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Mr. Hammond: Will that smaller team be based in the ODPM?
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Phil Hope: Yes. It is, of course, an independent inspectorate, appointed by Her Majesty's commission, and its status will remain as it is now. I hope that, with those points of clarification and explanation, hon. Members will support clause 27.
Mr. Hammond: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for that explanation. I take it that he is telling the Committee that some employees of the inspectorate are likely to become employees of the Audit Commission, thus shrinking the inspectorate. Can he give us some indication of the numbers involved in the inspectorate and the intended reduction in staffing of the residual inspectorate that will be lodged in, but not part of, the ODPM? Can the hon. Gentleman also tell us something about cost, because I am concerned about the cost implications of duplication of function. I do not imagine that the same number of people will simply transfer from the fire service inspectorate to the Audit Commission. To be honest, I am surprised that only 25 per cent. of the work load of the fire service inspectorate is made up of inspecting fire authorities. One might think that inspecting would be rather more than a quarter of an inspectorate's work load, but perhaps that is a rather old-fashioned view on my part. To set the matter in context, perhaps he could tell us the overall cost of the fire service inspectorate.
I do not want to draw parallels with the Minister of State's negotiations on council tax, which are going on in parallel with the Committee's deliberations, but I emphasise that we must consider the absolute values involved and not just percentages and changes. If the fire service inspectorate budget is small, the questions that I am asking are of less significance than if it is large.
Phil Hope: I am glad that we are not going to drift into discussions of the hon. Gentleman's district council's council tax increase, which at 17.5 per cent. is wholly unacceptable given the level of grant that we have given that council. [Interruption.] I do not want to stray into that, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene, I am happy to accept the intervention.
Mr. Hammond rose—
The Chairman: Order. I hope that the Opposition spokesman is not going to stray down the path of council tax increases.
Mr. Hammond: I was merely going to question the Under-Secretary's definitions of terms by asking him whether he thinks that 1.7 per cent. is a large increase.
Phil Hope: I am very wary that if I stray into the debate that the hon. Gentleman would like to take me into, you will rule me out of order, Sir Nicholas. I will endeavour not to berate Runnymede again.
I hope that I have explained about avoiding duplication in the roles of the inspectorate and the Audit Commission. I regret that I cannot provide the hon. Gentleman with the details of the costs of the inspectorate or the other details he asked for, but they are a matter of public record, so I can send him those details after the sitting. The changing role of the inspectorate and the developing role of the Audit Commission are both sensitive matters. It is important
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to get them right and it would be wrong of us to rush. We must take into account the views of both the inspectorate and the Audit Commission.
The hon. Gentleman suggested a straightforward transfer, but the way in which the inspectorate will change its role and size and the way in which the Audit Commission will develop its role and functions will be a matter for more negotiation than would be found in his approach. For example, we are considering secondments and other such restructuring, rather than the simple transfer that he suggests. We want the Audit Commission to carry out the performance inspection role well, drawing upon a range of expertise, some of which is located with the inspectorate. We want the inspectorate in its refocused role to carry out that function with much greater efficiency and effectiveness, so that we have the independent advice that we need when formulating policy and making decisions.
Although I cannot offer the hon. Gentleman the details he requires now, I shall be happy to send him details of the current overall cost of the inspectorate. I will not be able to tell him the future cost, which will be discussed in the coming months. I hope that I have made clear our intentions regarding the roles of the inspectorate and the Audit Commission. A process of transition must be undertaken, but we are mindful of the concerns that he has voiced, and we have responded positively in the Bill to allay them.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 27 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 28
Equipment, facilities, services and organisations
Mr. Hammond: I beg to move amendment No. 102, in
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 184, in
clause 28, page 12, line 18, leave out subsection (2).
Amendment No. 103, in
Amendment No. 185, in
clause 28, page 12, line 25, leave out subsection (3)(b).
Amendment No. 186, in
clause 28, page 12, line 30, leave out subsection (4)(b).
Mr. Hammond: The clause allows the Secretary of State to provide equipment and services to fire authorities, to require their use and to require them to pay for their use. One wonders whether a referral to the fair competition authorities might arise out of the activities of the ODPM.
