

London is surely a poor example because it has had a single fire and rescue authority for the whole Government office region for a long time. The Minister talked about the regional resilience structure that is in place and which will be reinforced by the Civil Contingencies Bill. Does not the regional management board structure that he wants to put in place for the fire service duplicate to a considerable extent the measure that is already there?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

No, this structure does not duplicate that measure. It ensures that there is effective regional co-ordination in those regions of the country that do not have regional organisation. London does, but the other English regions do not. It ensures that there will be effective regional co-ordination arrangements in all regions—apart from London—irrespective of the outcomes of the referendums that will take place this autumn on elected regional assemblies. That is the basis for the structure. It is a sensible and pragmatic way forward to ensure that there can be co-ordination of the fire service at regional level.

The regional resilience arrangements are designed to bring together a much wider range of bodies, as has happened in London. Indeed, London is an extraordinarily good example of an area that has achieved successful cross-city working for resilience purposes and where a single fire and emergency planning authority, to give it its proper title, has ensured a cost-effective and efficient service. For example, in relation to joint control rooms, the hon. Gentleman will know from the Mott MacDonald evidence that the average cost of handling a call in London is some £18, compared with £168 on the Isle of Wight. Those are telling figures, and I hope that he will not minimise the importance of such considerations at a time when the public are rightly looking for value for money and do not want their council tax levels to be pushed up unreasonably. It ill behoves the hon. Gentleman to mock measures of cost-efficiency that ensure that the public get good value for money.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

It ill behoves the Minister who administers the complex system of local government grant finance, which recognises the cost burden that sparsity imposes, to cite London against the Isle of Wight. If he is honest, he will recognise that it is inevitable that the cost per call in a metropolitan area such as London will be lower.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I hesitate to go too far down this road, because you will undoubtedly reprimand me if I do so, Sir Nicholas, but I cannot fail to observe that London has by far and away the best figures on cost-effectiveness of any fire and rescue authority. It is right that, after London, the larger authorities such as the west midlands are best placed in that regard. That is an obvious point if one has relatively small authorities. It has nothing to do with density. I am talking about relatively small authorities such as the Isle of Wight having to staff a control room to operate 24 hours a day without the level of calls necessary to make that

cost-effective. That is a simple fact of life. It has to do with size, not density. It would not matter if the Isle of Wight were compacted in an area a quarter of its size. There would still be exactly the same problems to do with size and cost-effectiveness. It is unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman, who speaks for the Conservative party, should take such a relaxed view of the importance of cost-effectiveness.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Cotswold)

I should be grateful if the Minister would say something about the preparedness of the resilience teams in the eight areas. [Interruption.] I gather from the Minister shaking his head that they are not ready yet. The purpose of my intervention was to elicit that information, because it is my perception from talking to my local authorities, health service and everything else that the teams are not up and running yet. Nor is the area co-ordinator, and the fire services are not linked into that system. Perhaps the Minister will say something about when that system will be up and running and when the constituent local authorities are likely to have the budgets to deal with what they are required to do.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. The Minister should tread carefully.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I shall tread very carefully in my response to the hon. Gentleman, Sir Nicholas, as I do not wish to incur your wrath.

The regional resilience teams have been up and running for more than six months in all regions. During the autumn, we conducted an extensive survey to establish the degree of preparedness among a wide range of organisations in each region. The exercise was modelled on the one that took place in London. The co-ordination arrangements are proceeding apace, and it is important that they should. It is important to ensure that the working arrangements in the fire service are similar to those that apply to the wider resilience community. We will return to some of those issues when we discuss joint control rooms, but I shall now move on, to avoid incurring the Chairman's displeasure.

The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Teignbridge would require the boundary committee to carry out its review before April 2005, but he must be aware that that would create an impossible timetable given the potential controversy and the complexity involved. It is therefore a wrecking amendment—it would have a wrecking effect—since if the review could not be carried out, the Government's hands would be tied far into the future. If, for example, regional combined fire authorities needed to be set up 10 years hence, as a result of circumstances not currently envisaged, and the boundary committee review had not taken place in 2004-05, we would not be able to do that. Even if the review had taken place, hon. Members might argue that it should be revisited or carried out again, if the circumstances pertaining in, for example, 2014 or 2024 were different. The amendment is

therefore ill thought out and impractical, and I hope that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge will withdraw it.

I shall now address some specific points raised during the debate. The hon. Gentleman took me to task for not mentioning these provisions during the debates on the Bill that became the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act 2003. That is not altogether surprising, because that Bill was debated in the early spring of last year, before we had published the fire and rescue service White Paper that set out the proposals.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister will recall that he repeatedly, in the face of some scepticism from the Opposition, claimed that all the functions of elected regional assemblies would come down from central Government and would not be plucked upwards from local government. However, the next function to be announced for transfer to elected regional assemblies is one that is currently exercised by local authorities.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The hon. Gentleman is trying to revisit debates that we had about the 2003 Act, and I do not intend to get pulled into that byway, because that would certainly incur the Chairman's wrath. However, I shall make one point clear: the analysis in our White Paper ''Our Fire and Rescue Service'' was based on the experiences of last year's fire dispute and the important lessons that had to be learned from that. As a result, we have set out new proposals, and anyone who is seriously concerned about the future of the fire and rescue service knows how important it is that we take a fundamental view of the future role of the service and get the arrangements right in the future. That is the Government's commitment.

