Definition of emergency
14. The term emergency is defined twice in the bill,
at the beginning of each part. The definitions are virtually identical
in substance, the principal distinction being that Part I applies
only to England and Wales, whereas Part II applies to the United
Kingdom as a whole. We will treat them as a single definition.
An emergency is "an event or situation which presents a serious
threat" to human welfare, the environment, political economic
or administrative stability, or the security of the UK or part
of it. It "includes a wide range of possible events or circumstances."[12]
The term "serious threat" is not defined.
15. The Government's current guidance on civil contingency
planning is the publication Dealing with Disaster, a revised
version of which was published on the same day as the draft bill.
That document uses the term 'major emergency' which it defines
as—
Any event or circumstance (happening with or without
warning) that causes or threatens death or injury, disruption
to the community, or damage to property or to the environment
on such a scale that the effects cannot be dealt with by the emergency
services, local authorities and other organisations as part of
their normal day-to-day activities.[13]
16. The key difference is that the latter definition
requires that an event must be of a certain scale before it can
constitute a major emergency (ie to exceed the normal everyday
capacities of the responding agencies). For the purposes of Part
I of the bill, a Minister may make regulations which define in
more detail whether certain events or situations are or are not
to regarded as 'emergencies.' Since Part I deals with planning
against the possibility of emergencies, the absence of a scale
threshold, while potentially inconvenient and unhelpful to the
bodies on which duties are to be placed, may not otherwise be
a serious matter.
17. For Part II, however, no equivalent regulation-making
power is included. As a consequence there are no statutory provisions
relating to scale. Given that this is a bill which allows Ministers
to declare a state of emergency this is a matter of some concern.
We discuss this issue in more detail below (see paragraphs 63-64).
18. As we have noted, Part I of the bill extends
only to England and Wales, whereas Part II extends to the UK
as a whole. The differences in the definitions of emergency in
each part are intended to reflect this. Oddly, however, the National
Assembly for Wales is explicitly referred to only in the Part
II definition. And on a more parochial note, neither definition
refers explicitly to Parliament, although not only the National
Assembly but also the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland
Assembly are included in the Part II definition. In fact, it is
not clear to us whether the United Kingdom Parliament is included
in either definition. We recommend that the Joint Committee
clarify this point.
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