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Helen Jackson: I have some sympathy with the drift of the right hon. Gentleman's argument. I should have thought that when an emergency occurred, very few people got up in the morning thinking, "Today is the day I will volunteer and do some extra work." The nature of emergencies is that volunteers come from wherever, whenever and in whatever form that
 
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particular emergency requires. It is crucial to keep that openness and flexibility in the arrangements for which local authorities or other bodies are responsible.

Mr. Forth: The hon. Lady makes a good point, which raises the question of whether the creation of the EVR would attract people more than St. John Ambulance, the Red Cross or any of the other organisations mentioned in the debate already do. I am not convinced that they would flock to the EVR, without having offered themselves to one of the other bodies.

The other consideration—I make no apology for returning to the issue—is the cost element, which again has been rather glossed over. Inevitably, if we set up a new body, it will involve some sort of cost. We already have the statutory organisations—the firefighters and so on—and the excellent voluntary organisations working as they do. The EVR is to be created and interposed somewhere between them. It is not clear to me how that would be funded or whether we are in danger of diverting resources that might otherwise be focused on those other organisations. Those resources might be siphoned off to deal with the bureaucracy that would accompany the setting up of a new body.

All in all, I am somewhat sceptical about the approach. I can see what my hon. Friend the Member for Newark was trying to do, but I am far from being convinced that the new clause would deliver what is intended. I would rather look to an enhancement of the statutory bodies or to the volunteers to do more.

I was slightly disappointed by the letter that was read out by my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly). Voluntary bodies seem to think that they are unloved and neglected unless they are mentioned in a Bill or an Act. That strikes me as odd. I should have thought that the Red Cross, of all bodies, had sufficient history, standing, respect and pride that the contribution it made was reward enough. If we have reached the stage where such bodies do not feel that they are sufficiently valued unless they are mentioned in an Act, that is somewhat disappointing. I find that the least convincing argument for writing additional words into the Bill.

Mr. Brazier: My right hon. Friend has been generous in giving way. There may be a misunderstanding. The voluntary organisations are not seeking a mention of their own names in the Bill. They are concerned that there should be a statutory duty written into the Bill to consult them when the plans are drawn up. If they are to react effectively and be a full part of the process, it is essential that they should be consulted when the plans are being devised.

Mr. Forth: That may well be an argument to support some of the amendments, but it is no part of the argument that I have been making so far. We in this place reach rather readily for mandatory consultation, and I believe that the word "consultation" has been more than a little devalued over the past few years, the more examples of it I see. The Post Office is currently consulting on the simultaneous closure of five post offices in my constituency. I do not have any great faith in that process and I doubt very much whether it will alter the outcome one bit.

Mr. Swayne: My right hon. Friend evidently has little faith in the ability of the state to deliver on many of its
 
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functions. Would it therefore not be agreeable to him to include the voluntary sector much more in deliberations such as we are discussing, precisely because it is rather better at many of those roles than the state turns out to be?

Mr. Forth: What my hon. Friend says is true. The chemistry, so to speak, is extremely important. How far we are able to reflect that or enhance it in a Bill is another matter. I fear that setting up an EVR, which is the purpose of new clause 1, would not go very far in that direction, to put it mildly.

Mr. Bercow: My right hon. Friend is demonstrating once again that, by comparison with him, Victor Meldrew is the epitome of optimism at all times. My right hon. Friend was generally clear in the thrust of his argument, but I am a little perplexed, as was my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), I think, by my right hon. Friend's reference to the desirability of an enhancement of the existing statutory bodies. If that is his position, does it not clash somewhat with his general scepticism about the ability of the state to organise anything?

Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words. I was reflecting what I understand to be in the provisions of schedule 1. We have already had this debate and I would not want to return to it—at least, not at this stage. I will return to it at the slightest provocation on some other occasion. In that little aside I was trying to reflect the fact that we are already laying additional responsibilities upon the local authorities and other bodies, so we could look in that direction rather than setting up yet another new organisation, which could cloud the relationships and the responsibilities of both the statutory and voluntary sectors.

In short, we must hear quite a bit more from my hon. Friend the Member for Newark about exactly how the EVR would add value to the exercise that we are contemplating before I would be prepared to give it my support.

Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South) (LD): If they were honest, many hon. Member would have more than a little sympathy with the views of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). Somebody had to put the other side of the argument and to challenge us to define what we want to happen.

The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) described the situation in Spain after the Madrid bombings. The difference is that in a country the size of Spain, the Red Cross is but one of three organisations that would claim to have such expertise. The authorities in Spain learned more than 20 years ago that they had to break down the plethora of organisations into designated, co-ordinated groups that could respond to certain dilemmas faced by the civil community.

The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is right to say that if we accept the proposition tonight, which I hope we do, we have a responsibility to resource it properly, to ensure co-ordination and to ensure that we can cope with the disappointment factor. We have so many groups in this country that are actively engaged in
 
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responding to emergencies that some will be disappointed, because they cannot all be at the table as consultees. They will not all be part of the new system. We need expertise—groups that can come to the table already trained, with the knowledge of how to deliver what is required. Sometimes they will be told, "Sorry, your expertise is not needed on this occasion."

The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) will remember the early days on the Defence Committee when we discussed the matter. One of the issues that was raised time and again was the dilemma that the voluntary sector faced: when such organisations should come in, when they would be invited in and who would make that decision. Who would ensure that the communications were in place and co-ordinate the register not only of the well intentioned, but of the well informed and well trained who had the expertise that was needed?

I have been involved in two major disaster areas in the past 25 years. On both occasions, I was amazed by the number of different United Kingdom groups that turned up. In one instance, they came a third of the way around the world. Some of them arrived when the operation to save the living was past all reasonable possibility of success—yet they still came, and no one in this country was prepared to tell them not to do so; it was really sad.

6.30 pm

Mr. Djanogly: The hon. Gentleman seems to be making a good case for better co-ordination of the voluntary groups. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), he seemed to imply that including the groups in the Bill would add to the confusion. The groups are asking not for personal aggrandisement or to have their names included in the Bill, but for a more co-ordinated approach. That is what the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) will provide.

Mr. Hancock: I agree entirely, and that is what I was trying to say. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst was challenging the House to recognise that if we accept the amendments, as I hope we will, we must ensure that the arrangements are properly resourced. It is not a question only of including the bodies as consultees; if we are to make use of them, we must give them the right equipment to allow proper communication and to ensure that they are properly protected. We must ensure that training is renewed and that people's expertise is not based on knowledge gained a decade or more ago. It is necessary to be a bit more sophisticated, and I had hoped that that was what we were trying to achieve.

The challenge to the House and to the Government is clear: if the Government choose not to accept the amendments, what are they going to do about managing the obvious expertise that is out there in the wider community? How will we marshal that expertise? I believe that, at the end of the day, the Government's reluctance to agree to the proposals is more about the resources that would be needed than about the merit of the case for bringing in the organisations in the first place.

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