The hon. Gentleman also accused us of trying to subordinate every consideration—economy, effectiveness and efficiency—to a political drive for regions. That is not true. The point has been made forcibly, and I shall repeat it, that the provisions of clause 21 make it clear that the Secretary of State, in exercising his functions under the Bill, must be guided by considerations first of public safety and secondly of the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of fire and rescue authorities. Those are fundamentals, and will always guide our thinking on the subject.

Doubts were also expressed about the logic of the reasons behind the use of the Government office regions. I have already pointed out that there is a clear logic in terms of consistency with resilience arrangements.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

At the risk of being called to order, given the linkage with civil contingency arrangements and resilience issues, is it then a foregone conclusion that the police structure must also be regionalised?

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. The Minister may answer briefly.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I do not think that I could possibly say that it was a foregone conclusion, given that it is not my responsibility and I would be straying way beyond the territory of this Committee. I have made it

clear that there has to be a regional co-ordinator as part of the regional resilience structure and that that person will typically be a senior police officer. The police will be working within the regional framework.

The hon. Member for Teignbridge raised again the question of the regions and asked whether there was a case for changing the regions in the light of regional identity rather than efficiency or vice versa. Opening up the issue of regional boundaries would start a long, protracted and, I suspect, very unproductive debate, which would undoubtedly delight many Liberal Democrats who enjoy the type of proceeding where debate thrives, people talk ad nauseam and nothing happens. That is not the priority of this Government.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Is not a similar argument about the danger of reopening established boundaries often used to justify repression in parts of Africa that had their boundaries drawn on a totally arbitrary basis by colonial administrators in the past?

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. Obviously I err on the side of the Opposition to ensure that they get all their points answered, but foreign affairs is not part of the Committee's remit.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I have been tempted by matters of the Home Office in respect of policing. Now I am tempted into the responsibilities of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. I must, regretfully, decline to get into an interesting debate about the precise boundary between Burundi and neighbouring African countries. I will return rapidly to the matters in hand.

The hon. Member for Teignbridge raised the question of the definition of national priorities. That is very much a function of the draft national framework, which we have already published. It will be given statutory backing by the Bill and will be subject to regular review and update by the Secretary of State. National priorities come clearly within the context of the new national framework. He also said that our provision in clause 2(2)(b) would allow regionalisation, contrary to the pledge that we are not regionalising except where people vote for an elected regional assembly.

Our policy is not to regionalise, except where there is a vote in favour of an elected regional assembly, but for reasons that I have already explained, we believe that it is essential to have effective, regional co-ordination arrangements for the fire service for those areas of the service that must be run at a regional level. We have urged fire authorities to work together to create regional management boards to achieve that. This provision is purely a fail-safe to ensure that, in the interests of public safety, if there is a failure we have the means to act rather than being left powerless. In view of those considerations, I urge the hon. Gentlemen not to press their amendments. If they do, I will urge my hon. Friends to vote against them.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am somewhat disappointed by the Minister's reply. There are a huge number of areas in the Bill and the clause that we can agree about, and I am disappointed that he has adopted an aggressive tone in relation to this subsection. Resilience can and probably should be dealt with in the Civil Contingencies Bill, which is being debated in Committee Room 15. The regional management board is, to a significant extent, duplicating. It is not necessary to have a regional management board to co-ordinate individual fire authorities, to then co-ordinate with the regional civil contingencies structure. It would be perfectly possible for the fire authorities, as first responders, to be drawn in to that system directly.

The Minister used again the example of control rooms, comparing London per call costs with Isle of Wight per call costs. I suspect that he understands well that whatever he does, call costs in London will always be lower per unit than on the Isle of Wight. I shall place a small bet with him, if that is permitted, that in five or ten years' time, no matter what he does to the structure, there will still be a significant differential between costs in London and those in the least densely populated parts of the country. He talked on Second Reading about control rooms as if the regionalisation agenda only concerned regionalising the control rooms, but it goes far beyond that. I understand entirely his arguments for using larger units to deal with extraordinary and catastrophic events that require a massive response. However, the resilience work to which he refers will only ever amount to a tiny fraction of the fire and rescue authorities' work.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

In a moment.

The Government are re-orienting those bodies, as part of their modernisation programme, to be less militaristic, less responsive and less interventionist, and to be more preventive, more educative and more community-rooted bodies. It seems extraordinary to Conservative members of the Committee that at the same time as launching this agenda for change, which will see fire and rescue services more community-based, it is necessary to create a higher level structure that appears to suck power, responsibility and accountability away from the communities that the fire and rescue services serve.

