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Standing Committee G
Tuesday 10 February 2004
(Afternoon)
[Sir Nicholas Winterton in the Chair]
2.30 pm
The Chairman: I know that this afternoon's sitting will be useful and that we will make good progress.
Mr. Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con) rose—
The Chairman: Before we move on, I want to point out that that was not an expectation, but an instruction. Although the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) was in the middle of an intervention, there is now a point of order from the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond).
Mr. Hammond: On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. I hear your instruction, but good progress, like many things, is open to various definitions. At the start of this morning's sitting the Minister surprised me by referring to a letter and documents that he had circulated to all members of the Committee, and I indicated that I had not received them. I have checked with my office and the document was e-mailed to me at 10.27 am by a civil servant from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister who would probably prefer to remain nameless. Therefore, I had not had a chance to scrutinise the documents and I assume that as the names of other members of the Committee were on the ''send'' list, they were in a similar position. Will the Minister ensure that other documents required during the Committee are circulated in time for hon. Members to see them before the sitting starts?
The Chairman: I can only say that it is not a matter for me, so it is not really a point of order. I am sure that the Minister will have heard the hon. Gentleman and will provide an explanation.
The Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire (Mr. Nick Raynsford): Further to that point of order, Sir Nicholas. I hope that that did not apply to every member of the Committee. When I spoke to you yesterday evening, Sir Nicholas, in the Programming Sub-Committee, I said that I had addressed the missive to your colleague, Mr. O'Hara, who I assumed would Chair the sitting, and I assumed that the letter was sent out. I will make inquiries with my officials, but it was my understanding that the letter was issued yesterday to reach the Chair and the members of the Committee well in advance of today's sittings. However, I will certainly investigate that.
The Chairman: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. I do not wish the matter to be protracted. I am sure that the Minister will try to ensure that every
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member of the Committee receives relevant documents relating to the Bill or to a particular sitting of the Committee. I now ask the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green to complete his intervention from earlier today.Clause 2
Power to create combined fire and rescue authorities
Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 9, in
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments: No. 1, in
No. 12, in
clause 2, page 2, line 39, leave out subsection (9).
No. 14, in
clause 2, page 3, line 1, leave out subsection (10).
Mr. Stephen McCabe (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab): Herein lies what we might describe as a continuity problem. I was suggesting before the interval that we were witnessing something fascinating. The benefit of a three-hour interval means that I have had an opportunity to reflect on my use of hyperbole. None the less, I was suggesting to the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) that we are witnessing something interesting in terms of his views, and those of his Liberal Democrat colleague the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh), on regional and localised participation. That is confused, because they do not differentiate between primary and secondary mandate in some situations.
The real point that I want to put to the hon. Member for Teignbridge is that the Bill is about modernising the fire and rescue services. Has he had letters from constituents saying that when they are in need of the service, they are concerned about the administrative organisation under which the service is provided? If so, how many? Surely we are trying to provide a modern fire service that is fit for use, effective and efficient. That is the meat of the Bill, and that is what the Committee should be concerned with.
Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge) (LD): I am glad that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green has had a good three hours to complete his intervention: it must go down as one of the longest interventions.
The Chairman: Order. I am the judge of the length of interventions. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was not showing any disrespect to the Chair.
Richard Younger-Ross: Heaven forbid, Sir Nicholas.
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My response will not be as long. The hon. Gentleman referred to regional policy and asked what concerns have been expressed to me. I cannot give him a count, but a number of concerns have been expressed to me. Even in the context of this debate, I have heard from constituents who are concerned about regionalisation, and a region that stretches all the way from Land's End almost to the west midlands.
Mr. Hammond: It just occurs to me to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he thought it rather odd that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green was intervening in the way that he did in order to suggest that our constituents are not interested in the mechanisms behind public service delivery. I was going to invite the hon. Member for Teignbridge to ask the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green why he thinks that so many of his colleagues felt compelled to vote against their own Government on the issue of foundation hospitals, which is surely an issue of the organisational structure—
The Chairman: Order. I am extremely liberal, but I suggest that the hon. Gentleman does not respond to that question.
Richard Younger-Ross: Thank you, Sir Nicholas. I hear exactly what you say and I shall follow your instructions.
The issues greatly concern my constituents. At lunchtime, I was dealing with an e-mail from a lady in Newton Abbot about regional assemblies. She thought that she had heard a BBC reporter saying that we already had regional assemblies, and I had to write back to her to say, ''I know that the Government can spin and move things fast, but even the ODPM cannot move that fast to create those bodies.'' There is a genuine concern on the matter.
Mr. Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con): Just for the purposes of accuracy, with regard to the communications between the hon. Gentleman and his constituent, he should be aware that we do have a regional assembly but it is unelected: it sits in Taunton with 80 employees.
Richard Younger-Ross: I am aware of the body that already exists, but my constituent thought that the reporter was referring to the elected regional assembly rather than what was the regional conference and all the other existing bodies.
Mr. Adrian Flook (Taunton) (Con): The secretariat is based, sadly, in Taunton; the unelected regional assembly, sadly, meets in Exeter.
Richard Younger-Ross: I am amazed that the hon. Gentleman is sad that jobs have been created in his constituency.
Mr. Flook: At taxpayers' expense.
Richard Younger-Ross: It is still local employment. I suspect that you, Sir Nicholas, will soon stop us wandering away from the subject of the clause. I
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appreciate that we want to make progress this afternoon, so I shall not delay the Committee any longer on this clause.
Mr. Raynsford rose—
The Chairman: I almost put the question, but I now call the Minister.
Mr. Raynsford: I was remiss, Sir Nicholas, in not rising quickly enough.
Mr. Hammond: The Minister was asleep.
Mr. Raynsford: I was not asleep. I was reading a relevant section from a fire and rescue document. I shall come to the point under consideration.
Unlike amendment No. 4, which we debated before lunch, amendment No. 9 would not stop the combination of fire and rescue authorities where it would promote the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the fire authorities concerned. However, it would stop any move to a regional structure for specific public safety reasons—above all, civil resilience. As I said about amendment No. 4, we must deal with the possibility that a regional management board might not succeed, perhaps because of differences between the authorities involved in reaching agreement on a vital matter of public safety, such as the establishment of a regional control room. In such circumstances, we would need to take action to create a region-wide authority to ensure the necessary resilience in the interests of public safety.
Mr. Hammond: The Minister said that the deletion of subsection (2)(b) could prevent the creation of a combined fire authority for reasons of enhancing public safety. I thought he said earlier that the term ''effectiveness'', which is used in subsection (2)(a) embraced public safety. I would therefore have thought that subsection (2)(a) could be used for those very purposes. Is the Minister now saying that effectiveness does not embrace the concept of public safety?
Mr. Raynsford: No, I am not. I made it clear that my interpretation of effectiveness is, if I can remember my words precisely, that I could not imagine an effective fire service that did not ensure the enhancement of public safety. However, I believe that it is necessary to have the alternative definition to cope with circumstances such as those for dealing with emergencies or resilience needs that, sadly, are increasingly in the forefront of our minds and for which we have to plan on a sensible basis.
I made it clear that the only circumstances in which we envisage clause 2(2)(b) being used were those in which there was a failure by authorities to work together to achieve the results through the regional management boards. It is a fail-safe option, but it is necessary to protect public safety. Amendment No. 9 would prevent that, and I cannot support it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
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