Consideration of amendments on Report resumed on Clause 2.

moved Amendment No. 8:

Page 2, line 42, at end insert—

"and shall only proceed with the proposed scheme, variation or revocation as the case may be if the inquiry concludes that the making of the scheme, variation or revocation is in the interests of greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the fire and rescue service or services concerned."

My Lords, with Amendments Nos. 8 and 18 we return to the issue of regionalisation and the powers of the Secretary of State. Amendments Nos. 8 and 18 ensure that the power of the Secretary of State to initiate a scheme for creating combined fire authorities or to revoke or vary such a scheme—in effect his power to intervene to pursue a regionalist agenda at the expense of what is best for the public—would be limited by the findings of an inquiry that would focus only on whether the plans would deliver greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness to the fire and rescue authority in question.

In Committee, the Minister mentioned that the Government had already given ground by agreeing to hold an inquiry as the norm, were the Secretary of State to decide to use his powers under subsection (3)(b). We welcomed that development. As the Minister pointed out, were an inquiry to conclude that economy, efficiency and effectiveness were not best served by a particular combination or by a proposed change to a combination, the Secretary of State would be obliged to have regard to its findings. We do not believe that that assurance goes far enough. Having regard to the findings of an inquiry is not the same as accepting the findings of an inquiry.

I stress again that the fire and rescue services and the public will need to be assured that the modernisation or bringing together of the service is not premised on regionalisation and centralisation but on delivering improvements and on the best possible service structure. They need to know that there is a process that protects the public interest. An inquiry that finds that the Secretary of State's plans would not promote the greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the fire services cannot be ignored. It would need to be taken into account and accepted. Only an inquiry can decide whether the Secretary of State's plans are genuinely in the public interest or whether they have no operational merit.

I hope that the Minister will be able to provide us with a stronger assurance that that will be the situation than he was able to give us in Committee. I beg to move.

My Lords, I will probably never satisfy the noble Baroness on the issue of the Secretary of State's powers. There will be a division between us because, as she clearly indicated, the amendment seeks to limit the Secretary of State's scope for action. The inquiry is an important element and to have regard to it means that it cannot be ignored. I cannot put into the Bill words that are not there.

We do not wish to fetter the Secretary of State. As I have repeatedly said, the Secretary of State must act reasonably at all times. He cannot act on a whim or a hunch or out of prejudice. As a Minister, he has to act reasonably or we can be called to account. Therefore, these amendments are wholly unnecessary.

The Secretary of State can make a scheme only if he can satisfy himself—as I said, that is not a personal satisfaction—that economy, efficiency and effectiveness—or, following Amendment No. 2, public safety—are best served by a particular combination or by a change to one. In deciding whether there are grounds to make a combination, the Secretary of State would have to take the findings of the inquiry into account. He cannot ignore an inquiry. That is the reality. He must give the findings great weight. One does not have an inquiry unless one is going to take account of it. That is the situation in this case.

We do not believe that the Secretary of State's discretion should be fettered. This has been the theme throughout the Bill. There might be circumstances in which an inquiry concludes that a combination scheme, or the variation or revocation of an existing scheme, is justified on grounds of economy, efficiency and effectiveness but the Secretary of State, taking a wider view, has sound reasons, which he would have to explain, to disagree with the findings of the inquiry; for example, on the basis of the overriding needs of public safety. I cannot put forward examples to explain but because it is not possible for the Secretary of State to act irrationally and unreasonably he would have to give great weight to the report of an inquiry, which will be a matter of public record.

We need to have the possibility of the Secretary of State exercising his discretion. We would be failing in our responsibilities if we took that away from him. I know that that will not satisfy the noble Baroness but a need for the Secretary of State to have regard to an inquiry also means that he cannot ignore it.

My Lords, I am tempted to say that under other legislation inspectors' reports become binding. We do not seem to be in the same position here. I thought that that was a unique situation. We hoped that we might move it into other legislation. That was what the Government were anticipating. This is all about the revocation of a scheme. It would be more appropriate if the Government had to do more than have regard to or take account of, as I think the Minister put it, such an inquiry. I hear what the Minister says and I do not intend to pursue this issue further today. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3 [Creation of combined fire and rescue authorities: supplementary]:

moved Amendment No. 9:

Page 3, line 34, at end insert—

"( ) All members of a combined fire and rescue authority constituted under a scheme under section 2 shall be elected members of a constituent authority."

My Lords, this group of amendments deals with the powers of appointment to the newly formed combined fire authorities. We still have serious concerns about this part of the Bill allowing, as it does, for the Secretary of State to appoint a significant minority of members to each authority. While protesting that fire and rescue authorities remain a local service, the Government are not only grafting on a regional structure but are also taking powers to appoint members. We cannot support this step.

In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, attempted to explain that such a power for the Secretary of State was needed as a reserve power in case fire and rescue authorities did not nominate people of what the Secretary of State considered to be of sufficiently high calibre. This would apply, apparently, where capacity was needed to deliver modernisation, bringing in wider experience and knowledge that the authority apparently lacked. That was the explanation. This is as patronising as it is tenuous. It is demeaning to the professional authorities that support the fire authorities to say that they need members appointed by the Secretary of State to provide so-called outside expertise. It is beyond what already happens in London where, as I understand it, the whole authority consists of elected members appointed by the Greater London Authority and the boroughs.

This is not a reserve power; it will be used from day one of the newly formed authorities. The Government do not seem to be able to trust locally elected representatives to get on and run their local services. Amendment No. 9 would guarantee that all members appointed to a combined fire and rescue authority would be elected members of one of the constituent authorities, ensuring local representation and accountability.

In Committee, I explained our opposition to the Secretary of State having a role in appointing members to the new authorities. Amendment No. 10 therefore seeks to curtail the Secretary of State's involvement. Amendments Nos. 11, 13 and 14 are consequential amendments, drafted to deal with changes to the Bill that would be required if Amendment No. 10 is, as I anticipate, accepted. I beg to move.

My Lords, the noble Baroness said that the Secretary of State's powers were not reserved. I make it absolutely clear that the powers would be used only in a last resort. My speaking notes do not say, "For 'last resort' read 'reserve'". The authority of the Secretary of State is involved. We have made it clear that we do not seek such powers lightly. We have given assurances that the Secretary of State's powers of appointment would be used only in a "last resort" scenario, where authorities have critically failed to deliver the services required of them. In effect, a reserved power is involved.

To limit appointments to those who are responsible for this failure—that is the implication—is, as we have previously said, contradictory and counter-productive. Appointment of non-elected members by the Secretary of State will be for no other purpose than to bring into the new authorities the necessary leadership and expertise that they have shown they lacked, whether this be managerial or financial or involves another role that is essential to service delivery.

Members will be appointed by the Secretary of State on the basis of their ability to bring these qualities to the new authority. Such appointments will be made sparingly, responsibly and for the limited purposes which we have described. The independence of appointees from the Government will be guaranteed by open process and in accordance with the Nolan principles.

I cannot spell out the position any more clearly than that. This approach does not involve the Secretary of State riding roughshod over local authority representatives on fire services authorities; they will have had every opportunity to have sorted out any problems before the powers are used. I hope that the noble Baroness accepts that the use of these powers will not be the norm; they will be used simply as a last resort.

My Lords, the provisions do not say that. I know that the Minister tried to explain that the powers would be used only as a last resort but that is not what Clause 3(3)(a) states. That subsection states:

"In particular, a scheme . . . may make provision about . . . the composition of the combined authority (including provision for the appointment of members by the existing authorities or by the Secretary of State)".

The authorities are made up either of elected members, which is what we seek to ensure, or of appointed members. There is a real confusion in subsection (3)(c) about who will be on the authorities and what their status will be.

The Government have a great tendency, with regard to appointed members on all sorts of bodies, to try to steer what those appointed members should be doing. We must remember that behind all those authorities there is usually a competent Civil Service. Members of those authorities are there to guide and steer, usually in a political way, how the authority will work.

We cannot have a situation in which a scheme is put forward by combined authorities when there is, as I understand it, no track record of how they have operated. The supposition is that they—or their members—are hopeless before they start. If a scheme were put forward on behalf of all elected members and the Secretary of State threw up his hands and said, "No, I cannot have Bloggs, Smith or Jones because they are not competent in the relevant area", that would cause tremendous confusion from the outset. I am afraid that I really am not satisfied by the Minister's response.

My Lords, I should clarify the situation. There are a couple of points that I did not make earlier but I should have done. The amendment requires that all members appointed by their constituent authorities should be elected members of those authorities. In practice, that has always been the case, and it is set out that it should be in the orders establishing the combined authorities. Those orders will make it clear that the norm involves the elected members of the constituent authorities. We expect that to continue to be the case, but we believe that it is not a matter for primary legislation. As I said, these are last resort powers. The norm will be that the fire authorities will consist of elected members from the constituent authorities. That will be clear in the orders setting up the combined authorities. I am sorry if I did not make that clear earlier; it is my fault for turning over more than one page of my notes at a time.

My Lords, can the Minister give us an example of what might not be the norm?

My Lords, I refer to a combined authority—which could be set up in any case in the normal way—that failed for whatever reason. If it was a failure there would be a report from the Audit Commission, the inspectorate or some other body that made it patently clear that the authority was not working. It would have every opportunity to put itself right and if it failed to do so the Secretary of State would use the powers as a last resort.

