Clause 26 - Inquiries
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
9:45 am
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
The clause replaces the existing provisions for the holding of inquiries under section 33 of the Fire Services Act 1947. The Secretary of State
will be able to establish an inquiry into the performance of a fire and rescue authority in respect of any of its functions, or in respect of the circumstances leading to, or the handling of, a particular incident in relation to which it has functions under the Bill. I am sure that hon. Members will recognise that that is right.
A technical point was made about the position of clause 54 in relation to clause 26—of course, inquiries are mentioned elsewhere in the Bill. The structure was chosen because parliamentary counsel suggested that we do not want to make this a clumsy Bill. If we were to accept the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, we would have to repeat the text every time an inquiry was mentioned. Placing the reference in one place and referring to it as we have makes the Bill more robust, clearer and more transparent. That was parliamentary counsel's intention when drafting the Bill. I hope that, with that explanation, the Committee will be happy to support the clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 26 ordered to stand part of the Bill.