Clause 47 - False alarms of fire
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
3:15 pm
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.