My Lords, Clause 3 is entitled,

"Creation of combined fire and rescue authorities: supplementary".

By definition, such an authority has therefore not operated in the past; it will be a new body. It cannot have a track record and the Secretary of State can have no experience of what the authority is like in order to make a judgment about appointed members. The situation may be as the Minister described it but the clause does not state that. I want to test the opinion of the House.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 9) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 103; Not-Contents, 130.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.

[Amendments Nos. 10 and 11 not moved.]

moved Amendment No. 12:

Page 4, line 7, at end insert—

"( ) In its application to Wales, this section has effect with the omission of the words "or by the Secretary of State" in subsection (3)(a) and the omission of subsections (4) and (5)."

My Lords, it is clearly evident that this amendment has a degree of cross-party support, at least from the opposition Benches. We can but hope that some of this understanding rubs off on to noble Lords opposite.

Amendment No. 12 seeks to remove the power for the National Assembly to appoint some of the members of combined fire authorities in Wales, leaving that power in the hands of the county and county borough councils. This issue was debated at some length in Committee. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Evans, replied that the Assembly should have such a power because it is being given to the Secretary of State in England. He went on to mention that the Assembly was under no obligation actually to use the power. However, the case for giving such powers to the Assembly fails to take into account the different legal framework in Wales.

Under Section 113 of the Government of Wales Act 1998 the Assembly has to have a scheme that sets out how it proposes,

"in the exercise of its functions, to sustain and promote local government in Wales".

Perhaps we should have a similar rule here.

My argument is that the creation of a new power for the Assembly to appoint members of combined fire authorities is inconsistent with the Assembly's local government scheme. Such a power weakens local government. It would potentially diminish local government's accountability and autonomy. Furthermore, I am not aware of any policy document from the Welsh Assembly that advocates or justifies the creation of a power for it to appoint fire authority members. This provision in the Bill has not been appropriately foreshadowed, which has denied Welsh local government and the Welsh fire authorities the chance to express views on the matter before the Bill was introduced. The need for this power in Wales should be tested and explained before the House agrees that it is required. I beg to move.

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend and the points that he made with regard to the position in Wales referred to in Amendment No. 12 to Clause 3.

As I understand it, as the Bill stands the Assembly will have a similar right to the Secretary of State in England to nominate up to half the members of a combined fire and rescue authority. This will obviously be at the expense of local authority nominations. This invasive power has caused some concern among local authorities. As my noble friend pointed out, they say that it runs contrary to the obligation on the Assembly under Section 113 of the Government of Wales Act,

"in the exercise of its functions, to sustain and promote local government in Wales".

I admit that the local authority nominees have a special position under subsection (5), in that a precept must be approved by a majority of them. However, in a sense that only begs the question why should there be any Assembly nominees at all on the combined authority.

I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, refer to the circumstances in which the Secretary of State or, I assume, the Assembly make such appointments, and I still find myself somewhat confused on the precise circumstances in which either exercises their power. My noble friend Lady Hanham said that the power was likely to be exercised from day one.

It is suspected that there is a centralist tendency in the Assembly. We have seen that in relation to not only this Bill but others, such as the Higher Education Bill and the draft transport Bill to name but two. There is a reluctance to devolve beyond the devolved body itself—to other authorities, including local authorities. As my noble friend said, there is no mention of the proposed power being given to the Assembly in last year's White Paper, Our Fire and Rescue Service, or in any other policy document emanating from the Welsh Assembly Government. The proposal has come out of the blue, without consultation or anyone being given a chance to comment.

The Assembly has confirmed that it has no plans to make changes to the three existing authorities, but that is irrelevant to the issue before us. Why has the Assembly got to have the power to nominate? Is it to overcome local authority opposition to a new combined authority? The reasoning behind it should at least be explained, along with the encroachment on what is, after all, traditional local authority territory.

My Lords, I raised the matter in Committee, but I do not think that I need add anything to the debate.

My Lords, I shall do my best to respond. I do not claim to be speaking for Wales, but I am certainly speaking for the Assembly. No one is arguing with the fact that the National Assembly for Wales has not sought to exclude the power, and we have not sought to impose it. The Bill has obviously been drafted in full consultation with the National Assembly, and we take the view that the Assembly should in the end judge whether the power should be used, not this House.

I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, regarding the White Paper. However, that White Paper does not go into sufficient detail on such issues. At the relevant point, it states that the remaining responsibilities should be devolved, which implies that the National Assembly for Wales would have the same powers as the UK Secretary of State in relation to England, not a selection from the menu. In other words, the responsibilities are devolved from Westminster.

The North Wales Fire Authority has raised a point regarding an alleged conflict with Section 113 of the Government of Wales Act 1998. It was suggested that what we proposed went against the sustaining and promotion of local government in Wales. That is a somewhat tenuous observation. Section 113 simply requires the Assembly to establish a partnership council. It nowhere suggests that local authorities alone must decide on everyone sitting on local government bodies. Indeed, the composition of the partnership council itself, including the balance between the National Assembly for Wales and the local authority members, is to be decided by the National Assembly. That is under Schedule 11 to the Act. The Opposition can pray in aid those issues, by all means, but they are not sufficient for us to accept that we should change the legislation.

We hope that the situation never happens. I make it clear that the powers are those of last resort. It would be highly unusual for the situation to happen, but the fire and rescue service is an emergency service—as much so in Wales as in England. When designing the legislation, we need to ensure that the power exists for any situation that we can foresee or contemplate. If there is complete failure and breakdown of a combined authority, there may well be a need to appoint to the new authority people with experience of failing organisations and a track record of ability to turn them round. That is not an unimportant point to make.

Should such appointments have to be made, safeguards for local democracy are built into the clause, including the appointees being in a minority and excluded from votes on precepting. We have given assurances—I repeat them—that we are not talking about men and women being put in place on the body. The posts will be publicly advertised under the Nolan principles. If the power is ever used, its use will be transparent.

I say with due deference that we have not heard an argument in Committee or today that persuades us that there could never be a need for the power. However, as my noble friend Lord Evans said in Committee, it is a power, not an obligation. It is not the norm, so we do not expect things to start with it. Those with overall responsibility for the fire and rescue service—be they in England or Wales—should not be denied it as a last resort, a reserve power when there has been clear and transparent failure.

Although there is a difference between the parties, if there were a proposal by a Conservative government for a reorganisation, I genuinely believe that they would build in the kind of safeguards that would make us as an opposition say, "What's that for? Why do you need that power?". The answer would be, "We don't use it as the norm but, just in case there's a problem, we wouldn't have to come back to Parliament with primary legislation". The power is a last-resort, reserved power that we would not expect to be the norm.

My Lords, one can see from the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Hanham just now and from this one that there is considerable concern. Mine is very relevant to the appointment of fire authorities in Wales. The Minister seems to suggest that there could be masses of failing fire authorities. I do not think that the evidence is that many fire authorities, if any, have failed at all. Other issues have normally caused the problems of the fire service.

There is a process now. Fire authorities are appointed from local authorities—they are not the entire local authority. If the fire authority were failing, the best process would be for other members of that local authority to be appointed. That is certainly what would happen in the local authorities of which I know. If people on it were not thought good enough, other people would be put on it. They would be elected councillors. We seem to be getting the message that we want to get away from having elected councillors on fire authorities. I am concerned about that. They are local services, and there should be local authority members on them. It is important that we pick the best local authority members to be on the fire authority.

As the Minister will understand—he has obviously had correspondence on the subject, too—there is some feeling about the matter in Wales. People were not consulted about it, and the provision suddenly appeared in the legislation. In Wales, it is felt to be a very anti-local government move. I am concerned about it, as are several Members of this House. We might have to return to it on Third Reading. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 not moved.]

moved Amendment No. 15:

Page 4, line 18, at end insert—

"( ) If a scheme under section 2 provides for members of a combined authority to be appointed by the Secretary of State, it must also provide that the members to be so appointed are not employees of a fire and rescue authority."

My Lords, I move Amendment No. 15 at the request of the Welsh fire authorities, which are seeking clarification. The effect of Section 80 of the Local Government Act 1972 is that someone cannot be an employee and a member of the same authority, but it is not clear whether that section applies to combined authorities. Perhaps the Minister can tell the House whether there are plans to include in orders provisions that a firefighter who is a councillor may not be appointed as a member of the fire authority that employs him.

The fire authorities feel that it would be adequate to have an assurance from the Dispatch Box that Ministers are not planning to use powers in a scheme under Clause 2 to appoint employees. We believe that that should appear in the Bill, but I shall be happy to hear the Minister's reply. I beg to move.

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. There is a long-standing requirement in Section 80 of the Local Government Act 1972 that employees of local government should not be members of the same authority. We are all familiar with that, particularly in relation to teachers and so forth. However, it is not clear whether that section applies to combined fire authorities. It certainly applies to fire and civil defence authorities in metropolitan areas and London because they are joint authorities for the purpose of Section 80. Are there plans to amend combination orders to make it clear that a fire fighter who is a councillor may not be appointed as a member of the fire authority which employs him? It is an important issue which should be clarified.

