Clause 21 - Scope of emergency regulations
Civil Contingencies Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Michael Trend (Windsor, Conservative)
Subsection (2)(n), which we have mentioned before, says
''protecting or restoring the performance of public functions.''
Such provisions always worry me because they mean either nothing or a great deal. It is the subject of our amendments, so what does the Minister think it means? This is the subject of one our proposed amendments. The list seems to be fairly exhaustive, and I cannot think of anything that has been left out of it. There is provision elsewhere in the Bill for new methods of communication that might be developed, where we cannot yet imagine what they might be. If its presence has a sinister purpose, which I doubt, the Minister might be able to help us, if that is where we should be pointing our attention. If it does not have an obvious purpose, what is it doing there? If this Bill, having become an Act, were ever to be abused, it would be on small words that the argument thereafter would turn. A Bill that gives the state such enormous powers should be as restrictive as possible. Why in a Bill of this nature do we need one of these traditional catch-all phrases? Why can we not have absolute precision?