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)
The hon. Gentleman may be helped by a later Conservative amendment, which would include a definition of serious in the Bill. At this stage, our intention was to highlight the issues. I am not sufficiently legally qualified to cite precedents for either word, and we contemplated different options such as ''catastrophic''. However, our point is about the commonality of the definitions and whether they include the same circumstances in parts 1 and 2, except for the expanded geographic element. We thought that the best way to test that was to propose a different definition.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that rationale, as it is no more learned than that. We are trying to make the point that if the lock is to be effective, it should be more restrictive—a Chubb lock rather than a Yale, as we may not reach the three and five-bar mortice locks until later clauses.
The other amendments—Nos. 88, 90, 92, 94 and 96—concern the notion of immediacy, which came up earlier, and are important. It might help to cite some examples of the circumstances in which the Government might consider introducing emergency powers and in which the notion of immediacy is relevant. The foot and mouth crisis has been mentioned. Foot and mouth would have passed the clause 18 lock because it was on a large geographical area and could be deemed to be serious. I do not know whether it would pass the other locks on whether other powers are in place, but we need to consider such real-life circumstances in trying to find definitions.
I would question whether emergency regulations were needed based on the immediacy of foot and mouth. If foot and mouth occurred, we would have an administrative problem of getting people out to deal with it rather than a legislative problem. Considering how foot and mouth progresses, Parliament would probably have time to make the necessary regulations, for health reasons, concerning the treatment and disposal of animals that would not normally be allowed.