My Lords, we have no plans to appoint fire and rescue authority employees to a combined fire authority, but we would not wish to impose artificial restrictions that would prevent it doing so in all circumstances. The amendment is restrictive because it would ensure that no employee of a fire and rescue authority could be appointed by the Secretary of State to be a member of a combined fire and rescue authority. The amendment does not distinguish between employees of the fire and rescue authority in question and those who are employed by another fire and rescue authority. It is therefore an absolute prohibition and for that reason I must resist it.

I realise that there are grave misgivings—putting it politely, but that is what it says here—about the basic proposition that the Secretary of State should have these powers. That has been the theme throughout more than one Bill I have dealt with, and we have also debated that matter. Whether or not we have convinced noble Lords opposite, the power to appoint could in some circumstances be vital to ensure that the authority can take crucial decisions essential to the modernisation of the fire service—which is what the Bill is all about—they want to probe further what kind of people we might want to appoint if the situation arose.

We would not necessarily want to use the power to appoint to these authorities, which I have made clear. It sounds repetitious, but that is the case. Much will depend on the reasons for the combination scheme in the first place, but we are clear that we can envisage circumstances in which the constituent authorities have demonstrated that they lack the capacity to carry through change either because of insufficient expertise or a failure of leadership—not an unimportant point. The provisions allowing the Secretary of State to appoint a minority of members could then come into play.

References have been made to other legislation, some of which imposed political restrictions on fire and rescue authority employees which would prevent them becoming an elected member of their own authority. But that is not an argument for preventing an employee sitting on an authority in a non-political capacity. Many public bodies have executive directors; for example, it is proposed that the Northern Ireland fire chief automatically is a member of the Northern Ireland fire and rescue service board.

A prohibition on the officers of another authority being appointed could be quite restrictive; for example, we can envisage the circumstances where we might wish to appoint, say, a chief fire officer of a neighbouring authority to sit on a combined fire and rescue authority which we would be establishing. As I say, we have no plans to do so, but we can envisage circumstances in which that might be helpful to all concerned from the point of view of expertise, leadership and experience. It would therefore be negative absolutely to rule out such an opportunity, as proposed in the amendment.

We have said that appointments to fire and rescue authorities will be subject to an open appointment process. The order which establishes the authority will set out the process, including such matters as the public advertisement of the roles and an independent assessor. It follows therefore that we would not simply appoint an existing employee without open competition and advertisement. It is not as though the department and the Secretary of State can act on a whim, putting people on the authorities behind closed doors. It would not be like that. It will follow public advertisement with an independent assessment—but only in the kind of circumstances I have said we can envisage. It would not be the norm.

My Lords, in that situation, I suspect it would be difficult for anyone other than someone who fits the kind of specification spelled out by the Government to be appointed. These things tend to happen when someone has in mind a particular person and writes the person spec in order to achieve the right outcome, with all the processes gone through.

I am still not wholly clear that this situation should be so completely distinct from other fire authorities, but I do not intend to pursue the point today. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 [Combined authorities under the Fire Services Act 1947]:

[Amendments Nos. 16 to 18 not moved.]

Clause 6 [Fire safety]:

moved Amendment No. 19:

Page 5, line 28, at end insert—

"(iii) the use of sprinklers, misters and other devices as effective means of preventing and restricting the spread of fires"

My Lords, the amendment would ensure that the role of sprinklers in fire prevention is given the prominence that we and others believe it deserves when fire authorities are carrying out their responsibilities under the Act in promoting fire safety.

Like many others, particularly local government, we believe that the promotion of the use of sprinklers will support the new prevention powers provided in the Bill. Local authorities in particular remain concerned about the lack of promotion of sprinklers in schools and also in domestic properties. Perhaps we need to reflect on domestic properties in other legislation and in another place, but it is worth noting how strongly the House of Commons ODPM Select Committee recommended that building regulations be changed to encourage and ensure an increased use of sprinklers in domestic properties.

In Committee, we had a long debate on schools and I have not changed my mind. As the Government want to expand provision in schools—we heard their recent Statement on education—it is even more important when putting more money into new schools to ensure that they are protected by sprinklers. Every year in the United Kingdom 2,000 schools are damaged by fire, and 70 per cent of those are started deliberately. That costs hundreds of millions of pounds each year.

The common perception is that most fires which are deliberately started in schools occur outside school time at weekends and so on, but in fact a third of them take place when pupils are in school. I think it is true to say that, thus far, there have been no fatalities from school fires. However, if more are started during school time—I hope that that is not the case—obviously the provision of sprinklers will be important.

The cornerstone of the reform programme currently under way in the Bill is a move away from an over-dependence on intervention once fires have started to an approach that is focused far more on preventing fires in the first place. I hope that the Minister will take the amendment in the spirit in which it is intended. This is an important matter. It is possible that this is not the right way to insert such a provision into the Bill, but I think that we need to send a clear message that sprinklers are important in terms of the building programmes that we would all like to see in schools in future.

The White Paper talks of regularly reviewing the changing trends and new developments in building design. It mentions that the Government were going to look carefully at this issue and carry out research on the role of sprinklers in residential premises. It would be helpful if, in replying, the Minister could give an indication of where the Government are in relation to that matter. It is an important part of what we are doing today.

Perhaps if I tell the Minister that I was one of the people who voted for him recently, that will encourage him to give me a favourable reply. It is always nice to vote on the winning side. Perhaps I shall receive an encouraging reply, even if he is not prepared to accept the amendment in its present form. I beg to move.

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment No. 20, which is grouped with Amendment No. 19. I recognise the similarity between our amendment and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, and I support much of what she has just said. However, it may be worth reminding ourselves of the issues touched on by both amendments.

Both amendments seek to encourage the use of modern technology to reduce the number of fire deaths by promoting the use of sprinklers and other such devices. Here, we have a relatively simple technique that would be hugely effective in reducing the instances of fire and resulting deaths. It must be given all the serious attention that it can be afforded.

As I mentioned in Committee, the numbers of fires and fire deaths continue to fall year on year. That is a welcome development. However, one death is still one too many, as I am sure all noble Lords will agree.

Our amendment would encourage the promotion of sprinklers in new-build schools and care homes. Arguably, those two cases, more than others, need such protection. The annual cost of fire damage in schools is around £100 million—the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, mentioned that in some detail—with one in 15 schools suffering from a fire in any given year. Sprinklers would be a very simple, effective and relatively cost-efficient method of protecting school property.

Our amendment does not seek to impose sprinklers on a mandatory basis—far from it; it merely encourages a fire authority to promote their use whenever possible. The number of lives saved and the protection of property would be substantial.

Quite rightly, this is one area that has attracted considerable cross-party support. The Minister detailed some of the work that his department has undertaken on this issue, and I should also like to hear answers to some of the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. The Minister mentioned his desire to consider this matter in the context of his department's review of building regulations. That is a very important area to look at and I welcome that commitment.

However, I urge the Minister to go one step further by considering the inclusion of this or the Liberal Democrat amendment in the Bill. I remind him that we are seeking not to make such a provision mandatory but merely to give fire authorities the opportunity, upon request, to promote the use of such technologies. I cannot see how the Minister could possibly be opposed to such a development and I hope that he will be able to give us a good answer today.

My Lords, I am certainly not opposed to the spirit of the amendment, and I agree with virtually every word that the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, said. I hope that I can give a positive response. I am not sure that it will go much further than what was said in Committee, but I think that the Committee response was fairly positive, particularly when afterwards I read some of the other documentation.

We accept that fire suppression systems should play a major role. There is no question about that. As the noble Baroness said, it is a question of fire prevention rather than fire-fighting. The fire service itself makes it clear that it wants to spend its time preventing fires in the first place. Therefore, we do not rule out fire suppression systems on the basis of cost without examining evidence. A risk assessment needs to be carried out on the specification and installation of appropriate suppression systems. These are highly technical and complex issues, and it is not as straightforward as simply fitting sprinklers, as might be thought to be the case. Of course, the technology is developing very fast; it is not standing still.

So far as concerns new buildings, we think that the matter is best dealt with through building regulations. Following the recent terrible fire at the Rosepark nursing home in Glasgow, the protection of vulnerable people in care homes has been at the forefront of all our minds, particularly those looking at this system.

The issue is raised again in Amendment No. 20. Recent research by the Building Research Establishment suggests that there may be a role for fire suppression systems in providing additional fire protection in care homes, whether for children, the elderly or disabled people. Residents in higher risk houses in multiple occupation and tall blocks of flats might also benefit. We shall examine this positively in more detail as part of our current review of Part B of the building regulations, which deals with fire safety in new and substantially altered buildings. Amendment No. 20 also refers to fire suppression systems in new schools. I was briefed on this matter by two officials this morning. I picked up one of the papers this morning and saw that at the weekend a school had been severely damaged. Therefore, such fires are common. There is a real problem here and we have every right to be concerned. It is no good simply to say, "We're not doing anything because three-quarters of the fires are started outside school hours". That is not good enough because there is still no school for the kids on the Monday, even if the fire occurred at the weekend and no one was injured. That is no argument. Obviously safety is important, and the lost course work and the disruption to the work of the school must be taken into account.