On the control room issue, there may be arguments about arrangements to deal with large and catastrophic incidents, but I have an example, on a much smaller scale, from my own police authority, of the results of the amalgamation of the district control rooms in to a single control room for the whole of the county of Surrey at the Surrey police headquarters in Guildford. The results have been mixed, because all too often—despite the latest technology available, which it has—it is quite apparent to the caller that the person taking the calls does not have clue where the caller is, what the local geography is, or what they are talking about. The Minister can tell us that the control

rooms will be equipped with the latest mapping technology so that the operator has a map of the area in front of him, but that does not deal with human frailty. When Mrs. Bloggs at No. 72 rings up saying that someone is breaking in to the chip shop across the road, the guy at the other end, looking at a map, says, ''Is that No. 95?'' She says, ''I don't know. It's Mrs. Brown's chip shop across the road. You know, on the corner.'' He does not know, because he does not know the area or have any local knowledge. That is already a problem on a Surrey-wide basis and has caused a considerable amount of correspondence from constituents. I invite the Minister to consider how that problem will be multiplied in a regional control room.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I put it to the hon. Gentleman that knowledge of the proprietor of any shop in any locality would be available only on the basis of a very small area. There is no way that someone in even one local authority that embraces two or three small townships could be expected to have that degree of knowledge of every nook and cranny. That would be a completely uneconomic basis on which to run the control room. I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Obviously, there is a balance to strike, but I invite the Minister to consider the degree of knowledge that a Member of Parliament has of his or her constituency. When talking to a constituent about a shop or a street, the MP will have a picture—

Mr. Raynsford rose—

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister is going to tell me that we need 650 control rooms.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Absolutely. That would be the logic.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am simply inviting the Minister to consider the direction of travel. Reducing the number of control rooms from four to one for Surrey police has caused the problems that I referred to. We already have one control room for the Surrey fire service, so we are not in the territory of having 650 control rooms. He is now suggesting that we should shrink the number of control rooms, thus making the response less local. I suggest to him that I readily envisage arguments—I have not heard them in detail—why that might be appropriate and the best way to deal with some incidents. However, will he acknowledge that many day-to-day functions of the fire and rescue service will be more difficult?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I put it to the hon. Gentleman that if his analysis were correct, the single control room for London—a city with more than 7 million people over a huge area—would not be as efficient as it is. Can he explain why London is able to operate as efficiently as it does?

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I call Philip Holland—I mean Hammond.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am the latter, Sir Nicholas. I confidently predict that after the next general election there will be many more Conservative Members called Philip with surnames beginning with ''H'', although it may not be Holland.

I cannot answer the Minister's question specifically. I am simply relating to him and the Committee my experience of the amalgamation of the police incident control rooms in Surrey. I ask him to consider those concerns.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I intervened before we got into the mini-debate about control rooms. I may have a chance to offer my opinion on that on another occasion, but my intervention concerned the question of achieving economies of scale through regional management boards. Has the hon. Gentleman thought about the potential for procurement on a regional basis? Procurement projects for specialist equipment that might be necessary across a region could be managed by the board, which would achieve significant economies for the council tax payer.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The hon. Gentleman is right. I hope that I have consistently said that we have no quibble with the idea that larger units and co-operation, clustering and collaboration are required for certain purposes. The problem, as is often the case with the Government, is whether there should be a bottom-up process of voluntary collaboration, working together in partnership, or whether there should be a top-down, imposed process. The proposition is that the process is imposed on the basis of artificial boundaries—the regional management boards are to be imposed on the basis of the regional development agencies' boundaries.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I have no wish to extend the debate for any longer than necessary, but my selective hearing probably differs from the hon. Gentleman's because I thought that the Minister said that they would intervene only if things were not working. Otherwise, the process would be bottom-up and on a voluntary basis. However, if the savings are not being achieved for the council tax payer, central Government can try to achieve that.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

That is nonsense. Collaboration on a voluntary basis means that the fire and rescue authorities must decide the clusters in which they wish to work. I give the example of Wiltshire fire authority, which has a long-standing relationship with Hampshire fire authority. In a clustering arrangement, those authorities would expect to work together, but they will not because they are in different regions. There is a clear distinction between something primarily determined by the constituent authorities—a collaboration or genuine partnership—and something imposed from the top in a format and on boundaries determined by Whitehall. We do not regard that as a healthy way to proceed.

I am surprised that the Minister prays the public safety argument in aid for subsection (2)(b). I read subsection (2)(a) as being perfectly adequate to deal with the situation for which the Minister is saying that

subsection (2)(b) would be used. Subsection (2)(b) provides no hurdle and allows the Secretary of State to create a combined fire and rescue authority without meeting any tests. Subsection (2)(a) provides tests, but subsection (2)(b) does not. We must conclude that the approach is part of the Government's programme of regionalisation by stealth. Today it is our fire services, yesterday it was our housing pot, and tomorrow, I detect from the Minister's reluctance to comment further, it will be our police forces.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

The hon. Gentleman's points about public safety were right, especially in relation to the size and appropriateness of the regional control rooms. He gave the example of someone not knowing where a chip shop is, but with a region as large as the south-west is proposed to be, people may not know where towns are. Some Committee members do not know how to pronounce my constituency, Teignbridge, which is pronounced ''Teenbridge'', while I live in the town of Teignmouth, which is pronounced ''Tinmouth''. There will be potential confusion with pronunciation and spelling in control rooms, particularly in areas that have a high number of tourists, who might not know the spelling of towns such as Dunchideock, Stokeinteignhead, Combeinteignhead, Kingskerswell and Kingsteignton.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman could list many more such examples, but he is agreeing with my point, and I thank him for his comments.

