Clause 5 - General measures
Civil Contingencies Bill
3:00 pm
Mr Patrick Mercer (Newark, Conservative)
I accept the points that the hon. Gentleman makes. The point that I was trying to make–I obviously did not make it clearly enough–is that an emergency volunteer reserve, if that is what we are to call them, must have some special form of training. I accept the points made by the hon. Gentleman about the voluntary organisations, including the TA, but I fear that the sort of specialist training needed for dealing, for instance, with contamination problems, will not be provided. The Red Cross–God bless it–at present has no training in dealing with such problems. Therefore, although such voluntary organisations would have some utility, my argument is that their use would not be a complete solution.