Clause 18 - Meaning of ''emergency''
Civil Contingencies Bill
9:30 am
Mr Richard Allan (Shadow Spokesperson for the Cabinet Office, Cabinet Office; Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat)
We now reach the part of the Bill that causes most concern among Liberal Democrats. Part 2 deals with the circumstances in which the Government may bypass the normal democratic and constitutional arrangements and bring emergency powers into play. We all recognise that they may have to do that in extreme and exceptional catastrophic circumstances, but we would prefer the provisions to be have some statutory force. We do not want things to happen in an entirely ad hoc way, with someone having to take control in catastrophic circumstances, so it is important that we test the Government on what those circumstances should be and that we keep the thresholds as high as possible.
The amendments would raise the threshold in relation to the first part of what the Government call the triple lock, which is set out in three clauses. Clause 18 sets out the first lock, which is that an emergency must be taking place. We seek to define the circumstances in which an emergency is deemed to take place and in which the Government may consider emergency regulations. The first lock involves leaping over that threshold.
We will come to the second lock in clause 20, when we will consider emergency regulations. The third lock is in clause 22, which relates to the question of proportionality. In a sense, however, the first lock is the most important. It defines the circumstances in which an emergency is deemed to have occurred and in which the Government may feel the need to consider emergency regulations.
The Joint Committee's recommendations begin with those relating to the first lock. The Committee queried whether the same definition should be used in clause 18 and in clause 1, which sets out the circumstances in which the emergency planning duty kicks in. I seek to make clause 18 more restrictive by changing the definition. Amendment No. 89 would replace the word ''serious'' with the word ''severe'', while amendments Nos. 88, 90, 92, 94 and 96 would introduce the notion of immediacy. That would make the definition more restrictive than that spelled out in clause 1.
When the Joint Committee queried whether the definitions should be the same, the Government's response was interesting. We accepted that part 1 asks local authorities to plan for a wide range of emergencies, down to little local situations, such as the failure of an electricity substation. However, we shall not be triggering national emergency regulations under part 2 if a local electricity substation fails. Yet, the only substantive difference in the definitions is that clause 18 says that an emergency must affect a larger geographical area of the United Kingdom—it must not be localised. Otherwise, the notion of seriousness is the same in both definitions, and we therefore seek to amend it.
As I said, the Government's response was interesting. They said:
''The Government recognises that Part 1 and Part 2 of the Bill serve very different purposes. There is no reason why the duties imposed under Part 1 should apply in the same circumstances where regulations may be made under Part 2. The Bill reflects this in a number of ways. The definition of 'emergency' in each Part is largely the same.''
We found that curious. The Government accept that the parts cover very different circumstances, but have resorted to a definition that is essentially the same for both.
The Joint Committee also specifically considered the meaning of the word ''serious'', which we want to replace with the word ''severe''. Recommendation 11 referred to that in the context of the ''Dealing with Disaster'' definition of a major emergency. The Government responded mostly with reference to part 1, but at the end they said:
''In Part 2, it has proved necessary to incorporate this policy in a different way. While the capacity of local bodies to deal with an event will be an important factor in determining whether it is appropriate to make emergency regulations, it will also be necessary to consider the powers of bodies at the regional level and central government and related agencies . . . The Government considers that clause 20, which provides that it is necessary to make emergency regulations if existing legislation is inadequate or ineffective in some respect reflects the spirit of the Committee's recommendation.''
The Government are effectively saying that, in the context of the triple lock, we have to rely on the clause 20 lock to back up the clause 18 lock. That leaves us feeling that the clause 18 lock is extremely weak. It covers the broad range of circumstances, which was intentional in part 1 and the clause 1 definition, but is too open for part 2. We are left with a dodgy Yale lock as the first lock, into which a credit card could be slipped to make a way through.