Clause 48 - Payments in respect of advisory bodies
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
3:45 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I have a quick question. Clause 48 authorises payments in respect of advisory bodies. The Minister of State kindly wrote to me—I assume that he copied that letter to Committee members—giving an explanation and putting some flesh on what was said during Committee about the scaling back or otherwise of the fire service inspectorate. In a sense, the functions of advisory bodies will complement some of the functions of the fire service inspectorate, so it seems appropriate to ask the Under-Secretary for some sort of estimate or indicative budget of the Secretary of State's expected expenditure on advisory bodies as part of his overall structure with the newly restructured fire service inspectorate at the heart of it.