We fundamentally object to the Government's approach. The Minister said that they would want regional management boards to be voluntary. However, having mapped out their agenda and saying that they want it to be met voluntarily, the Government are taking powers that local authorities can understand will be used if they do not do voluntarily what the Government want them to do. It is a little like capping, when the Government say, ''We want you to set your council tax at a certain level voluntarily, and if you don't, we will impose it on you.'' That is not a positive voluntarism.

We do not believe that the Government have sufficiently explored the opportunities to promote bottom-up collaboration and to cluster fire and rescue authorities in their new environment to achieve our agreed objectives of greater public safety and the most effective and economic delivery. Clustering need not be monolithic. It could take different forms, with large units for procurement purposes and smaller units for some operational purposes. However, the Government have decided on a one-size-fits-all approach and, by chance, the map of Britain hanging proudly on the Deputy Prime Minister's wall, which shows just nine regions, is the favoured solution for all purposes, including procurement, human resources management, operational direction and civil resilience planning.

We must resist what subsection (2)(b) represents, and I will urge my hon. Friends to vote in favour of amendment No. 9.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

The Liberal Democrats will not press amendment No. 1. I was hurt by the Minister's comment that it was a wrecking amendment, which was an uncharitable thought. It was an attempt to engage the Minister in constructive debate. We would not concede that the adjectives sensible and pragmatic apply to the Minister's argument. What he said, in effect, is that although the boundaries are far from perfect, there are existing resilience and civil defence arrangements in London that appear to be capable of working within the time scale in which the Bill, when it is enacted, will operate. We will look at that evidence and consider our amendment, and we will not press it to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 8.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

Order. Members of the Committee will see from the new provisional selection list that the amendments that we would initially have debated with amendments Nos. 12 and 14 in the last group have been transferred to the new group, headed by amendment No. 3.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I beg to move amendment No. 3, in

clause 2, page 2, line 19, leave out subsection (4) and insert—

'(4) A scheme under this section as mentioned in:

(a) subsection (3)(a) may include modifications to the draft scheme which seem appropriate to the Secretary of State after consulting the existing authorities in question, and

(b) subsection (3)(b) only be made if an inquiry has been held under Clause 26 of this Act and the authority or several authorities have been shown to fail to discharge their duties under this Act.'.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 10, in

clause 2, page 2, line 21, leave out 'after consulting' and insert

'and are agreed to by'.

Amendment No. 5, in

clause 2, page 2, line 25, at end insert—

'(c) all local authorities within or including the area of the fire and rescue authorities affected.'.

Amendment No. 6, in

clause 2, page 2, line 32, at end insert—

'(d) all local authorities within or including the area of the fire and rescue authorities affected.'.

Amendment No. 2, in

clause 2, page 2, line 36, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.

Amendment No. 13, in

clause 2, page 2, line 38, at end insert

'and shall only proceed with the proposed scheme, variation or revocation as the case may be if the inquiry concludes that the making of the scheme, variation or revocation is in the interests of greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the fire and rescue service or services concerned.'.

Amendment No. 12, in

clause 2, page 2, line 39, leave out subsection (9).

Amendment No. 14, in

clause 2, page 3, line 1, leave out subsection (10).

Amendment No. 15, in

clause 3, page 3, line 13, at end insert

'and which, in the case of a scheme made under section 2, subsection (3)(a), have been agreed to by the authorities in question and in the case of a scheme made under section 2, subsection (3)(b), have been considered by the inquiry held under the provisions of section 2, subsection (8).'.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I shall be fairly brief, if for no other reason than that the job description of MP did not state that the art of bi-location was required. As later I have to be in another Committee, moving another set of amendments, I hope that hon. Members will accept my apologies for not being present for the latter part of this debate.

The amendments are straightforward. They would ensure that there is proper consultation before changes are made. Amendments Nos. 3 and 5 aim to find out what the Minister intends when he talks about consulting other bodies. Will that normally include the local authorities in the area? Although they are not fire authorities, they best represent the views of the local population. They are democratically elected, and if there are anxieties about the local fire service the councillors will be well aware of the issues involved because the electorate often cannot tell who runs which authority or the difference between them. Local authorities would be good bodies to consult on the changes, as they will be a mine of information on these matters.

Amendment No. 2 would simply remove the word ''may'' and insert ''shall''. It should not be for the Secretary of State to say, ''Well, maybe I will have an inquiry.'' All kinds of pressures are put on Ministers, and one of those may be economy, so Ministers might not want the expense of inquiries, because the section involved was running over budget or the Department's budget had to be cut. If the Chancellor issued an edict that budgets must be cut to save money in the run-up to an election, Ministers might cut down on inquiries. That would be a shame as these are very important matters.

If circumstances were to involve a move from a failing framework—which the Minister would have to prove was failing—to a regional body, without any of the safeguards of a regional assembly, there ought to be an inquiry. That should be as a matter of course, not as a possibility—if there happened to be an ''r'' in the month, or if the Minister had got out of bed on the right side and felt so inclined.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Our core position is that the authorities defined in clause 1 have to be responsible for delivering the service to the public, and they have to discharge those responsibilities in the most appropriate way. As I have said many times, we recognise that very often that will be by means of combination with other authorities, so authorities will be coming to the Secretary of State with combination schemes. It is entirely appropriate that there are provisions in the Bill for doing that, as there were provisions in the Fire Services Act 1947. We also recognise that it is appropriate for the Secretary of State to have a fall-back power, as specified in subsection (3)(b), to provide a combination scheme ''on his own initiative'', but safeguards are needed.

