Clause 21 - Scope of emergency regulations
Civil Contingencies Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
Subsection (2)(n), which we sought to delete with our probing amendment No. 43, talks about:
''protecting or restoring the performance of public functions.''
One might read this paragraph in conjunction with clause 30, in which the meanings of ''public functions'' are listed. The clause talks about functions conferred or imposed by an enactment, functions of Ministers of the Crown, functions of persons holding office under the Crown, and then the provisions concerning Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Looking at those functions, a question arises as to how they differ from the contents of paragraphs (a) to (m). Why is a paragraph (n) necessary? For example, if the function is something to do with the function of a Minister of the Crown, surely that would be protecting or restoring activities of Her Majesty's Government? If it is the sort of function necessary to restore—to use the words of the Emergency Powers Act 1920—''the essentials of life'', these essentials seem to be covered in all these previous provisions. There is no mention made of local authorities, but clearly the sort of functions of local authorities that are needed in order to restore or protect, in an emergency, are covered by paragraphs (a) to (m).
Is it not another case of belt and braces provision, of having a back-up in case we got it wrong? Much as one understands the desire to do that, surely in legislation that deals with such an important subject as an emergency and gives such wide-ranging powers, and in which the whole idea, according to the Under-Secretary, has been to set out a broad range of criteria, so that it is comprehensive, it is wrong to put in a
catch-all. Either one nails it down or one does not. The 1920 Act is quite instructive, because its definition of what the powers can be is very broad. In this Bill the Government have tried to list them all, but have then lost courage and inserted paragraph (n). Would the Under-Secretary say why she does not think that public functions, as set out in clause 30, are covered by the other parts of subsection (2)?