Clause 9 - Emergencies
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State (Local and Regional Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman should by now know that resilience does not refer specifically and solely to anti-terrorist work. It covers preparedness to deal with a range of eventualities, some of which may be the product of terrorism, some of which may be the product of natural disaster. It is important that we have in place robust arrangements to deal with flooding as well as a potential terrorist risk. That is the purpose of the framework that we are putting in place. As the hon. Gentleman will know from looking at the draft statutory instrument, there is a very clear indication in article 7:
''A fire and rescue authority which has specialist resources available to it must so far as is practicable use those resources outside its area in response to a reasonable request to do so from another fire and rescue authority''.
I am sure that he would not object in any circumstances to that kind of situation. Equally, he will know that, in the event of a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incident, decontamination will not respect the borders between authorities. It would be bizarre in the extreme if it were impossible for an authority that had suitable specialist decontamination equipment to use it beyond its own borders. He must be aware of that.
We want to make it possible for fire and rescue authorities to act outside their areas where necessary, and to have the capability to carry out these functions anywhere in England. I want to put clearly on the record that we are talking not just about reciprocal arrangements with neighbouring authorities, because in certain extreme emergencies it would be necessary for resources to be deployed across a very wide area indeed, and that could involve equipment and personnel travelling a considerable distance across the country.