Clause 5 - General measures
Civil Contingencies Bill
2:45 pm
Mr Patrick Mercer (Newark, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 34, in
clause 5, page 5, line 40, at end insert–
'(d) establishing an emergency volunteer reserve force'.
I was interested to hear the Minister's view that the Bill is designed to update the framework of civil
defence throughout the nation–or words to that effect. I believe that I have got the quote right; if not, he will forgive me. As I see it, the Bill is designed to put in place a series of regulations and legislation that will empower local and, indeed, national authorities to deal with the problem. At one end of the spectrum there is the problem; at the other, the legislation. I contend that the vital link between the two is missing. There should be something wholly more credible and useful than what we have now that will allow the legislation to be put into practice. Without a work force to supplement the blue light services and other parts of the national framework, the problems will go unaddressed.
It is interesting to see what the Government have created so far to assist the blue light and other emergency services. Currently, in any region, in the event of an emergency such as those that we are debating, we would expect the ambulance service, the fire service, and the NHS with all its attendant parts, to respond to such an incident. Under chapter 4 of the strategic defence review, the Government have established a force that they refer to as the civil contingencies reaction force. The CCRF is intended to provide a series, largely of Army, but also of Royal Navy, Royal Marine and Royal Air Force volunteers, who are already serving members of the Territorial Army or the other reserve forces. When those soldiers, sailors and airmen have volunteered for the CCRF, they focus specifically on helping the emergency services throughout the region.
It is no coincidence that the CCRF has found itself extremely stretched in terms of declaring itself operationally ready. Just before the Bill's Second Reading–strange to relate–the Government said that the force was ready. However, the facts are rather less than the theory. There are supposed to be 7,000 CCRF volunteers under arms at the moment, but so far the Government have only 5,000 who are physically accredited as part of the CCRF. There is a further problem: the fact that any volunteer, of whatever colour of uniform, tends to be a recidivist–a serial volunteer. It will therefore come as no surprise to the Minister that three-quarters of the people who form two of the best civil contingency reaction forces–under the cap badge of the London regiment–have volunteered for service in Iraq. If the London CCRF were called now, we should find them somewhere outside Basra. My facts may not be quite correct, but it seems likely that the very sad death of a private soldier from the Royal Rifle Volunteers outside Kabul last night was exacerbated by the fact that he was also a member of his local CCRF. If a work force is established to help, it must be effective. Currently, the very slight measures that the Government have taken to assist and to create something additional, are utterly inadequate.
I should also like to mention the views of the British Red Cross. It talks about volunteering, in both theory and practice, across the board. It says that there should be a formal, explicit recognition of the contribution of the voluntary sector as key providers
of the humanitarian aspects of emergency planning and response. It goes on to say that a duty should be placed upon statutory authorities to involve the voluntary sector in emergency planning and response, and that an acknowledgment of the voluntary sector's contribution would formalise an already active response. What concerns me about the Bill is that there is no new thinking; no new initiatives have been taken to give it more muscle when it is enacted. I may be guilty of wagging a wholly inappropriate finger at the Government, but there has never been any difficulty with the creation of voluntary or part-time organisations. The British Government did so at least three or four times in the 20th century. Voluntary organisations were established during the first world war to deal with the threat of bombing. From as early as 1935, air raid precautions and other voluntary organisations were established to ensure that when–not if–an emergency occurred there would be bodies on the ground to assist.
Precisely the same thing happened during the cold war. Sadly the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) is not present, but he held a position in the civil defence organisation during the cold war. Similarly, during the IRA emergency, voluntary bodies were put in place in Northern Ireland to assist in detecting terrorism and warning the police.
Some of the ideas put forward by the foremost thinkers on homeland security or civil defence, whatever we call it, should be aired. The Government should prove that they have carefully considered establishing, for want of a better phrase, an emergency volunteer reserve. I may be wrong, but I imagine that the hon. Member for Ealing, North is about to intervene and make a comment about ''Dad's Army''. The idea conjured up is of a body of elderly men and women in uniform, but we should not think like that.
We should borrow ideas from people such as David Veness, Major General Peter Curry and other foremost thinkers on such problems. We should put in place volunteer doctors, paramedics, hazardous material trained HGV drivers, and other crucial members of the community who, in an emergency, could be mobilised to help at the scene of an incident. I have been criticised, strange as that may sound, for making expensive suggestions, but this scheme does not need to be expensive. It should be viewed in the same way as the American army corps of engineers. They are civilians who might put on a uniform or an arm band during an emergency and physically stand to.
Let us assume that a dirty bomb explodes in Liverpool.