Clause 23 - Regional and Emergency Coordinators
Civil Contingencies Bill
2:45 pm
Mr Patrick Mercer (Newark, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 128, in
clause 23, page 16, line 10, at end insert—
'(d) competence and demonstration of said competence'.
It is nice to see you back in the Chair, Mr. Benton, in this Room, which is much cosier than the one we used previously.
I trust that amendment No. 28 is relatively simple. The clause refers to regional and emergency co-ordinators and states:
''Emergency regulations must require a senior Minister of the Crown to appoint''
emergency co-ordinators and regional nominated co-ordinators. It goes on to say that in accordance with subsection (1) the provision may
''in particular, include provision about the coordinator's . . . terms of appointment . . . conditions of service (including remuneration), and . . . functions.''
The amendment would include, in a new paragraph (d),
''competence and demonstration of said competence''.
It is fairly clear that the co-ordinator has laid down his or her terms of appointment, the money that they will get and what they are expected to do, but nowhere in the provisions are we assured that the person will be physically competent for the job. Who might be a regional co-ordinator? What tests are there to ensure that the person will be up to the job?
The question stands comparison with the issue of how competence and training take place under the control of major accident hazards—COMA—regulations. That duty is discharged under legislation dealing with industrial and commercial sites. Each industrial site must ensure and demonstrate that its staff are competent to perform their safety and critical duties. Such sites must demonstrate safe systems procedures, correct performance, safety behaviours and attitudes, emergency response procedures, competence to provide safety critical tasks, and so on. Under the COMA regulations, a duty is imposed to carry out training to ensure that those things will happen.
Who will the individual co-ordinator be? We have talked endlessly—I have bored endlessly—about the nature of an emergency. It would be helpful if the Minister could illuminate us as to who the individual is to be, and convince us that that person will be competent to handle an emergency. Might it, for example, be a local government officer? If so, how do we know that he or she will have any competence in dealing with disaster?
Who else could it be? Could it be the regional territorial army commander? Is he or she likely to be competent? Yes, probably. It would be reassuring if we could have some indication from the Minister about not just what the person will be paid, what he or she will be expected to do and how long the contract will
last, but who it is to be, so that we can be sure that we are not sending a boy to do a man's job.