Clause 21 - Scope of emergency regulations
Civil Contingencies Bill
10:15 am
Mr Patrick Mercer (Newark, Conservative)
I appreciate this Liberal Democrat amendment, because it gives us the opportunity to probe the Minister on a couple more technical points on the use of the armed forces. I entirely endorse what the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam says about the lack of understanding as to exactly what the Defence Council is. I would go one stage further, although I understand exactly what the council is from previous experience. I think that I understand, but would appreciate the Under-Secretary's guidance on the calling-out of the civil contingencies reaction forces, which, by some strange coincidence, have just been declared operationally effective, despite the fact that they are woefully under-strength and considerably over-deployed overseas.
A point came up on Second Reading about the use of the regular forces. I understand that, under emergency regulations, there is no specific provision for their use. By ''regular forces'', I mean the regular Army, Navy and Air Force—in other words, the men and women of this country. At a rough guess, there are about 60,000 people in such forces, all of whom are trained in the defence against, and the mitigation of the results of, nuclear, biological and chemical warfare techniques. There seems to be no provision, either in the Bill or elsewhere, for the deployment of those regular forces to the assistance of, say, the blue-light services. That is exactly the point that the hon. Gentleman made.