I beg to move amendment No. 58, in

clause 10, page 6, line 20, after 'direction', insert

'in circumstances specified in the direction'.

I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote. It was intended to be part of a group of amendments, the remainder of which have not been selected. That leaves amendment No. 58 somewhat stranded and isolated. The intention was to change in a fundamental way what clause 10 aims to do. I now understand that it would be more appropriate to move a new clause and to delete clause 10 on Report, rather than try to amend it in such a radical way. However, I should like the opportunity to explain in a clause stand part debate our concerns and the direction in which we will want to go when we propose a new clause on Report.

Does any hon. Member wish to speak to the amendment?

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10 gives the Secretary of State powers to direct an individual fire or incident. That is an astonishing power. I do not imagine that the Secretary of State envisages exercising it personally. I would certainly have some reservations about the Deputy Prime Minister sitting in the basement of 26 Whitehall pushing little wooden flags around a plan of the English regions. If we moved in that direction, I would have an even greater concern about the Secretary of State for Health taking to himself the power to intervene in individual operations.

Order. The hon. Gentleman might also be concerned about the Chairman calling him to order.

I constantly have that concern, Mr. O'Hara, and I congratulate you on your swiftness. The usual tactic is to get in and out of the digression so quickly as to have moved on before alerting the Chairman.

We must understand that the Secretary of State will not personally exercise the powers; he will delegate them to somebody. So we need to understand more precisely what the Government have in mind. At the risk of being accused of paranoia—the Minister can tell me if I am wrong—I suspect that he will delegate the powers to a senior regional fire officer in each region who will exercise them on his behalf in respect of an individual fire or emergency scene.

The Minister will say that the power is needed only to deal with the most extreme emergencies. Again, I must ask him why the arrangements being put in place in the Civil Contingencies Bill are not adequate enough to deal with super-emergencies? It is my understanding that the purpose of that Bill is to deal with major incidents and to put in place an overarching command structure on the scale, and with the resources, required to deal with such emergencies.

Order. My understanding is that as the Civil Contingencies Bill has not yet reached Second Reading in the upper House, it is not in order for members of the Committee to discuss it. They may talk about the text, but not the Bill.

That presents me with a slight challenge, Mr. O'Hara, but as it happens I have a copy of the text.

What I have said also explains why the other amendments were not selected.

I am grateful for that clarification, Mr. O'Hara. It was indicated to me that the other amendments were not selected because they sought to impose a too radical change on the direction of the clause by undermining its purpose and that they were, in effect, wrecking amendments. Perhaps we can consider that another time.

I do not intend to discuss the Civil Contingencies Bill. I simply want to understand why the powers are necessary in this Bill, given that it is the Government's intention, in relation not only to the fire service but to all the other services that need to respond to a major emergency, to have an overarching set of provisions in another Bill. The Minister said that it was necessary, for reasons of symmetry, to have measures in the Fire and Rescue Services Bill that reflected those that might be contained in that other Bill, but I take it that Ministers do not intend to reform police Acts and other legislation merely to reflect the arrangements that might be made for civil contingencies. I cannot quite see the argument, so I should like to understand why the power needs to be duplicated in this Bill.

Opposition Members advocate an advance plan structure, not an ad hoc power of intervention in the name of the Secretary of State. We of course accept that a command structure needs to be in place to deal with the largest-scale emergencies and that there must be clear obligations on all responders to respond

appropriately. As far as I am concerned, however, that is what the other Bill is designed to do, and as far as I can tell, it will be perfectly satisfactory for its purpose.

Like me, most of the people to whom I have spoken do not relish the thought of a duplication possibly complicating the situation. The powers of direction of individual fire and emergency incidents that the Deputy Prime Minister is given in this Bill might conflict with, or cut across, the powers of the senior officer who is responsible under other legislation. We will not vote against the clause, but I will attempt to replace it on Report with a more structured clause that does the same thing, but which achieves that by preparation in advance rather than by giving the Secretary of State the power to intervene in the middle of the night. We all know that the Deputy Prime Minister's interventions in the middle of the night in respect of the fire and rescue service have not always been a great success.

I understand the hon. Gentleman's lack of certainty about the relationship between this Bill and the Civil Contingencies Bill. I shall be frank: when legislation was evolving, we considered that it might be appropriate for the emergency provisions to be covered entirely in the Civil Contingencies Bill. However, we concluded that it was right and proper to make a full statement on the role and responsibilities of fire and rescue authorities in this Bill. As the first such Bill for more than 50 years, it is appropriate for it to reflect the current expectations of the fire and rescue service. That is why we have the Fire and Rescue Services Bill but not a police Bill. The Civil Contingencies Bill has nothing to do with this Bill, but it is obviously important that their provisions dovetail.

The Civil Contingencies Bill covers a much wider range of circumstances than simply terrorist or catastrophic incidents, but the incidents covered by clause 10 are narrowly conceived. We are thinking only of major catastrophic incidents, such as a huge and devastating fire or a terrorist event on the scale of what happened in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.

Where does it say that?

The hon. Gentleman is always quick to jump up and ask questions before I have even been able to explain how we intend to use particular powers. If he can restrain himself for a moment, I hope to reassure him.

We are talking about major incidents, when the normal Cabinet Office briefing room procedures for dealing with serious incidents would inevitably be implemented. Ministerial responsibility would rest with the appropriate Secretary of State, while operational responsibility would rest with the relevant senior officers in the relevant services. That could be the area's chief police officer or, if it was simply a fire incident, a senior fire officer. It is important to recognise that the Secretary of State would have a potential and significant role and would want to make a statement to the House—I hope that

the hon. Gentleman is listening, because my words are chosen carefully—before exercising the powers in the Bill.

Those are the circumstances in which we envisage direction being used to deal with extreme emergencies, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that the powers will, we hope, be used only very occasionally, if ever. However, it would be irresponsible to fail to make provision for the kind of extreme emergency that we have, sadly, seen across the Atlantic in the past two and a half years and which may occur here. That is why we are making prudent and appropriate provision, although it will be used only in extreme circumstances. With that assurance, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be content for the clause to stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.