Clause 13 - Reinforcement schemes
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
5:00 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Teignbridge decided not to move amendment No. 74 because I had something rather nice to say about it. It rather neatly encapsulates the Liberal Democrat approach to a number of matters, but I have no doubt that it would now be out of order to address it. Perhaps that is why the hon. Gentleman did not move it.
I want to address a concern that we have about clause 13 that would have been addressed by amendment No. 66. Subsection (1) states:
''A fire and rescue authority must, so far as practicable, enter into a reinforcement scheme with other fire and rescue authorities.''
That is an obligation—a prescription. The ''other'' fire and rescue authorities are undefined, unspecified. Unless a fire and rescue authority had entered into a reinforcement scheme with every other fire and rescue authority, which would not be necessary or practical, it would be difficult to know whether it had discharged the absolute obligation placed on it by subsection (1).
The suggestion that we sought to make with amendment No. 66 was that there should be a definition of the authorities with which an authority is obliged to enter into reinforcement schemes. Looking at it with a layman's eye, it seems to me that geographical contiguity would be the most appropriate criterion. Beyond that, there ought to be an ability—a permissive power—to enter into reinforcement schemes with other authorities, where appropriate. At the moment, we are placing an obligation on an authority to enter into a reinforcement scheme with bodies unspecified. That does not seem terribly satisfactory or tidy, and I was hoping that the provision could be tidied up by defining the bodies in question.
Debate adjourned.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
Adjourned accordingly at three minutes past Five o'clock till Tuesday 24 February at twenty-five minutes past Nine o'clock.