Amendment No. 3 would mean that, where the Secretary of State proposed the modification of a scheme, the only requirement on him would be to consult the local authorities involved. That would present us with the danger of radical modification of a scheme that originated from the fire authorities themselves, such as a voluntary scheme of collaboration—exactly the kind the thing that I would seek to promote and that the Minister would have us believe he would favour. ''Radical'' does not necessarily mean large in scale. It may be that the modification of a few carefully chosen words would fundamentally change what the fire authorities had in mind; for example, in appointing members to the combined fire authority. There must, therefore, be a safeguard against the Secretary of State misusing the powers under subsection (3)(a) to take a scheme that was presented as voluntary and to change it out of recognition.

I realise that the Secretary of State may want to review a scheme, and to come back to the authorities and propose certain changes. As long as the authorities agree with that, there is no problem; it remains their scheme, with improvements proposed by the ODPM and agreed by the authorities. If the Secretary of State wants to propose something more radical which is not, in the view of the fire authorities concerned, acceptable, he should have to resort to his powers to create a CFA on his own initiative, rather than allowing a CFA to be voluntarily created with his potentially substantial modifications. Our amendment No. 10 would require the authorities to agree to all modifications. We believe that that is a more transparent approach.

As I said, amendments Nos. 12 and 14 are not particularly important in themselves. They are simply appropriate consequential amendments that would flow from a requirement for the fire authorities involved to agree to modifications, because the circumstances envisaged in subsections (9) and (10) could not arise in that situation.

Amendment No. 3 in the name of Liberal Democrat Members deals with the powers of the Secretary of State under subsection (3)(b) to make a scheme ''on his own initiative'', and means that the failure of a fire and rescue authority to discharge its duties would have to be demonstrated. I understand where the hon. Member for Teignbridge is coming from. The problem

is that the duties that a fire and rescue authority has to discharge under the Bill are not simply the duties to undertake a community safety programme under clause 6, to provide firefighting facilities under clause 7, and to prepare for and deal with road accidents under clause 8 and other emergencies under clause 9.

I am referring to a duty to have regard to the Government's national framework, which the ODPM is drawing up, and which it will revise and reissue from time to time. I note that there is no provision whatever for parliamentary scrutiny of that document. We shall come to that later. I fear that the hon. Gentleman's approach is flawed, in that the Government can create a situation in which compliance with their agenda, set out in the framework, is part of the duty of a fire and rescue authority. That is a fundamental issue, because it means that an authority can—I do not say ''will''—have its agenda determined centrally through the mechanism of the framework. We shall debate later whether the comprehensive performance assessment and its regard to compliance with the framework is an appropriate way for the Government to ensure that their unscrutinised agenda in the national framework is implemented locally.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am not the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I am disappointed that he has so little faith. I am sure that the Minister will listen to our views on the framework and, when we come to debate it, that he will ensure proper scrutiny of it at a later date.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

As the hon. Gentleman said, he has not led for his party in a Standing Committee before. I fear that he may discover that he is being rather optimistic about the degree of flexibility that the Minister will show. However, I am willing to eat a large amount of humble pie if—

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Get out and order it.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I will be delighted if, when we reach the relevant clause, it turns out that the Minister is prepared for the national framework and each revision of it to be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, and for it to come into effect only when appropriate Committees of both Houses of Parliament have approved it. That will be extremely good news, and I am ready to get the truck on its way with vast quantities of humble pie. That reminds me of a television programme that I watched last night, although humble pie will be more agreeable than some of the things eaten in that programme.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Bugs.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Bugs, as the Minister says. I am sure that you do not watch such ineffectual entertainment on television, Sir Nicholas, but some of us do.

The Conservatives' approach, recognising the need for the reserve power in subsection (3)(b), is represented by amendment No. 13, which would require the Secretary of State to demonstrate publicly at an inquiry that the proposal would lead to greater effectiveness, efficiency and economy in the delivery of the service. I have suggested before and will do so again that that is not an onerous test, and the Government should be able to accept it. We support the Liberal Democrats' amendment No. 2, which would make the inquiry mandatory where the Secretary of State uses his own initiative to impose a combination on fire authorities. That is an entirely appropriate mechanism.

Amendment No. 13 sets a modest hurdle, and I hope that the Minister will accept it. Amendment No. 15 to clause 3 would achieve a similar aim in relation to the so-called incidental and supplementary provisions, which sound like something at the back of the book that one does not have to think about too much. Those provisions cover vital matters such as who appoints the members of the combined fire authority. As we know, the Secretary of State intends to keep the power to appoint a significant number of those members. We therefore believe that a similar hurdle is needed, and amendment No. 15 would erect that.

Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 would simply introduce more consultation. Again, I do not want to do the Minister's dirty work for him, but I am sure that he has some choice words about how Liberal Democrats like to consult endlessly on everything. There is nothing wrong with consultation, but it cannot have escaped the notice of the hon. Member for Teignbridge or his party that, at the end of all these consultations, the Government invariably do what they were going to do anyway, after wasting a lot of everyone's time and energy. The Bill needs real teeth to ensure that it does not become the mechanism for the over-centralisation of our fire and rescue services. It does not need more cotton wool in the form of consultation without any requirements or obligations on the Government to show that any hurdles have been surmounted.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

All the amendments have a single underlying objective to make a public inquiry mandatory before fire and rescue authorities can be combined, and to create a series of subsequent procedural hurdles before the outcome of an inquiry can be implemented. In resisting their overall intent, I want to make the Government's position very clear. First, we are committed to consultation. The Bill requires consultation with affected fire and rescue authorities and with other persons whom the Secretary of State believes will be affected. That might include other local authorities, police authorities or any significant stakeholder.

The problem with specifying in detail who should be consulted is that one cannot list everyone. If the Bill includes a partial list, those who subsequently interpret it might well infer that organisations not included in the Bill have been omitted deliberately. That inference would be entirely false, but that is the

risk of a list, and the reason that we are not sympathetic to the idea of listing all the bodies that should be specified. Certainly, it is our intention that no one should be excluded. We consulted widely on the draft national framework, and we intend to do the same with these provisions.

Secondly, the Bill permits the Secretary of State to institute a public inquiry, but it does not make that mandatory. Again, we intend to hold a public inquiry unless there are overriding reasons of urgency that militate against it. I therefore want to think about amendment No. 2 to see whether we can incorporate its spirit without losing the capacity to move quickly. In an earlier debate, I said that I was not opposed to considering sensible Opposition proposals. We entirely accept the spirit in which the amendment was tabled. I hope that the hon. Member for Teignbridge will recognise that there is a need to enable the Government to move quickly, so we cannot accept the amendment as it is drafted, because it is absolute. With that caveat, we will work on it and try to produce an appropriate amendment to clarify our intention.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

We all recognised that in certain emergency circumstances special provisions are needed, and it seems to me that the Civil Contingencies Bill deals adequately with that agenda. However, the Minister is now speculating on an emergency circumstance that would require a combined fire and rescue authority to be created. An emergency, by definition, does not call for structural and organisational change—it calls for action. Can the Minister elaborate on the type of emergency that might require the creation of a CFA in short order?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

A public inquiry is likely to take several months, if not longer. A resilience network is essential to protect the public against serious risks—whether or not those are terrorist risks is immaterial—and if one or more constituent fire authorities failed to work effectively as part of that network, action would have to be taken quickly. A delay of a year or more while a public inquiry took place would not be acceptable. That is one example.

It is our intention to hold public inquiries, unless there are overriding reasons of urgency that militate against that. If authorities are failing to work together to set up effective regional resilience arrangements, with all that that implies for public safety, it really would not be right to delay action for the period of a long drawn-out public inquiry.

The other amendments are less helpful. Amendments Nos. 3 and 13 seek to prescribe the grounds on which an inquiry might reach its conclusions, and to restrict those grounds to certain parts of the Bill. Where an inquiry is held, its purpose must be to take into account the whole picture and examine the case for combination on all the grounds contained in the Bill, not just those that are acceptable to hon. Members.

Amendment No. 10 seeks to require the agreement of authorities to any modification by the Secretary of State to a combination scheme that they themselves have proposed. I cannot agree to that amendment. Consultation is essential, and clause 2(4) provides for it. If, to take an example, Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire fire authorities were to put to me tomorrow a proposal that they should combine—when the people of Cheshire are due to vote in a referendum on whether they will have a north-west assembly and, as a result, a north-west regional fire and rescue authority—it would be extraordinary to allow Cheshire then to veto the inevitable modification to restrict the combination to Shropshire and Staffordshire. That modification would be a purely simple and practical way of avoiding the totally time-wasting exercise of creating a combination across a regional boundary, if there is a possibility that one part of that region will move into a regional framework as a result of a vote in an elected regional assembly. That is a classic example of circumstances in which it might be necessary for the Secretary of State to modify a proposal, and giving the authority the right to veto that modification could result in a wholly perverse waste of time and money.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister is talking as if there were some obligation or requirement for the people of the north-west to have a regional fire authority if, by some mischance, they were to vote for an elected regional assembly. As I recall, there is nothing in legislation to that effect. Does the Minister intend, perhaps during the passage of the Bill, to bring forward an amendment to the Regional Assembles (Preparations) Act 2003 to the effect that a statement will appear on the question, so that people are aware that they will get a regional fire and rescue authority if they vote for an elected regional assembly?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The hon. Gentleman, who is normally quite acute on these things, has clearly missed the significance of the White Paper, ''Our Fire and Rescue Service''. It made it absolutely explicit that, where people vote for an elected regional assembly, there will be a regional fire and rescue authority similar to the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. That is our policy intention, and the legislative provision will be included in the regional assembly Bill that we intend to prepare; hopefully it will be available in draft before people come to vote in the referendums.

Hugo Swire (Conservative, East Devon)

Will the Minister confirm that an area that votes against having an elected regional assembly, thereby maintaining the status quo, will not at any stage be penalised?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

It certainly will not be penalised. We believe in entirely free choice, such as we extended to the people of Scotland, Wales, London and Northern Ireland. There is a devolved body in each of those areas. We are doing exactly the same in the English regions, and we will abide by the referendum's conclusions, which, we have said, has always been our policy.

