 House of Commons |
Session 2003 - 04 Publications on the internet Standing Committee Debates Fire and Rescue Services Bill |
| Fire and Rescue Services Bill
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| Proceedings | Time for conclusion of proceedings |
| Clauses 1 to 24 | 6 pm at the 6th sitting |
| Clauses 25 to 36 | 5 pm at the 8th sitting |
| Clauses 37 to 51, Schedule 1, Clause 52, Schedule 2, Clauses 53 to 61, New Clauses, New Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill. | 5 pm at the 10th sitting [Mr. Raynsford] |
Clause 13
Reinforcement schemes
Question proposed, [12 February], That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con): As I recall, I had just sat down and was expecting to hear the Under-Secretary's words of wisdom in response. I have had to wait on tenterhooks for 12 days; I hope that the hon. Gentleman's words will be even wiser with the benefit of maturing over that time.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Phil Hope): The words have matured and even fermented over the last week or so.
The clause largely re-enacts the existing provisions of the Fire Services Act 1947 which require fire and rescue authorities to enter into reinforcement schemes with other authorities, and it extends those provisions to the new core duties under the Bill. That will allow the authorities to provide mutual assistance in discharging the new duties and to notify the Secretary of State when they have done so. It also allows authorities to apportion between them the costs incurred in participating in a reinforcement scheme.
Reinforcement 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. As such schemes are essentially administrative in nature, authorities will not have to revise all their existing schemes as a result of the Bill. Instead, those schemes will simply continue to have effect under the new provisions in the clause.
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Including the new core duties in such schemes will make it much easier for fire and rescue authorities to participate in wider reinforcement schemes, including on a regional and national scale in the event of a major incident, as well as providing simple cross-boundary assistance between authorities in the event of a fire. That wider approach to reinforcement will ensure cover for an authority responding to an emergency outside its area.The fire and rescue service is trying to set up a national reinforcement scheme for emergencies. However, the existing legislation does not provide a solid statutory base for such a scheme, creating concern among fire and rescue authorities that participation in such a scheme will conflict with their local duties. The clause will allay those concerns by providing them with the statutory base that they need. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 14
Directions as to reinforcement schemes
Mr. Hammond: I beg to move amendment No. 35, in
- clause 14, page 7, line 34, after 'may', insert 'by order'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 36, in
- clause 14, page 7, line 35, leave out 'direction' and insert 'order'.
- clause 17, page 8, line 24, after 'may', insert 'by order'.
- clause 17, page 8, line 26, leave out 'direction' and insert 'order'.
- clause 17, page 8, line 29, leave out 'give a direction' and insert 'make an order'.
- clause 17, page 8, line 35, leave out 'give a direction' and insert 'make an order'.
Clause 14 runs directly on, as one would expect, from clause 13. It gives the Secretary of State the power to give directions on the reinforcement schemes about which the Under-Secretary has been speaking. Some of the amendments deal with other clauses, but they have broadly the same effect.
The clause deals with the Secretary of State's power to intervene to make an order on reinforcement in a situation where, by implication, authorities cannot agree to work together. That does not strike us as a terribly auspicious basis on which to build co-operation and collaboration. I am always wary of either voluntary arrangements that are made with the albatross of the Secretary of State's intervention hanging over them or compulsory arrangements to promote co-operation. Co-operation must come from
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the bottom up and cannot be imposed from the top down. However, we accept that the Secretary of State may need a reserve power to require an authority to enter into a reinforcement scheme, to guard against authorities playing an awkward game, which hopefully is unlikely. I hope that the Under-Secretary can assure us that he would not expect such a power to be used routinely and that the Government acknowledge that genuine co-operation and collaboration cannot be imposed by order from Whitehall.The circumstances in which such an order might be made will invariably involve the Secretary of State taking the side of one authority against another. Although I may be wrong, it seems unlikely that the Secretary of State will order a reinforcement scheme between two authorities that are both reluctant to enter into it. A much more likely scenario is that one authority refuses to co-operate with a scheme that another authority is seeking to introduce, which perhaps involves all the authorities on its borders. Where the Secretary of State intervenes to take the part of one supposedly independent body against another, there needs to be an adjudication process to review and scrutinise what he is proposing.
Initially, I wondered whether there should be a compulsory inquiry along the lines of the permissive power in subsection (3). On reflection, however, I decided that that would not be the most appropriate way to deal with the circumstances that we are considering. With the amendment, and with others relating to clauses 15 and 17, we have therefore sought to provide for the Secretary of State to make the direction by an order that could theoretically be subject to parliamentary scrutiny in a short debate in a Standing Committee. That seems to be a light touch and is a perfectly reasonable and sensible way to proceed. If the order were uncontroversial, it would not necessarily be debated, but if there were an element of controversy and the authority that was being coerced, if I can use that term, wished to raise objections—[Interruption.] I am glad to see that the attention of the Minister of State—the Minister with responsibility for UK resilience—has been drawn to the knocking sound above the ceiling. No doubt he is alert to the risks that might be lurking there and will draw the Committee's attention to them if necessary.
If what the Government were proposing were sufficiently controversial for one of the fire authorities involved to enlist the support of Members of Parliament to scrutinise Ministers, the mechanism suggested in the amendment would be a sensible and light-touch way of allowing them to do so. We would have plenty of time to do what was needed without going over old ground, and we could hold a Standing Committee on a statutory instrument at 8.55 am before a Standing Committee on a Bill took place. Making directions the subject of an order would allow there to be scrutiny, albeit not much, of the exercise of the significant power to override the right of a locally
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accountable authority to reject arrangements, or to enter into arrangements that it finds appropriate for its circumstances.As I said earlier, amendments Nos. 40, 41, 42 and 43 deal with the same matters in clause 17, and would make the directions that the Secretary of State can give subject to statutory instrument and therefore debatable in Parliament. I hope that the Under-Secretary agrees that that would provide the degree of scrutiny that these matters need: something rather less than a full inquiry, but more than simply an instruction issued from Whitehall without any necessity for external scrutiny.
Dr. John Pugh (Southport) (LD): I am sympathetic to what the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) has said—any attempt to prevent local authorities being bullied by the Secretary of State is to be commended—but I am a little unclear as to what his amendments would achieve. As I understand it, one effect would be almost to incorporate Standing Committees into the Executive as courts of appeal, rather than having them look at the general principles of legislation or a particular order made by the Government. It slightly worries me that they could function on a regular basis as some kind of additional arm of the Executive, and it would help if the hon. Gentleman clarified that. It is not clear to me whether, if the proposals were incorporated in the Bill, we, as a statutory instrument Committee looking at orders made under this legislation, would be doing quite the same kind of work as we normally do.
Mr. Hammond: As I understand it, if these directions were made by order, they would be laid in the normal way as a draft statutory instrument, they could be prayed against by any Member of this House and, if sufficient pressure were applied, a debate would no doubt be allowed. They would be dealt with in exactly the same way as all other secondary legislation coming before the House. I fail to see how that would in any way become part of the process of the Executive. Scrutinising the Executive is a core function of Parliament. I appreciate that that scrutiny has become so diluted it is perhaps difficult to spot it in action, but it is, after all, at least theoretically, our principal function. The amendments simply try to extend the power of Parliament to scrutinise what the Executive are doing.
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