Clause 11 - Power to respond to other eventualities
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 62, in
clause 11, page 6, line 38, at end insert
'by acquisition or by agreement with third parties who own or control such equipment'.
The amendment should not detain us, but there are some specific issues to clarify. It deals with the wide discretion that is given to local authorities in choosing to prepare to respond to other eventualities. We seek to clarify the provision that gives authorities the power
''to secure the provision of equipment.''
The Minister referred to the clause this morning, and I interpreted the reference to the authority's power to secure any equipment in pursuing
''any action it considers appropriate . . . in response to an event or situation''
or
''for the purpose of enabling action to be taken in response to such an event or situation''
to mean that the authority could buy and maintain specialist equipment and perhaps enter into arrangements with third parties with access to heavy-lifting equipment or high-volume pumping equipment. All of that is perfectly sensible. The amendment is intended to address the issue for the avoidance of doubt, as the lawyers like to say—indeed, the Minister shamefully allowed that phrase to appear in the Fire Services Act 2003, although it does not usually creep into legislation.
I want to be clear that subsection (3) does not imply a power to requisition property. The amendment would require the fire and rescue authority to acquire property or secure it by agreement with a third party. It would not have the power to requisition it. Just for the avoidance of doubt, I will happily withdraw the amendment once the Under-Secretary stands up and says, ''Yes, that is the case''.
The Minister of State complicated the issue this morning when he suggested that the power to secure
the provision of equipment was not to be interpreted in the way that I understood it, but was actually a power that would allow fire authorities to fix smoke alarms to people's ceilings. I suppose that that is securing equipment, after a fashion, but it certainly is not pursuant to the obligations in subsection (1), which is clearly pursuant to an obligation in clause 6.
I would be grateful if the Under-Secretary confirmed that there is no power of compulsion in clause 11(3) and clarified how it allows equipment acquisition for the purposes specified—for example, the acquisition of inshore rescue craft, if that is appropriate—and at the same time the provision of smoke detectors.