Clause 47 - False alarms of fire
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 145, in
clause 47, page 23, line 27, after 'fire', insert
', road traffic accident or other emergency in respect of which the authority has a function under section 9'.
The clause headings are not part of the construction of the Bill, and the amendment seeks to widen the scope of the clause to include false alarms of road traffic accidents and other emergencies in respect of which fire and rescue authorities have functions under clause 9. That seems logical.
I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to point to provisions in other statutes that relate to false alarms in emergencies other than fire—if he cannot, we shall be in trouble—because there must be provisions to deal with those who raise false alarms in any emergencies. Even if there are provisions in other legislation, however, my view is that if we are trying to create a level playing field in which the role of the fire and rescue service is broadened to include not only fire, but road traffic accidents and other emergency work, and if we are saying that all of that work is core to the fire and rescue service's activity, it would be logical to phrase the false alarm provisions to cover all those areas. Will he explain why false alarms made to a fire and rescue authority in relation to those other emergencies should not also be covered by the clause?
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the amendment would extend the offence of knowingly giving or causing to be given a false alarm of fire to cover road traffic accidents or other emergencies. I can now allay his fears. Most false alarms are raised by telephone and, under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, an offence of sending by means of a public communications network a message that the sender knows to be false would be committed in such circumstances.
Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)
I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for that clarification. This morning, in considering clause 33(6), we debated at some length the difference between the application of the law to England and Wales and to Scotland, and we got a fairly ambiguous answer on that point. Will clarify whether the clause would apply equally to Scotland, as it would to England and Wales, in terms of penalties?
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
I shall come back to the question of penalties. We have explored the same territory already, and it is a matter for the Scottish Executive to set penalties, but I shall return to the point in a moment.
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
I shall return to that point when I get to it, but I shall give way.
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
Obviously, very many people, perhaps even in this place, will be alarmed to discover that it is an offence to give a message by means of a telephone that the giver knows to be false. I suspect that such provision would cover a great deal of the activity of a lot of our colleagues in this place. Quite apart from that, however, is not the logic of his case that alarms of fire would also be covered by the Communications Act 2003 and that all alarms given by means of telephonic communication are therefore
dealt with? Either there is still a need for additional provisions for other emergencies or there is no need for the provision in respect of fire.
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
I shall try to explain exactly the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised. In general, most false alarms are made by telephone. It is an offence under section 127 of the 2003 Act to send by means of a public communications network a message relating to fire that the sender knows to be false. The fire and rescue service works closely with telecommunications companies to reduce the number of hoax calls, and the number of such calls has been reduced from 111,000 in 1996 to 67,000 in 2002.
In 1947, fewer people had telephones than today, and it was much more likely that people would shout ''Fire!'', rather than dial 999 and use a telephone to tell people that there was a fire. We therefore considered whether we continued to need the offence under section 31 of the Fire Services Act 1947, particularly as the number of prosecutions remained small, averaging about 30 a year. Some if not most of those offences will have been actions that could have been prosecuted under the Telecommunications Act 1984 or the 2003 Act. However, we concluded that the offence remained a useful tool in the fire and rescue service's ability to reduce antisocial activity, since there may be occasions on which a person raises a false alarm other than by telephone.
Mr Richard Younger-Ross (Shadow Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Local Government & the Regions; Teignbridge, Liberal Democrat)
I will try to be helpful to the Under-Secretary—I know that he does not like people to say that, because he does not believe that they ever are. I was thinking of a circumstance in which a person breaks a fire alarm within a building. That will send a message within the building that there is a fire, because it sets off the alarm signal, but it would not be covered by the 2003 Act. The message would be covered only if it went down a telephone line. Alternatively, there is the circumstance in which a Matilda-type person—from Hilaire Belloc's cautionary tale—shouts ''Fire!'' Shouting ''Fire!'' in a crowded place could cause panic.
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his supportive words. The question whether we need to retain the offence of shouting ''Fire!'' is a given. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge asks whether there is any logic in extending the power to other core functions such as those relating to road accidents or other emergencies, but in reality, alarms in such cases—and road traffic accidents in particular—are more likely to be dealt with initially by the police, who will call for a response from the fire and rescue service if they are satisfied of the need. That is why there is no purpose to be gained from the proposal.
I was trying to imagine a circumstance in which someone standing in a street would shout that there was an accident when there was none. If they were to dial 999 to report a road traffic accident when none had occurred, the 2003 Act would cover it and the police would deal with it. I was trying to imagine our wanting to prosecute someone for saying that there
was an accident when none had occurred, but frankly, that does not happen, and we cannot see why we would need to legislate accordingly.
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I will provide the Under-Secretary with an example. Let us suppose that someone standing on a tube platform hits the alarm button and yells into the speaker, ''Poison gas attack!'' Is that not precisely the kind of false alarm that could have dire consequences, the first response to which would come from the revamped fire and rescue service with its equipment specially designed and personnel specially trained to deal with such an incident?
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
The offence is giving a false alarm to a fire and rescue authority. In the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman has described, the person pressing a button on the underground would not be committing an offence in the relevant circumstances, so the provision would not apply. We understand his logic and the concerns that he has expressed, but we believe that the amendment is unnecessary. We must retain the ability to prosecute for false alarms that do not involve a telephone call in respect of a fire incident, but we do not need to extend that ability to other core functions, such as those relating to road traffic accidents or other emergencies.