However, the figure for insured losses from school fires has fallen. I understand that it fell by about a quarter last year to an estimated £75 million. We take the matter very seriously. I do not believe that in most cases the possible insurance saving from the installation of a sprinkler system would be a sufficient reason for following that route. Fire risk is normally only one component of the total premium, and many schools are insured as one of a group of schools. In addition, a fire suppression system in one building will not make an appreciable difference to the overall risk or, indeed, to the premium. Therefore, fire suppression systems must be considered on a case-by-case basis.

A new fire safety guidance document for schools, Building Bulletin 100, is being prepared by the Department for Education and Skills at present in close co-operation with officials from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. It will cover risk assessment and allow a variety of fire engineering solutions to meet the assessed risk. The guidance will be subject to public consultation later this year and it will be included in the review of Part B of the building regulations. Therefore, work is under way this year, and I have no doubt that the matter will be raised in both Houses at the appropriate time later in the year.

We are about to commission research to examine what design constraints are relevant to domestic fire suppression systems and to identify the potential for systems which are effective in a domestic setting but which can be produced and installed at lower cost. That will inform a cost-benefit analysis of systems at various levels.

We would argue that, whatever the level of research—this is not an unimportant point—it will remain vitally important to have effective smoke alarms. A fire suppression system is one thing but a smoke alarm is another. It gives those extra vital few minutes to increase the chance of escape. As I mentioned in Committee when I referred to my own experience of visiting the Fire Service College—on my own rather than the "state visit" with a group of Ministers—when I was able to don the equipment and the gear, it is the smoke that kills. That is why a smoke alarm is vital to give those extra few minutes.

We take this issue extremely seriously. The matter is actively being dealt with via building regulations. This is not pie in the sky and a promise for the future. The issue will be dealt with in building regulations, but it has to be dealt with on a risk basis in a technical way with a proper benefit analysis. Obviously, public safety is crucial in the buildings I mentioned where people are vulnerable such as those with disabilities and children, and those living in a care-type home who do have total control over their circumstances. It behoves us to ensure that there are the maximum safety measures.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very full reply. I hear what he says about the various areas that may be dealt with under other legislation in future. However, I have one question. Under Clause 6(2)(b)(i) as drafted, the fire services are requested to give advice on how to prevent fires and restrict their spread in buildings and other property. Will such guidance to local authorities include advice on sprinklers? I hear what the Minister says about the problems; that is, they are not the total answer; there is much technical detail; they must be used in the right way and one has to understand how they work. However, it seems to me that if fire officers are to carry out the role of fire prevention, they need to have the latest information that the Government have on sprinklers.

My Lords, I am told that on Report I should not reply at this stage, but I shall as the noble Baroness was kind enough to say that she voted for me. The way I read the Bill, obviously firefighters are not giving just advice but their professional, considered advice. If the firefighters think that something should be done, or that something should be fitted, in all the circumstances that would be good advice to give. The way the Bill is drafted, nothing can be ruled out.

My Lords, that is helpful and goes quite a long way—

My Lords, I should have said, "Yes".

My Lords, that is even more helpful and goes some way to satisfying my concerns and those of the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 20 not moved]

moved Amendment No. 21:

Page 5, line 28, at end insert—

"( ) Section 2 of the Local Government Act 2000 (c. 22) (promotion of well-being) shall apply to every fire and rescue authority which is not a local authority within the meaning of the section as if it were such a local authority."

My Lords, this amendment refers to "the power of well-being", as the shorthand goes. It seeks to extend the specific power which local authorities have to combined authorities. The Minister said at the last stage that he had not received robust examples of where the powers in the Bill are insufficient. He was quite robust in saying that.

I have limited the amendment because I realised in Committee that it was incorrect to refer to all authorities, as those which are not combined authorities will have the power in any event. However, it is a power, not a function, and I suppose the short question is: what is the harm? I think that both the Minister and I would be cross with ourselves if our collective imaginations had not come up with convincing examples so that this power were not included but there was a real example where the absence of power was critical. I do not know whether that has been sufficiently oratorical to win the Minister round this time. I look forward to what he has to say. I beg to move.

My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint the noble Baroness on this occasion. Nothing has really changed since Grand Committee. As she knows, the power of well-being is available to all the principal local authorities in the country. As a result, county fire and rescue authorities have access to the power of well-being by virtue of being a department of the principal local authority for their area. However, combined fire and rescue authorities, the metropolitan fire and civil defence authorities, or the London Fire Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) do not share this multipurpose characteristic, nor are they directly elected. So, to that extent things have not changed since Grand Committee.

The Bill recognises and facilitates the modern role of the fire and rescue service. With the reform of the fire service, that is not an unimportant point. In our view, the duty to promote fire safety under Clause 6 will provide all fire and rescue authorities with powers to work with other agencies and local partners to help save lives and create safer communities. The provisions in Clauses 5, 11 and 12, when taken together, significantly extend the local flexibility and discretion for all fire and rescue authorities to help to discharge their functions and provide a service that responds to local priorities. So, in that sense, there is a change but it is obviously not a change that goes as far as the noble Baroness would require.

My Lords, the Minister said that the members of combined authorities are not directly elected. I do not know whether by that he means that they are not necessarily elected members of authorities—

My Lords, indirectly elected.

My Lords, I was going to say that we have been trying to rectify that. One is accustomed to looking at provisions and asking who benefits as a critical way of understanding why something is being put forward. I come back to my question, but this time it will be merely rhetorical as I shall ask leave to withdraw the amendment in any event, and say that this is not an issue of asking for whose benefit—perhaps it is for the benefit of the wider community—but of asking what is the harm. I really do not see what is the harm. Although nothing has changed, I do not think that the point has been answered. However, at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

moved Amendment No. 22:

After Clause 8, insert the following new clause—

"EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE

(1) A fire and rescue authority must make provision for the purpose of—

(a) delivering emergency medical care to persons seriously injured by fire or the effects of fire;

(b) delivering emergency medical care to persons injured in road traffic accidents; and

(c) providing other emergency medical care; in situations where employees of the authority are first on the scene of an incident in relation to which the authority has functions under sections 7, 8 and 9.

(2) The level of provision that must be made under subsection (1) above is that which it is reasonable to make having regard to—

(a) the number of such incidents to which the authority is required to respond;

(b) the typical period of time during which the authority's employees are at the scene before the arrival of specialist medical or paramedical personnel; and

(c) the conclusions of the consultation referred to in subsection (3).

(3) A fire and rescue authority must consult not less than once in every two years each National Health Service Ambulance Trust which has responsibility for responding to emergency incidents within its area about the level of provision it is appropriate for the authority to make in accordance with subsection (1)."

My Lords, in Committee we had a useful discussion about fire engines carrying defibrillators and firemen being trained to use them in first-responder and co-responder schemes and attempts to ensure that the fire service would be able to have emergency medical capabilities.

By tabling Amendment No. 22 again, I am seeking to bring some kind of closure to this aspect of the Bill as I think that last time we all agreed with the principle behind the amendment. However, we did not necessarily agree the vehicle for supporting this principle.

The Minister said that Clause 11(2)(a) provided clear legal authority to fire services personnel to undertake training and administer treatment. Can the Minister perhaps indicate how emergency medical cover can be flagged up in guidance regarding Clause 11 and how it can be made clear to fire and rescue authorities that carrying defibrillators for use on the general public is a perfectly reasonable thing to do?

The Minister also said that although he could not agree with emergency medical care becoming a core function of the fire and rescue services, he commended the fact that firefighters often provide at the scene lifesaving assistance by stabilising victims before the ambulance arrives. As I made clear last time, the gap that the amendment addresses was identified in the Bain report. Our debate last time also raised the important point about what public expectations are in this area. Having re-read in Hansard the Minister's reply to the amendment, I feel that he needs to go a little further in explaining the Government's position. It seems to be a continuation of the status quo.

However, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, the status quo is a "postcode lottery" when it comes to the emergency provision of medical care, which he claimed was unacceptable. Thus, there seems to be a gap between that sentiment and the Minister's view, which essentially keeps things as they are, so that it is left to the fire and rescue authorities to decide what they will do, if anything, by way of emergency medical care. I would appreciate it if the Minister could reconcile those two views and clearly state the Government's position. I beg to move.

My Lords, I think that the short answer based on the note I have—I shall give a considered reply—is that we want it to happen, but that we do not think it should be a statutory duty. The amendment would create a new duty on all fire and rescue authorities to make provision to deliver emergency medical assistance where the fire and rescue service personnel are first on the scene of an incident in relation to which they have functions under the various parts of the Bill.

In determining the level of provision, each fire and rescue authority would have to take account of what was reasonable, including the likely number of incidents attended and the period of time before the arrival of specialist medical staff. Each fire and rescue authority would also be required to consult the NHS ambulance trust operating in its area at least once every two years.

We debated at some length the same amendment in Grand Committee. I fully accept that it is right to bring it back, but I will only repeat the arguments. We recognise the underlying aim of the amendment. We would like it to happen, but it should not be a statutory duty. The Government's view is that to extend the duties in this statutory way as proposed would be unhelpful.

It goes without saying that the aim of the emergency service response is to reduce deaths and the severity of injuries. Adopting new ways of working and co-operating more with other emergency services can greatly improve the service provided to the public. That is why we have made it clear in the draft Fire and Rescue National Framework that fire and rescue authorities should explore the benefits of working with others, including, for example, by implementing co-responder schemes.

