Clause 18 - Meaning of ''emergency''
Civil Contingencies Bill
2:30 pm
Ms Fiona Mactaggart (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Race Equality, Community Policy and Civil Renewal), Home Office; Slough, Labour)
Let me give an example, although examples are always full of risk because, as I said earlier, they involve speculation. Damage to an
installation, such as a nuclear power station, might lead to further damage to human welfare—an example of damage to property at an initial stage creating a serious threat to human welfare. It is also important to recognise that the items listed in subsection (2) are deliberately designed to be comprehensive. They will overlap in many, if not most, situations.
To achieve transparency, we have tried to list comprehensively all the situations that might constitute serious damage to human welfare, so that nothing is left out of this provision that could suddenly be deemed to create serious damage. That is why this approach is preferable to the more general approach taken in the Emergency Powers Act 1920, in which there was much room for ministerial discretion. In order to be accountable to Parliament, we are seeking to allow Parliament to be clear about the things that need to happen to qualify as constituting serious damage to human welfare. Serious damage to human welfare must also have its natural meaning. The combination of those two factors is designed to provide the transparency and accountability to Parliament that the hon. Gentleman rightly seeks, and to provide the security that the threshold for moving to the use of emergency powers is sufficiently high. We need to be confident of both of those things.