On amendments Nos. 5 and 6, we cannot specify all those whom we consult. Annex E to the draft national framework lists 52 separate organisations that we formally consulted, many, if not most, of whom could make a case for inclusion in the Bill. I hope that the hon. Member for Teignbridge recognises that it would be unworkable to have such long lists, and there is the problem of those inadvertently omitted from them.

Amendment No. 15 would do two things: first, it would incorporate the proposal for an individual authority veto in amendment No. 10, to which I have already referred. Secondly, it would require the supplemental and incidental provisions of a scheme to have been put before a public inquiry. That contradicts the purpose of a prior inquiry held under clause 2(8)(a) and appears to be a delaying tactic. Perversely, it would make an inquiry, which I have already committed the Government to holding, unless urgent reasons of public safety make it impossible, less likely by increasing the time that the overall process will take.

Amendments Nos. 12 and 14 would delete the subsections intended to allow the Government to synchronise any reorganisation of local government in any area with a consequent need to reorganise the fire and rescue service. The provisions re-enact section 6(2A) of the Fire Services Act 1947, and are sensible administrative measures in the event of any such local government reorganisation. For example, in the past, when a two-tier county and district local government structure has been replaced by unitary authorities or a mixture of two-tier and unitary authorities, the old county fire authority has disappeared. The provisions of section 6 of the 1947 Act have been used to establish a combined fire authority of the new principal authorities, covering the area of the old county fire authority. The establishment of the CFA for Kent and Medway is an example. In effect, the combination scheme re-created a fire authority covering the whole shire county area at the same moment at which it would otherwise have been abolished by the local government reorganisation.

It is possible that the same sort of thing might need to happen again if there is a future local government reorganisation under the Local Government Acts. Though not envisaged, it is logically possible that it could also occur in any reorganisation under the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act 2003. That would happen only in an area that had voted for an elected regional assembly, and in which local government reorganisation took place before the elected regional assembly was up and running and before the new regional fire and rescue authority could be established, which is unlikely. However, we would not rule out the possibility in certain circumstances, and it would be bizarre not to have the necessary administrative arrangements to ensure a smooth transfer.

The amendments are neither helpful nor desirable and I ask hon. Members not to press them, with the proviso that I will carefully consider the possibility of defining and limiting the circumstances in which it may not be possible to hold a public inquiry.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

On the lead amendment, I heard what the Minister said. I take his point about long lists; I had hoped that the term ''local authorities'' was broad enough, but if I understand the Minister correctly he is saying that they would be consulted in generality. As that is on the record, I will be happy to ask leave to withdraw amendments No. 3, and I will not press amendments Nos. 5 and 6.

I am grateful to the Minister for saying that he will look again at amendment No. 2, and I accept that there may be an eventuality in which one would not wish to delay a process. Even if I had reservations about that process, I understand that in a crisis it would not be logical to delay it for, say, six months while an inquiry took place. I would be grateful if wording could be drafted at a later stage to take that into account. I will not press the amendment.

Finally on amendment No. 10, I have a lot of sympathy with what has been said. I find the wording of the amendment weak and I take the point about vetoes. One cannot have a situation where one small authority holds all the other authorities in the area to ransom. But if more than half of the authorities oppose something, is it right to pursue the matter? Might that be reconsidered at another stage or in another place? Perhaps the Conservatives can come up with a tighter form of wording that will overcome the veto problem.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am grateful to the Minister for what he said about amendment No. 2. I hope that he can come forward with a form of words on Report that clearly makes it the norm that an inquiry will be held. On amendments Nos. 12 and 14, to some extent I understand the technical problem that he identified in deleting subsections (9) and (10). I laboured the point that they were merely consequential amendments. If I had not tabled them, he would have told me that amendment No. 10 was incredible because it did not provide for the proper consequences.

As I indicated earlier, and notwithstanding what the Minister said, I will seek to press amendment No. 10 to a Division. There is an important principle here. I accept what the hon. Member for Teignbridge said.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

It is pronounced ''Teenbridge''.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

As in ''teeny''.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I do not think that I have ever been corrected by the Chair before on my pronunciation. I shall try to follow your strictures, Sir Nicholas. The hon. Member for Teignbridge—it sounds as if it is just outside Glasgow, when pronounced that way—suggested that there might be a way of finding the middle ground here. It is terribly important that we set out our concerns that too much power is being transferred to the Secretary of State.

The Minister and I have had this discussion on many occasions. He is very good at standing in front of the Committee in an emollient frame of mind and explaining that he would never intend to use these powers in anything like the way that the Opposition describe, but we must look at what is in the Bill. We

must remember that although, for the last seven years, the Minister has been in stately occupation of his post, he may not always be there. Labour Members have to contemplate the possibility that they may not always be there. We are making legislation that may have a long shelf life.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

In a moment. I will give the hon. Gentleman a little more time to think of something suitably witty to say. On the precedent of the 1947 Act, we can anticipate that we are making legislation that might have to last us for half a century. It is important that we do not carelessly give away powers to the Secretary of State however much he may protest that he does not intend to use them in ways that we suggest he could and which everyone acknowledges the Bill would allow.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Hall Green)

I just want to tease out—I hope that it is not too Glasgow an expression—what the hon. Gentleman was saying. Was he giving us a warning that he fears a future a right-wing rabid Tory Government? Is that the essence of his fear?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

There are two questions wrapped up into one; whether I predict such a thing and whether I would fear it if I did. I suspect the answer to the hon. Gentleman is that I do not predict a rabid right-wing Tory Government. I predict a Tory Government led by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). Such a Government would, as the hon. Gentleman may already have started to perceive, provide a model of moderate and sensible government in their approach to the problems that the country has faced for the last seven years, which, under the present regime, show no signs of getting any better.