Under Clause 11, we are giving fire and rescue authorities the power to equip for and respond to a range of scenarios, and co-responder initiatives could form a part of that response. However, we do not believe that it would be appropriate to make it a statutory duty. It comes down to the fact that in this House, from the point of view of being at the centre, we have to trust people at the locality running the schemes to make their best judgment. They will depend on many factors, and they will have responsibility for delivering the schemes. We think they should determine this issue.

Clause 11 will remove any doubt about the power of fire and rescue authorities to instruct staff to implement such powers. We have made it clear that the final decision should be made locally.

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene. I particularly asked not necessarily for the provision to be on the face of the Bill, but for guidance regarding Clause 11 to be stronger, because it could obviously save lives. Will the Minister comment on the guidance on Clause 11?

My Lords, I shall do so when I come to it. I am trying to give a full response. I shall give a response to the noble Lord's point. This is an important part of the Bill and I want to place a couple more paragraphs on the record for people following our proceedings.

For their own health and safety, firefighters have emergency first aid expertise which encompasses life saving skills. These are skills that firefighters already provide, where appropriate, to injured members of the public at the scene of an incident before the ambulance service arrives.

However, responsibility for ensuring reasonable provision of emergency first aid and pre-hospital care rests with the Secretary of State for Health through the ambulance service. We do not want two emergency services prepared and trained to deliver medical assistance.

I turn to the noble Lord's point. The national framework encourages fire and rescue authorities to work with other services. We will highlight the scope of Clause 11 to authorities when offering guidance on the provisions of the Bill. So it will be clearly there in the guidance and in the Act if the Bill gets enacted, which I suspect it probably will.

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, where the fire and rescue service arrives first on the scene of a really serious accident and someone is in the process of having or has had a heart attack, are the members of the fire and rescue service who are able to do so entitled to take action to help that person? Every shop, business and office has people trained to a very high degree in first aid and including the use of defibrillators. I am not aware that they are restricted to dealing only with their staff. Are those who are already appropriately trained in the fire and rescue service able to deal with an emergency when they arrive at an accident without necessarily having to wait for the paramedics or the ambulance to arrive, thereby saving people's lives by using their skills? Are they able to do that?

My Lords, one cannot describe the circumstances because the implication is that there is no fire—this is a road traffic accident. A fire could be raging. The fire service arrives to put the fire out and save lives and buildings. Let us be clear that saving lives is more important than saving buildings. But if they can give first-aid treatment in advance of the paramedics arriving they are able to do so. They are not banned from doing so. Sometimes they carry equipment in their appliances which would assist them.

That is not always necessarily the case. But there is no ban on people helping other people. Firefighters going to fight a fire may find people who they are able to assist before the paramedics arrive. There is no ban on them helping in that way. The amendment seems to make it a statutory duty to carry the equipment and have the training. It is best left to the local fire authorities in conjunction with partnership arrangements and co-responder schemes to make those kinds of arrangements in a formal way, but there is nothing to stop them assisting people in the circumstances the noble Baroness explained.

My Lords, I know I should not keep standing up at this stage, but this is an important aspect. Equally, therefore, there would not be any restriction on a fire and rescue service saying it would be normal practice, for example, to carry a defibrillator in every appliance, so that if necessary it could be used and that at least one member of every crew should be able to deal with first aid in an emergency.

My Lords, my understanding is that that is entirely within the remit of a fire and rescue service. It is not on the face of the Bill, but that is a matter that the services can decide. They are not banned from doing so by the Bill.

My Lords, we have had an interesting exchange between my noble friend Lady Hanham and the Minister. The noble Lord rather disturbed me. He indicated that most of the activity of the fire and rescue service concerns fires. It is not. Fires are a fairly small part of their work these days. As my noble friend said, they get to accident scenes first most of the time. Therefore, there is a potential life-saving element to all this. That is why we are keen to explore it. We have to accept what the Minister has said today. He has said that the Government will issue good guidance for Clause 11. I hope the Government will stick to that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 9 [Emergencies]:

moved Amendment No. 23:

Page 6, line 39, at end insert—

"( ) An order under the section conferring a function additional to its function under sections 7 and 8 for which a fire and rescue authority must make provision, shall also provide for the payment to that authority by the Secretary of State of sums calculated to meet the capital and recurring costs of such function."

My Lords, Amendment No. 23 provides that the Secretary of State should pay for the cost of conferring specialist responsibilities on fire and rescue authorities. When we discussed the matter in Grand Committee the Minister gave a response which was reassuring but did not address the principle of the amendment. If I explain what I mean by that, I hope the House will understand why we have returned to the subject.

The Minister reassured us by making it clear that in terms of the new dimensional work carried out in the operational environment of the fire and rescue services, the Government will fund these arrangements. The figures he gave us were £188 million over a three-year period. However, that should not disguise the fact that the Minister's reply was not satisfactory for two reasons. First, he did not address the crux of the matter, which was summed up neatly by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, with the question: while the Government may think the amendment is unnecessary in 2004, what about in 2014? We are talking about large amounts of money. There should be something in the Bill that effectively closes the loophole that would allow a government to pass off costs that are properly their responsibility on to fire and rescue authorities.

The second reason for our return to the issue is that the Minister commented that the new Bill, which, as we all know, replaces an Act now nearly 60 years old, will have a better chance of standing the test of time if it is not loaded with unnecessary detail. We have been plugging away to get a little more detail into the Bill; it would be helpful. The Minister's comment is disingenuous. The new legislation will stand the test of time if it is credible and workable; it will be so only if we can be absolutely clear who pays for what.

We must avoid the kind of clashes that we saw between central and local government over, for example, council tax rises. If the Government admit that the kind of functions conferred in Clause 9 should be paid for by central government, why risk inviting problems of uncertainty further down the line by not addressing that in the Bill? The amendment not only makes this part of the legislation fairer but also will help to head off potential arguments about financing these services in the future. I beg to move.

My Lords, I wish to clarify that if a new burden is placed on a fire and rescue authority, it will be dealt with under the new burden rules, which we follow meticulously in financial arrangements. In response to the points that the noble Baroness raised about the extra money in the New Dimension programme, we recognise the need to provide ongoing funding for resilience purposes and will be doing that in consultation with the Chief Fire Officers' Association and the Local Government Association, so long as the need exists.

There is also the implication of what she said about the ongoing costs of dealing with such incidents. We believe that we have in place arrangements for funding New Dimension incidents. The Government will provide funding annually from 2005–06 to meet the crewing needs of this investment. The level of funding and the means of its allocation is the subject of ongoing continuing discussions at present between authorities, the Local Government Association and central government. We do not think that the Bill needs to make separate provision for that.

The draft order places a duty on fire and rescue authorities to plan and equip for emergencies, such as flooding and chemical spills. Much of fire and rescue services' time is already spent dealing with such non-fire emergencies, as the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has just said; they are known as special service incidents. They have acquired a range of equipment and expertise in these matters. It is worth putting on record that in 2002–03 the total number of special service incidents, excluding road traffic incidents, accounted for 12.7 per cent of all operational incidents attended by fire and rescue authorities in England. We are simply creating a clear framework in the Bill to enable the fire and rescue authorities to plan and respond to some of these incidents. The costs of dealing with such incidents are met from existing fire and rescue authority funding streams.

If, as a result of a Clause 9 order, a new burden is placed on a fire and rescue authority, it will be dealt with under the new burden rules. At the moment, the only new challenge in the draft order is responding to the increased terrorist threat. We recognise that and have funded accordingly, providing £188 million over three years, which includes training. We are also discussing with the Chief Fire Officers' Association and the Local Government Association the revenue implications of responding to New Dimension incidents. It does not matter where the work is carried out, whether it is in its own area or another fire and rescue authority area, the equipment, training and additional funding to cover resource costs will still have been provided by the Secretary of State. So we do not think that there is any need to make provision for an additional payment.

I remind noble Lords that the early draft of the order, of which they have a copy, is not yet available to the public. We expect to launch a full public consultation on it later this year. In many ways, the key issue is ensuring that we are not trying to get something on the cheap. If there is a new burden, it will have to be dealt with under the rules, which are set out clearly. Local authorities are not slow to point out the new burdens. We operate it meticulously. In any event, in my experience in Whitehall and from the papers that I see, Ministers' attention is drawn to the fact that this is a new burden and therefore will have to be paid for.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply; it more or less answers the situation. The only trouble is that Ministers have a great habit of pruning their budgets—where they see a new burden that might have been paid for a couple of years before, they suddenly decide that it can be taken out of the budget. We are talking about serious areas associated with the fire and rescue services, such as potential terrorist threats and others, as the Minister said. I accept now that the Government would ensure that the appropriate fire authority—that is what it would be; it would not necessarily be all of them—would be reimbursed. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 11 [Power to respond to other eventualities]:

moved Amendment No. 24:

Page 7, line 24, at end insert—

"( ) The power conferred by subsection (1)(b) may be exercised outside as well as within the authority's area in respect of events or situations relating to functions conferred on the authority by the Secretary of State under section 9 with a requirement that such functions be discharged outside the authority's area."

My Lords, in Committee, I did not feel that the Government got to grips with why we thought that the amendment was necessary. The proposed subsection would restrict the power under Clause 11 to functions conferred on the authority under Clause 9 and in respect of which the Secretary of State has given the authority an obligation to operate outside his area. We are talking about limiting the power on an authority to act outside its own area on discretionary matters.

