Clause 21 - Scope of emergency regulations
Civil Contingencies Bill
10:30 am
Mr Patrick Mercer (Newark, Conservative)
Does the Under-Secretary accept that one of the reasons why there was a distinct delay during the foot and mouth crisis before large-scale action was taken on the ground was because the regular forces were simply not configured to deal with those sorts of agricultural emergencies? After a period of regrouping, retraining, rethinking and replanning, it was possible to put large numbers of adaptable and capable people on the ground.
We have seen instances in which there has been no form of planning or training for regular forces; I am not talking about reservists now. There is no planning for, let us say, a machine gunner quickly to abandon his machine gun and turn up in the middle of the street as a rubble clearer. The Bill makes no provision for training or contingency planning for the regular forces, and thus is terribly weak on that point.