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Mr. Raynsford: The charity commissioners might be more appropriate.
Mr. Hammond: Well, that is a very interesting observation and it should not necessarily be taken as a light-hearted comment. One question to explore is the basis upon which the ODPM will charge for those services: either it will be purely cost recovery, or something more will be involved. The provisions have the potential to erode the autonomy of the fire and rescue authorities. The 1947 Act does not require fire authorities to use equipment; the Secretary of State can act as the central procurement agent, but there are no powers to require authorities to use and pay for such equipment.
10 am
Our debate will give the Under-Secretary the opportunity to reassure us that use of the powers in the clause will not result in disaster. As is often the case, the powers are drafted extremely widely. Our job is to consider what is in the Bill. It is interesting to hear Ministers say that it does not do this, or it does not erode autonomy, but in a lucid moment the Under-Secretary might agree that it is capable of extreme erosion of the autonomy of the fire and rescue services—[Interruption.] Well, it is capable of that. His job this morning is to reassure us that he has no intention of using it in that way, and I hope that he will be able to do so.
I am sure that the Under-Secretary will refer to resilience—much of our debate has been conducted in those terms. He will tell us that expensive equipment may need to be bought but that it is likely to be used very rarely or, if we are lucky, never. I do not disagree with the concept of central procurement, holding and maintenance of such equipment. The hon. Gentleman indicated that not only the capital cost, but the cost of maintaining and running the equipment for dealing with such new risks is likely to be financed by the ODPM. Concerns about charging do not arise in relation to such equipment. To some extent, I accept the Minister of State's comments about the charity commissioners. The ODPM will procure equipment, make it available and not recover its cost.
Concern arises when we come to the provisions in the clause that allow the Secretary of State to charge for the use of the equipment that he provides. The Under-Secretary might tell us that he has no intention of providing any equipment for which a charge will be made. I shall return to the details of that—I suspect that we shall find that we are talking about control rooms and radio equipment more than anything else. The Under-Secretary must accept that we are considering a clause that makes it possible for the Secretary of State to own the entire fleet of fire appliances, for example, and to require fire authorities to use his fire appliances at a charge determined by him. That is possible under the Bill, so we need to know just how far the Secretary of State intends to go in using his powers to become, in effect, the provider of equipment and services for all the nominally independent fire and rescue services throughout the country.
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Amendment No. 102 is designed to focus the Secretary of State's mind on his stated public safety agenda. The clause constrains him to central procurement and provision of equipment only when that is in the interest of
''promoting . . . economy, efficiency and effectiveness''.
The amendment would substitute a reference to public safety. That would cover the circumstances in which the Secretary of State needs to provide equipment to deal with the threat of an unconventional terrorist attack, for example, because it would clearly be in the interest of public safety to have such equipment purchased and made available. It is not obvious to me that the provision of routine fire appliances, purchased by the Secretary of State and made available to authorities who are required to use them, is in the interest of public safety. The Secretary of State may think that it is in the interest of economy, efficiency and effectiveness for him to decide everything, but that is a matter of judgment.
We now come to the nub of whether the service is to be a local service, or a nationally or regionally dictated one. I hope that the Under-Secretary will give careful consideration to the suggestion that the test for the Secretary of State entering into such a scheme should be that it promotes public safety, rather than just economy, efficiency and effectiveness. The power that the Secretary of State will have under the clause is a major intervention in the autonomy of authorities. It can be justified on the grounds of public safety, but it is the authority's council tax payers, not the Secretary of State, who should be driving the agenda of efficiency and effectiveness. We are talking about saving money rather than saving lives.
It would be different if the Secretary of State did not have the power to require authorities to use the equipment and require them to pay for it, presumably at charges that he will set. If the provisions simply replicate the 1947 Act powers allowing the Secretary of State to procure equipment using his aggregating capability to give economies of scale, and then to offer that equipment to fire authorities that want to take advantage of his purchasing power, that would be absolutely unexceptional. However, we have to consider the at least theoretical scenario of the Secretary of State in one of his more Delboy-ish moments going out and buying a job lot of equipment that he finds no one wants, which he requires local authorities to use.
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