The Minister said in Committee that an unintended consequence of the amendment would be to reduce local flexibility and the power to equip for any eventuality. We do not see why that is the case. The Minister gave the example of a co-responder scheme that addressed risks posed to the community. But this misses the point precisely because presumably this would happen within the authority's area. The point is rather that fire and rescue authorities are also empowered by Clause 11(4) to respond to eventualities, broadly defined, in other authorities' areas.

We want to avoid a situation arising where two neighbouring authorities, which might have very different priorities in their discretionary services, can interpret this part of the legislation as giving them a free pass to set up various discretionary services in a neighbouring authority's area because they have identified this as necessary in their integrated risk plans. Can the Minister say whether there is anything to stop one authority taking action that it considers appropriate in the area of another? I beg to move.

My Lords, the Q&A section at the end of my brief contains an interesting point about mutual assistance schemes. I do not think that the noble Baroness was talking about mutual assistance schemes; she was almost talking about private enterprise schemes.

Predatory takeover, my Lords.

My Lords, predatory action. The amendment is identical to that moved in Committee. We have read Hansard; there is clearly concern that there was cross-purpose in the discussion, for which I take full responsibility. Clearly, the noble Baroness's chief concern remains the ability of a fire and rescue authority to act outside its area under Clause 11.

Amendment No. 24 goes much wider and would prevent the fire and rescue authority preparing to respond to the risks and needs of its community as identified, for example, in its integrated risk management plan, because Amendment No. 24 explicitly links Clause 11(1)(b) to the exercise of functions placed on the authority by the order under Clause 9. That approach is unnecessary. An order made under Clause 9 provides a fire and rescue authority with the powers necessary to make provision to discharge the functions placed on it. That includes the power for the fire and rescue authority to act outside its area, so there is no obvious benefit to the operation of Clause 9 by the approach placed on the amendment.

The effect of Clause 11 would be diminished if the amendment were agreed. The purpose of Clause 11(1)(b) is to ensure that the fire and rescue authority can plan and prepare to respond to an event or situation. It is not a power to respond to the event or situation which is found in Clause 11(1)(a). But this power anticipates the need to meet future risks. It is crucial if the fire and rescue authorities are to be empowered to meet local need and to create safer communities. Amendment No. 24 would remove that flexibility and discretion.

In Committee, as today, the noble Baroness questioned the unrestrained ability of fire and rescue authorities to move into a neighbouring area and effectively set up business; that is, predatory, as the noble Baroness has just said. We do not share the noble Baroness's concerns about empire building which has—I have got to read this out—more than a touch of the regionalisation by stealth theory that remains ever popular on the Benches opposite.

This is not a surreptitious takeover. It is not another avenue for the Secretary of State to regionalise the whole country. There is no secret sub-plot for fire appliances to be sent out carrying ballot papers or new Bills for elected authorities. We have no plans for that. It is not regionalisation by stealth.

The Bill defines the statutory fire and rescue authority for an area and on whom rests the obligation to provide core functions. There is no argument about that from a legal point of view. There is nothing in Clause 11 that would override either this definition or the statutory responsibilities.

Clause 11 provides a fire and rescue authority—perhaps one specialising in rope rescue or another specialist activity—the authority to provide that service within another fire and rescue authority's area. I apologise, I cannot read this for laughing.

In view of the assurances that I have given about its operation, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment.

My Lords, I hope that the Minister will give his notes to Hansard and that we can all enjoy the joke when we read it tomorrow. I shall be most inspired to know what is causing such hilarity. It is a long time since I have had the giggles. They are always started by one person, but they become infectious.

While we are all struggling with that, I do not think that I can do anything other than thank the Minister for his detailed reply—or his nearly-detailed reply. I am satisfied that the fire and rescue authorities will not be able to act in a predatory manner. I hope that by the time we reach Amendment No. 25, the Minister will have found another joke that we can also share. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

moved Amendment No. 25:

After Clause 12, insert the following new clause—

"FIRE, DEATH AND ARSON TARGETS AND REPORTING ON PERFORMANCE

(1) The Secretary of State shall set a target for—

(a) the reduction in the number of accidental fire deaths in the home; and

(b) the reduction in the number of deliberate fires.

(2) The targets referred to in subsection (1) shall be published annually by the Secretary of State for a period of five years forward.

(3) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament at least once in every session a report specifying—

(a) the targets under subsection (1)(a) and (1)(b);

(b) any changes to those targets since the previous report and the reasons for those changes;

(c) measures taken or being taken to achieve the targets set out in subsection (1)(a) and (1)(b); and

(d) the Secretary of State's assessment of progress towards achieving those targets."

My Lords, we return to this amendment which, again, we moved in Committee. I was left with some unanswered questions that I shall try to condense into two areas. First, can the Minister say why the Government have reduced their targets for accidental deaths in the home? What is the timescale for achieving them? I understand that the original target set last summer was for a reduction of 20 per cent by 2004. That has now been extended to 2010.

We understand that it is necessary to have reasonable time to measure progress. But pushing the timeframe back to 2010 completely undermines the purpose of having a target. Why was that not taken into consideration when the targets were originally set? I should also like to know who was consulted on the change of targets. Were they approved or agreed by anyone other than the Government?

Secondly, I do not see that the requirement to set targets far ahead—our second point in the amendment—should be a difficult obstacle. The amendment is deliberately inflexible—I repeat, inflexible. It focuses minds on addressing the various issues within a given timeframe—unlike the previous government targets—and it need not preclude innovation in new developments. It would, however, be the bottom line and thus highlight the Government's commitment to the modernisation programme for the fire and rescue services, which underpins the Bill.

The amendment requires that as part of the framework arrangements, the Secretary of State sets out annually, on a five-year forward basis, targets for a reduction in the number of accidental fire deaths in the home and incidents of arson. It requires him to report to Parliament annually on progress in achieving those targets, which is not a terribly onerous burden. Surely the Government will not object to putting that at the centre of the framework structure, with clear targets that are updated regularly. That would thus enable them to measure the progress of the reforms more speedily than they are proposing. Normally, I do not want to major on targets, but if the Government are going to have targets, they must live up to the obligations that they set. I beg to move.

My Lords, I was not present in Grand Committee when these targets were discussed. At the risk of adding to the mirth on the Front Bench, I confess that I am always uneasy when statutory targets of this nature are proposed, as distinct from informal, loose targets or, better still, aspirations. They always remind me of five-year or 10-year plans, which are so characteristic of 20th century authoritarian regimes. Of course, neither government targets nor proposed opposition targets are remotely authoritarian in intent.

Nevertheless, the zeal to achieve a fixed target can present dangers. One always thinks of the law of unintended consequences: for example, how on earth can the incidence of arson be systematically reduced in this country without installing CCTV cameras at close intervals on every street in Britain?

One always thinks of the Government's target—the previous Conservative government were also to some extent to blame—of reducing gun crime. One may ask what that has achieved. It has resulted in legislation causing immense hardship to respectable, law-abiding pistol shooters, but has not reduced gun crime to the slightest degree. Indeed, gun crime has increased considerably since legally owned pistols were virtually banned. We really should be cautious about such proposals, however well intentioned they undoubtedly are.

My Lords, I apologise for my unprofessional conduct—it was the idea of having to read out about fire engines in "hot pursuit" of each other and then having to go down into an "inland waterway". The term "predatory" was the trigger, and I am sorry.

However, it is a little surprising to see this amendment. As will be known, the Government have been very much criticised in the other place for the proliferation of performance targets. The amendment would have precisely that effect, enshrining the targets in legislation for the foreseeable future.

We are committed to the new national targets for the reduction of accidental fire deaths in the home and for the reduction of deliberate fires, which were announced in the fire White Paper. Any implication to the contrary is unfounded. As before, progress on the targets will be reported in the Annual Report of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which is deposited in the Library. The national framework also includes our targets, and we are committed to reporting against the delivery of that as well.

As noble Lords will be aware, the Government have today announced the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2004. It includes a new public service agreement target that reaffirms our commitment to achieving the long-term reductions in fire deaths and deliberate fire, including in the worst-off areas, set out in the White Paper. That is proof, if proof were needed, that we take very seriously the importance of making significant progress on these issues.

The targets set out in the fire and rescue service White Paper have now been formulated into the public service agreements as part of the spending review. A massive amount of public consultation was held on the public service agreements before these targets were included and we think that they are sufficiently challenging. As the proportion of older people in the population grows year by year, if we take no action we could expect an additional 200 accidental fire deaths over the period up to 2010. But instead the target on accidental fire deaths commits us to save 1,000 lives in that period. I am pleased to say that we are making good progress. Over the first four years of the target, accidental fire deaths in the home are on average 17 per cent below the target baseline.

The new floor element—that no fire authority should have fire deaths more than a quarter above the national average—is also challenging. The highest fatality rate per 100,000 population is currently 200 per cent of the average, and in about a fifth of fire authorities fire deaths currently stand close to or above the target level. We are providing additional support to those authorities through the Community Fire Safety Innovation Fund.