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
As I read the clause more carefully, I see that the person must be running not only down the street, but to the fire station, because he has to give the false alarm to an employee of the fire and rescue authority or a person acting on his behalf. He has to run to the fire station, shouting ''Poison gas attack!'' In order to emphasise that there is no need to provide against the person and that that is a pretty unlikely scenario—I would not disagree with that view—the Under-Secretary has had to constrain the scope of the clause so narrowly that I wonder why it is there at all.
Of the 30 prosecutions a year that take place under existing powers, how many would not be susceptible to prosecution under the 2003 Act? How many cases have there been in which people have literally run up to the fire station and banged on it shouting ''Fire!'' when there is no fire? If one is a hoax fire alarmer, doing it in person is probably not the optimum way to proceed.
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
The hon. Gentleman makes the point that it is unnecessary to extend the measures to other core functions.
Mr Richard Younger-Ross (Shadow Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Local Government & the Regions; Teignbridge, Liberal Democrat)
I am reading the clause again. Initially, I did not support the comments of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, but I have come round to his way of thinking. The clause uses this phrase:
''gives or causes to be given''.
Standing on a tube and shouting ''Chemical attack!'' or ''Poison gas!'' may not give a false alarm, but it would cause one to be given.
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I maintain that if that alarm were set off in an underground station, it would be a matter to be dealt with by the
railway authorities, so we are not, on this occasion, dealing with a false alarm. The point is that the person is not giving a false alarm, or causing a false alarm to be given, to a person acting on behalf of the fire and rescue authority.
Clause 47 does not apply to Scotland. The equivalent provision in the 1947 Act will continue to apply to Scotland until it is replaced by legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament. I hope that that answers the question put to me earlier by the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire).
Mr Richard Younger-Ross (Shadow Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Local Government & the Regions; Teignbridge, Liberal Democrat)
The clause uses the words ''causes to be given''. I think that if someone stood in a cinema and shouted ''Chemical gas'' or whatever, someone would call the services, so that person's actions would directly have caused a false alarm to be given.
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
The hon. Gentleman describes a situation in which some one else telephones the control room to say that there is a difficulty. That is covered by the Communications Act 2003, as are most prosecutions of hoax calls.
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
The Under-Secretary must be wrong on that point. The person who, in good faith, makes the telephonic communication cannot be committing an offence under the Communications Act. It must be the person who, by his non-telephonic alarm, causes an innocent third party to make a guilty telephonic communication. I do not believe that he would be guilty under the Communications Act; it would be very interesting if he were.
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
My understanding is that we are describing the situation in which an individual in an underground station sets off the alarm and another individual uses the telephone to ring the services. The person making the call is acting in good faith, but the person who has caused that person to act has committed an offence.
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
Under the Communications Act. Section 127(2) states:
''A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance''
''causes such a message to be sent''.
The point is that in the situation that is being described—in which a person makes the phone call on the basis of hearing somebody else shouting a false alarm—that person can be prosecuted under the Act, because he has caused such a message to be sent. I hope that with that clarification of why the Communications Act covers those circumstances, the clause will be accepted and we can move on.
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
The Under-Secretary still has not addressed the question whether clause 47 is required. My original intention was to broaden the scope of the clause. He has done an effective job of convincing me that there is no need to broaden it, but in doing so he has almost completed the job of demolishing the case
for having the clause at all. If, when he comes to write to me about the prosecutions that take place in respect of false alarms of fire—as I hope he will agree to—it turns out that all, or nearly all, are susceptible to prosecution under the Communications Act, he will finally have demolished the point of clause 47.
Although that may seem a perverse outcome to seek from my point of view, one of the points that I made at the outset was that if the fire and rescue service is to have diverse responsibilities for fire, road traffic accidents and other emergencies, it is odd that fire is continually singled out and dealt with separately. Removing the clause altogether would address my underlying unease about its being there in the first place.
Mr Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Corby, Labour/Co-operative)
I said earlier that some, if not most, of the 30 actions would have been prosecutable under the Telecommunications Act 1984 or the Communications Act. We want the provision to remain narrow because we believe that it is still a useful tool, especially in respect of antisocial behaviour and activity. If young people on the streets shout that there is a fire when there is not, the fire service needs to be able to deal with the matter firmly. We want it to retain that valuable tool.
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
The Under-Secretary said that some, if not most, of those 30 offences would be susceptible to prosecution under the Communications Act. If it is some and not most, he may have a case, but I suspect that it will turn out to be most, if not all. If the figures are available, I shall try to uncover them.
The Under-Secretary may roll his eyes as much as he likes, but he has only himself to blame for a very effective defence against expanding the clause. He pointed out that the only circumstances in which the clause is relevant is when the individual runs to a fire station to make a false alarm of fire in person at the fire station. Merely running down the street shouting ''Fire! Fire!'' so that a neighbour calls the fire brigade is not good enough because that is susceptible to prosecution under the Communications Act, as the Under-Secretary made clear. Going into the local police station and getting the police to call the fire brigade is susceptible to prosecution under the Communications Act. As I understood the Under-Secretary's explanation, anything other than a direct non-electronic transmission of a message to an employee of a fire and rescue authority—that is, anything other than being in earshot of the fire and rescue authority employee while crying ''Fire!''—would not give any reason to prosecute under the clause. In those circumstances, I wonder whether the Under-Secretary is right to assert that it should remain.
I shall withdraw the amendment, but I am disappointed that the Under-Secretary will not write to me because I always enjoy receiving letters after Committee sittings. I shall have to try to obtain the information from another source and see whether it is some if not most, or most if not all.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 47 ordered to stand part of the Bill.