Civil emergency reforms outlined
The Government has outlined measures to strengthen response powers in the event of civil emergencies such as a terrorist attack.
The draft Civil Contingencies Bill aims to deliver a single framework for civil protection in the UK as well as providing a new regional civil protection tier.
It also seeks to modernise the legislative tools available to government to deal with the most serious emergencies.
The proposed powers would extent to cover emergency situations which threaten human life, human illness or injury, homelessness, destruction of property, disruption of vital supplies of essential commodities, as well as disruption of an electronic or other means of communication.
Events which threaten the normal working of financial and political institutions or damage the environment would also be covered by the terms of the draft bill.
Douglas Alexander, Minister for the Cabinet Office, insisted that the Government was committed to ensuring that the best possible civil
contingency framework existed in the UK.
“The draft Bill represents a single statutory framework for civil protection for the UK”, he remarked. “It sets out clear responsibilities from front line responders through the regions and to central government departments.’
The Bill builds on the 1920 Emergency Powers Act and its publication is widely believed to be exceedingly timely.
The head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, warned on Tuesday that it was ‘only a matter of time’ before there was an al-Qaeda terrorist attack on a Western city.
However, Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin has accused the Government of procrastination in acting to shore up Britain’s home security, insisting its ‘Dad’s Army’ approach would prove fruitless.
Mr. Letwin called for a separate ministerial post to be establishment to deal with terrorist threats on home soil.
The idea is modelled on the United States where there is a Director of Homeland Security to coordinate and response to any terrorist or emergency threats within America.
Conservative local government spokesman Phil Hammond told Sky News: ‘Something needs to be done. It is nearly two years since the September 11th attacks in the United States and there is a very clear need for the Government to put in place arrangements for a senior political figure to be the public face of emergency planning and control of the anti terrorist agenda across Whitehall.’
‘It is clearly not acceptable at a time when the United States has taken a grip on this issue for us here in Britain to still have the kind of fragmented muddling through approach which just won’t do in the face of the kind of threat we are looking at now.’
Other concerns rest on whether the proposals have been properly funded.
For its part, the Government insists that increased funds have been made available for civil contingency planning since the terror attacks on the United States nearly two years ago.
“In fact we provide £90 million a year specifically for emergency planning, but that is only a very small part of the wide range of funding that’s actually available,” Mr Alexander said in a BBC radio interview this morning.
“After September 11th, there was a £330 million package in the 2003 budget settlement, which provides funding over three years for counter-terrorism projects on a wide range of work in this area.”
He added: “Since September 11th, the increase in money specifically for planning has been about 33% – it’s increased by a third.”
As to precisely what additional powers the Government would have in extreme emergencies, Mr. Alexander said there was a need to “modernise the legislative framework that exists for Government at the moment”.
“Previously we had the 1920’s legislation and we simply need to recognise the fact that the nature of emergencies can vary very widely in the modern day,” he said.
“In recent years we’ve seen foot and mouth, we’ve seen the fuel crisis and we’ve seen the threat of a terrorist incident and we need to make sure that the legislative framework in which this can be taken forward reflects that wider range of realities.”
A Parliamentary Joint Committee formed from members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords will undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposals,