For arson, the target is equally challenging. On recent trends, annual incidents of arson could have been close to 190,000 by 2010, but we are committed to cutting it to a little over 100,000. I am glad to say that arson was down 3 per cent in the year ending June 2003. Nor can I support the proposed fixed five-year horizon for both targets. As I have said, we are happily in the position that accidental fire deaths are the lowest for over a generation. Of course we seek to prevent every preventable death, but the number is already low enough to fluctuate randomly from year to year.

A fair measure of progress, and of the impact of all the efforts by the fire and rescue service, the police and other partners, requires an average over a reasonable length of time. That is why we have chosen to set the national target for accidental fire deaths as the average over the period 1999–2010. The target date also matches the 2010 target date for the Healthier Nation targets, in order to signal the strong link we see between fire prevention and the whole health promotion agenda.

For deliberate fires, a fixed five-year target would not take account of the external factors which affect the annual figures. Two-thirds of the total is made up of vehicle fires, often where a vehicle has been abandoned. In recent years, abandonment has been an increasing problem as the cost of safe disposal has fallen on the last owner, due to a drop in scrap metal prices.

I fully understand that the proposed approach is deliberately inflexible, but in the future there may be compelling reasons for different targets, for instance, on false alarms. More immediately, some fire and rescue authorities are already setting local public service agreement targets, which include the reduction of serious injuries in order to recognise this important category of the harm caused by fire, and to motivate continued effort where fire deaths are already very low. We would want to introduce a national target on the reduction of serious injuries as soon as reliable data can be established.

There is nothing between us about what we want to do here, but we do not think that it should be set out as proposed on the face of the Bill. I hope that I have given the noble Baroness sufficient reason to explain why we are using different timescales for the targets that have been set.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. It is fair to say that what underlies this is a degree of criticism that targets which looked extremely testing at the time when they were first set—a reduction between 1994 and 1999 and then up to 2004—have suddenly slipped another six years. Our amendment was designed clearly to smarten up those targets in relation to both fire deaths and incidents of arson, and to try to ensure that they were met.

I hear what the Minister has said about the figures and the arrangements under the public service agreements. I hope that they will achieve what has been set out, but this demonstrates a real concern about targets and the dates set. If people think that they are going to achieve a target in 2004 but it does not happen because the date has slipped for another five or six years, that is not much of an incentive to try to achieve it in the first place. If targets are set, they must be real targets within a firm timescale.

However, it is clear that there has been movement on the issue, which ultimately is what we all want: everyone wants to see a reduction in fire deaths and certainly in incidents of arson. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 13 [Reinforcement schemes]:

moved Amendment No. 26:

Page 7, line 34, leave out "other fire and rescue authorities" and insert "fire and rescue authorities for all areas which are contiguous with the area of the authority and may enter into a reinforcement scheme with any other fire and rescue authority"

My Lords, with this amendment we return to the issue of the criteria for the establishment of reinforcement schemes because it is our belief that the clause as currently drafted is far too woolly. The aim of our amendment is to tighten up the definition of Clause 13(1). That means defining the authorities with which a fire authority is obliged to enter into reinforcement schemes. Common sense suggests that geographical contiguity would be the most appropriate criterion. However, beyond that there should be an ability—a permissive power—to enter into reinforcement schemes with other authorities where appropriate.

At present the Bill places an obligation on an authority to enter into such a scheme with potentially any, or even all, other fire authorities. That is unsatisfactory given the uncertainty surrounding the future configuration of fire authorities' boundaries. Fire authorities need to be sure that they have satisfied at least the minimum required of them by subsection (1).

It may be the case that mutual assistance schemes are functioning well between fire and rescue authorities now, but precisely because of the unknown future demands of national resilience and precisely because this did not have to be addressed in 1947, we should take this opportunity to leave no room for doubt as to what is necessary; that is, schemes with contiguous authorities, and what may be useful but not compulsory, such as schemes with non-contiguous authorities.

I do not think that this amendment will be a source of great disagreement. I thought that it would help to delineate more clearly the fundamental responsibilities from the voluntary ones. This may become more important if and when we have fewer but larger authorities. I beg to move.

My Lords, Amendment No. 26 would mean that fire and rescue authorities would be required to enter into a reinforcement scheme only with neighbouring authorities, although they would have discretion to extend such schemes to other authorities. At this point I shall plead history.

As the noble Baroness understands, Clause 13 re-enacts the existing provisions of the Fire Services Act 1947 requiring fire authorities to enter into reinforcement schemes with other authorities and simply extends them to apply to their new core duties under the Bill. As such, we are not sure why the noble Baroness really wants to limit the requirement for fire and rescue authorities to co-operate in this way. While it is true that the 1947 Act does not specifically require cross-border mutual assistance, such schemes are already in place between adjacent fire and rescue authorities and are integral to the day-to-day operational effectiveness of the fire and rescue service.

One of the reasons for including the new core duties in the schemes was to make it easier for fire and rescue authorities to participate in a national mutual aid agreement for non-fire emergencies as well as providing simple cross-boundary assistance between authorities in the event of a fire. We feel it is important that fire and rescue authorities work together in this way in order to improve our national resilience to terrorist attack and natural disaster. Removing any requirement for fire and rescue authorities to enter into reinforcement schemes with authorities other than their immediate neighbours would not provide the necessary resilience in the event of an emergency.

Fire and rescue authorities are in the process of signing a national mutual aid agreement to cover emergencies such as the increased terrorist threat, but the development of such an agreement has been hindered by concerns that participating in such an agreement could create a conflict with their local duties. Limiting the requirement for a fire and rescue authority to enter into a mutual reinforcement scheme only with neighbouring authorities, and leaving it entirely voluntary whether they extend such schemes to other authorities, will not provide the solid statutory base they need in order to remove such concerns. This could endanger the arrangements under Clause 9 for ensuring cover for those authorities responding to an emergency outside their areas.

We do not want to be prescriptive. We want to ensure that the authorities are under a duty to enter into a wider scheme rather than a simple cross-border one. This is for resilience purposes. It will be entirely up to the authorities to decide how wide such schemes should be, based on operational need. This matter should be left to the individual fire authorities, which have hands-on experience on a daily basis.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that clear reply. It is interesting that Clause 13 states that:

"A fire and rescue authority must, so far as practicable, enter into a reinforcement scheme".

A "practical" arrangement may very well be—and probably always will be—with the authority next door. The best starting place would seem to be with the authorities abutting a particular fire and rescue authority's area. Of course, there may now be more than one abutting authority, and probably at least two.

Indeed, making such arrangements on a "must" basis would absorb nearly all the material and time of a fire authority. It would therefore be better for it to have a "conditional" reason for entering into arrangements with other fire authorities. In other words, you have a responsibility to start with the contiguous authorities; thereafter, if you have any time, money and so on left over, you would be entitled to go to other authorities. That is the purpose of the amendment.

However, I hear what the Minister says. For today, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 14 [Directions as to reinforcement schemes]:

moved Amendment No. 27:

Page 8, line 18, after "State" insert "or the National Assembly for Wales"

My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 27, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 28 to 31 and 57. Again, these amendments are brought forward at the instigation of the Welsh authorities; they are concerned about the position in regard to crossing the boundary between England and Wales. I assume that what the Minister said about the need for regional arrangements does not apply in this context.

The concern is whether the provisions in the Bill will work where one authority is in England, one is in Wales and the others are in one country or the other. There seem to be no powers of direction in the Bill to resolve cross-border situations. The central problem is that, as drafted, the wording of Clauses 14 and 17 seems to assume that the same person would be involved in dealing with all the fire and rescue authorities concerned.

Under Clause 60, references to the Secretary of State are to be read, in respect of Wales, as references to the National Assembly. So there is a quite clear and quite proper division of powers. The Welsh authorities ask your Lordships to assume a hypothetical case—which is not far removed from the case put to the House earlier by the Minister—involving, say, the North Wales fire authority and the Cheshire fire authority; not in this case the Staffordshire and Shropshire fire authorities. The Secretary of State could not issue a direction to the two fire authorities because he does not have the power to issue directions in Wales and, similarly, the Assembly could not issue a direction in England—but Clause 17 requires that any direction is issued to the two authorities.

It does not seem entirely clear whether an authority can ask the Secretary of State or the Assembly to act under Clause 14(1)(c) or Clause 17(2). It may be that, because of the way in which Clause 60 works, only Welsh authorities can ask the Assembly to act and only English authorities can go to the Secretary of State. The amendments therefore seek to make clear that a direction may be issued to one or more authorities and that any fire and rescue authority may ask the Secretary of State or the National Assembly to act.

These amendments may not be necessary to provide for such a situation. I hope the Minister will be able to assure us that they are not, or indicate a way forward. I beg to move.

My Lords, given the nature of the noble Baroness's speech in moving the amendment, I do not need to use the incredibly copious notes that I have; she has explained the position clearly. Superficially, it may look as though there is a problem, but we do not believe that there is.

I understand the reasoning behind the amendments but do not feel that, for example, the refusal of an English fire authority to enter into a reinforcement scheme with a Welsh authority warrants the intervention of respective governments. The same situation has existed between England and Scotland since the Scotland Act 1998 devolved the functions of the Secretary of State under the Fire Services Act 1947 to Scottish Ministers. Neither the Secretary of State nor Scottish Ministers have the power at the moment to direct authorities to make a reinforcement scheme involving both English and Scottish fire authorities.

