Clause 3 - Section 2: supplemental
Civil Contingencies Bill
5:00 pm
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley, Conservative)
It is apposite that our debate should take place while alarms are going on. I only trust that there is not an emergency. We know that the staff have been trained to come in and give us guidance. The possibility that we will carry on with the debate while the rest of the building empties fills me with dread, but I assume that somebody will let us know if that is the case. If there were a failure now and the chap's voice disappeared, we would not know, so I assume that training has been done to ensure that someone will come in to let us know that there is a problem.
As the bodies go through their plans, they may write to the Minister, and I would encourage them to do so, and to ask him to look into the equipment that they will need and its cost. If firms in the private sector, such as BT, have to hire emergency satellite links costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, they should be comfortable in the knowledge that the costs will be picked up somewhere, and they will want to know where.
The guidance that the Minister will give the various bodies and authorities may say that—[Interruption.]