I ask that amendment No. 10 be put separately to a vote.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: No. 10, in

clause 2, page 2, line 21, leave out 'after consulting' and insert

'and are agreed to by'.—[Mr. Hammond.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 9.

Clause 3 - Creation of combined fire and rescue authorities: supplementary

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I beg to move amendment No. 16, in

clause 3, page 3, line 16, leave out from 'authorities' to ')'.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 17, in

clause 3, page 3, line 18, leave out from 'authority' to end of line 20.

Amendment No. 19, in

clause 3, page 3, line 34, leave out subsection (4).

Amendment No. 7, in

clause 3, page 3, line 35, leave out 'half' and insert 'a third of'.

Amendment No. 20, in

clause 3, page 3, line 37, leave out subsection (5).

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The provisions are supplementary and incidental provisions, which, as I have remarked already, the unwary reader might be led to think are of minor consequence. In fact, a careful reading of the clause shows that those supplementary and incidental provisions include fundamental matters that relate to the CFAs that would be established under clause 2.

I suspect that the Minister will not be surprised to learn that the amendment targets the right of the Secretary of State to appoint 50 per cent. of the members of a CFA, minus one, which would give him a huge say in the running of that authority. The Minister has argued that, for reasons of democratic accountability, it would be appropriate for regional fire and rescue authorities to be accountable to elected regional assemblies, should regional assemblies be created. It is slightly disingenuous for the Minister to argue simultaneously that he must be allowed to appoint half the members of any such authority.

If combined fire and rescue authorities were created other than as a result of the establishment of elected regional assemblies, there simply would be a naked transfer of power from local authorities to the Secretary of State; a provision that undermines most, if not all, of the Government's rhetoric about wanting to remove the hand of Whitehall from the affairs of running fire and rescue authorities. The Secretary of State has no such powers of appointment at the moment, and I am curious to know how a Minister who professes the creed of localism can possibly justify seeking to give himself, in effect, the power to appoint half the members of a combined fire and rescue

authority, when the arrangement up to now has been that members of those authorities are secondees from the clause 1 authorities that would underlie the CFA that is created.

The provision, more than any other in the Bill, underlines the Government's centralising tendency, and suggests the hollowness of the apparent commitment to decentralise. Many people who have closely observed what has happened during the past 18 months have detected a sea change in the attitude of the ODPM. At the beginning of the firefighters' dispute in the summer of 2002, Ministers were keen to emphasise that this was an issue between the local authority employers and the Fire Brigades Union and not a matter for central Government. As the dispute dragged on, the Government became more and more involved, both publicly and behind the scenes in negotiations.

It is apparent to many people who are interested in these matters that at some point the Government lost their enthusiasm for the idea that the fire and rescue services were local services to be delivered by local authorities, and decided that they alone could sort out the mess. They decided that they would take for themselves the power to bang heads together to get done the things that Ministers' agendas required were done. The Minister is nodding his head. In some cases, there may be a conflict between the demands of efficiency and the demands of democratic accountability. However, a Minister and a Government who make much of their commitment to decentralisation and localism should think very carefully about how that balance is to be struck.

It is difficult to imagine how anyone seriously can defend the Secretary of State taking completely new powers to appoint the members of a body who up to now have always been appointed locally. That is the essence of the reason for tabling amendment No. 16. Amendments Nos. 17, 19 and 20 are consequential amendments, drafted to the best of our ability to deal with changes to the Bill that would be required if the Secretary of State's right to appoint members of a CFA were deleted, as amendment No. 16 seeks to do.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Given that the clause deals with the setting up of CFAs provided for under clause 2, would the hon. Gentleman prefer a system whereby the authority was directly accountable through regional government?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

No. If CFAs are established, I would prefer them to operate in the perfectly satisfactory way in which I understand the current CFAs operate, with members appointed by the underlying clause 1 authorities. The Minister is giving a variant of his usually benign smile, which suggests that he thinks that existing fire and rescue authorities do not operate effectively. One is bound to ask why the provisions of clause 3 are limited to new fire and rescue authorities created under the powers of clause 2, and do not extend to those authorities that exist by virtue of clause 4 bringing forward provisions from the 1947 Act. I hope that the Minister will not tell us that the

situation in the 38 existing CFAs is unsatisfactory. If it is, the Minister should put forward proposals to deal with that. I am deeply sceptical of any proposal that seeks to address a problem by giving more power to the Secretary of State.

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

On resuming—

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I should like now to press amendment No. 16.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I have no alternative but to accept that request.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. I hope that the Committee will forgive me for being out of breath, as I have just come rapidly up the stairs. I understood that there would be a second Division in the House, which is why I was not back. Before the Division, I understood that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge was concerned about the Secretary of State's ability—

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.