However, this has not stopped authorities having such arrangements. For example, Cumbria has an agreement with the Dumfries and Galloway authority, while Northumberland has one with Lothian and the Borders. These are voluntary arrangements that have been entered into for operational reasons around the provision of a firefighting service rather than for wider national resilience reasons.

Given that there is no existing power of direction between cross-border authorities in Scotland and England, we are not convinced that the situation between Wales and England should be any different. In other words, the arrangement works—and has worked perfectly well—between Scotland and England. We have now got the experience and, therefore, we do not think that there should be any difference between England and Wales.

My Lords, it may be that relationships across the border are better than they are within the country, but the Minister's argument seems to be that there should not be any power of direction at all. Authorities obviously would be in the best situation and would carry on doing things in a commonsense way; they would not have to be directed.

In the happy world that the Minister has put before the House one would not need all this detail. I am not convinced about the technical aspects but shall not pursue the matter today; those who know more than me will read precisely what the Minister has said.

The noble Lord referred to his "copious" notes. If they provide a technical back-up to what he has said, perhaps he will write to me, put it on the record and share the information.

My Lords, I will do that.

My Lords, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 28 and 29 not moved.]

Clause 17 [Directions as to arrangements under section 16]:

[Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 not moved.]

Clause 19 [Charging]:

moved Amendment No. 32:

Page 9, line 34, leave out subsection (1) and insert—

"(1) Subject to the following provisions, a fire and rescue authority may charge a person providing a service to him if—

(a) the authority is authorised, but not required, by an enactment to provide the service to him, and

(b) he has agreed to the provision."

My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will also speak to Amendments Nos. 33, 34 and 35. Amendment No. 32 would place fire authorities on a similar footing to other local authorities by placing the discretion for charging in the hands of the relevant fire authority. In Committee, the Minister gave a lengthy response about why the amendment would run into problems. I will tackle one of those arguments because, on reflection, it does not seem so compelling.

The first caveat that the Minister outlined was that the amendment would restrict the services for which the authorities could charge to those that they are not obliged to provide. He said that the amendment would be difficult because, in practice, authorities respond to a fairly large range of requests. However, as the Minister said, the rules of the game have changed so that responses to non-fire incidents have become part of their core functions. Therefore, we would concur that they should not charge for such call-outs. Also, subsection (5)(b) allows them to charge nothing, should they so wish.

The second caveat, which I agree may be problematic, is the need to have express consent from the person to be charged. I recognise that there are various pitfalls that could crop up around the way that this amendment is drafted. However, in most situations, the question of charging arises precisely because a core function is not involved. Because the situation is not deemed to be an emergency in which life or property is in danger, there should be enough time to seek consent.

Amendment No. 33 is designed to bring greater openness, clarity and transparency to the actual process of charging. I disagree with the Minister that the amendment would constrain an authority's ability to exercise its discretion appropriately. The wording of the amendment is helpful. It states:

"a list which specifies the amounts the authority will charge in specific circumstances".

That implies that the list cannot be exhaustive because it is impossible to list all specific circumstances. However, it can usefully list those that are found to recur, which would presumably help those who may be charged. I do not see why the list cannot be couched in language that alerts people to the nature of a charging regime and that inherently involves discretion and consequent variation in charges. The Government have looked at the amendment and tried to count up all the possible things that could go wrong rather than using a little initiative to see the benefit of what could be a very helpful amendment.

On Amendment No. 34, I record my gratitude to the Minister for his helpful letter regarding trading by fire authorities. I am glad that the Government recognise that, where authorities have been charging with an element of profit, they have been acting in good faith. However, although I recognise the arguments concerning the difference between charging and trading, I am concerned that the Government are still ultimately stifling innovation and alternative sources of funding among fire authorities, as well as creating an unfair system that restricts the capacity of certain authorities to charge—compared with the entrepreneurs of Essex to whom I referred earlier. We should remember that moneys gained from charging are ploughed straight back into existing budgets, helping many severely stretched budgets.

Amendment No. 35 is simply designed to increase the breadth of consultation that the Secretary of State must undertake before granting any powers of charging, especially to the groups that will be most affected. Unlike the Minister, I do not think that that means the whole country. The Minister promised in Committee to send me a list of consultees, but I have not received it. Perhaps that is my fault. I do not think that this minor amendment is too onerous. I beg to move.

My Lords, this group of amendments deals with charging, which I know is a sensitive issue. Taken together they would constrain charging. Amendment No. 32 is phrased in the same terms as Section 93 of the Local Government Act 2003. We do not consider that Section 93 or a provision in similar terms would be a suitable substitute for the charging provisions that exist in Section 3 of the Fire Services Act 1947, which is why we have brought forward Clause 19.

The first effect of Amendment No. 32, as a mirror of Section 93, would be to restrict the services for which authorities can charge to those which they are not obliged to provide. At present, the only response that authorities are obliged to provide is to fire calls, although in practice they tend to respond to a range of requests. We have made provision in the Bill for that situation to change and have imposed additional response requirements on the service in respect of traffic accidents and other non-fire incidents.

Amendment No. 32 is also likely to have the possibly unintended effect of frustrating the provisions of Clause 19(4). The latter is designed to enable authorities to recover the cost of dealing with an incident from a responsible third party in circumstances where it may not be appropriate to seek to charge the person to whom the supply of the service was made.

Amendment No. 33 would require an authority to compile an exhaustive list of the circumstances in which it might seek to levy a charge that had been specified by order. It would also require an authority to specify the circumstances in which it would charge nothing for one of those services. That is an over-restrictive approach and one that might constrain an authority's ability to exercise its discretion appropriately.

We accept that noble Lords opposite wish to see some clear public statement by an authority, perhaps on an annual basis, about how it will go about determining a charge and possibly even what the charge might be in terms of an hourly rate. Some authorities already do that. I do not know what the entrepreneurs in Essex do. I know that they make a lot of money, but I do not know how they go about that. We would be quite happy to see such action by authorities become the norm. Indeed, we suggested in the consultation document some bases on which the charge may be calculated and we see no reason why an authority should not be open about the methodology that it has adopted. However, to require a detailed explanation of how and when the authority will exercise its inherent discretion is a burdensome approach, and we do not want to constrain that discretion.

Amendment No. 34 would remove from the Bill the requirement that the charges set by an authority do no more than recover the full annual cost of providing the service in question. The wording of Section 3 of the 1947 Act caused confusion among authorities about the extent of their powers. To claim that there was unanimity of opinion would be to ignore the evidence submitted by the fire and rescue authorities during the consultation exercise, the results of which will be published soon.

Greater clarity is needed and that is achieved by the clause as we have drafted it. However, we have no wish to create financial difficulties for authorities that have become accustomed, in good faith, to recovering a profit component on some of their activities. For that reason, we announced a concession in Grand Committee when we considered what was then Amendment No. 65. When an authority recovers an element of profit on a given service on or before 1 April this year, the concession will enable them to continue doing so for up to two years after the introduction of a freedoms and flexibilities package under the fire comprehensive performance assessment. That will be achieved by means of an order under Section 95 of the Local Government Act 2003 and will require authorities to conduct their trading activities through a company. Authorities will not be allowed to expand into new areas of trading under the concession, but may be allowed to do so if they achieve a favourable comprehensive performance assessment.

When an authority fails to achieve favourable assessments within two years, any trading order under this concession will be withdrawn. I wrote to noble Lords with further details of the concession following Grand Committee and will be happy to do so again.

Amendment No. 35 is unreasonably onerous, because it is very difficult to know how to draw the line at those people "likely" to be affected. As drafted, it could arguably require the Secretary of State to seek out and consult everyone in England, or anyone who might find themselves requiring the assistance of the fire service while in England, on the terms of any order he proposed to make. That is excessive. The requirement to consult that is in the Bill is in terms that are tried and tested.

The Government published a consultation document on our proposals for the first order in February and delivered it to a wide range of consultees. There was considerable media interest in the document, so many members of the public were aware of its existence. However, we have received less than 50 responses in total to the consultation. Of those, none was from members of the public.

It is also disappointing to note that only 25 of the 47 fire and rescue authorities in England considered this matter to be worthy of their comment. We expect to publish an analysis of the responses during August—this will necessarily be done during the Recess.

We have made it clear that any proposal to expand the scope of the charging regime, as detailed in the February document, would be the subject of a fresh consultation. That might, of course, make the other 22 fire and rescue authorities wake up to something that affects them.

I hope that I have given a fairly considered response to each of the amendments. As I say, the results of the consultation exercise will be published and, if need be, we will go through a further one later this year.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I still think that there is little to be desired from the whole process of charging and consultation. None of us wants to charge for services that should be supplied to the public, but there are elements that could help the fire service when it provides services for which the public would not mind paying. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that the fire authorities should publish that, and I hope that the Government will encourage it. It would clarify the position on charging as far as the public were concerned.

We thanked the Minister for his concession of at least two years for authorities that were doing things that made a profit and helped their budgets. Obviously, if they lost that profit, the taxpayer would have to replenish the budget, which is surely not desirable.

There needs to be absolute clarity about charging and trading. We will study the Minister's answers, and in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 33 to 35 not moved.]

My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned. In moving the Motion, I suggest that the Report stage begin again not before 8.33 p.m.

Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.