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Mr. Allan: Sanctions are set out. There is a monitoring regime in clause 9 and a sanctions regime in clause 10, but the hon. Gentleman is right. Once the regulations have been introduced, that is one of the things that we will have to explore to find out exactly what will happen if a local authority fails to deliver. I think that we will all want to ask that.

It is a shame that we get the framework but not the important detail when we discuss primary legislation. I understand why that is, but there has been a gap in respect of the way in which local government will implement the measure. Sadly, we have been unable to fill that gap. We needed more debating time to go through that.

I am sure that more concerns will be raised in the House of Lords, particularly on issues to do with human rights law. There are far more expert voices than mine there. I know that many of my colleagues will want to engage with that issue and I trust that they will do an excellent job.

As the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said, the question that faces us is difficult: what do we do with the Bill tonight? We are equally disappointed that we have not had time to debate it further, but I do not think that we would argue that it should not go forward. The question is: is it better than the status quo? Our colleagues in the other place can tighten the legal framework. On the basis that we trust them to do that, we are content that the Bill should go to the House of Lords.

As I say, we are disappointed that we have not been able to manage our time in such a way that we had longer to debate things. We welcomed some of the amendments that were introduced today. We expected to welcome them in short order. We ended up welcoming them over a longer period than we expected, particularly the Scottish amendment that began the proceedings. It is regrettable that we did not get on to the questions about part 2. The long time it took to debate earlier amendments is part of the reason for that.

We will now have to leave it to colleagues in another place to deal with them. Our intention tonight, however, is not to stop the Bill going forward, because it is better than the status quo.

9.44 pm

Mr. Llwyd : It was mentioned earlier that the Bill was improved by proceedings in the pre-legislative Committee. In fact, when the Bill was in that mode, one provision said that Ministers in this place had to liaise over emergencies with those in the National Assembly—except in cases of urgency. I found that quite ridiculous—I do not know of any emergency that has no element of urgency to it—but it was changed. As the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie) said, much more needs to be done. That is a fair summation of where we are now.

We have not had an opportunity to discuss the jurisdiction of the courts, compensation, human rights or, interestingly, the definition of an emergency. The Minister said that Liberty had assisted her and her
 
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colleagues during the passage of the Bill. I tabled a string of amendments today, which I had hoped would be dealt with. They were important amendments on the definition of an emergency—the core matter in the Bill.

Many of us spent considerable time in the pre-legislative set-up and subsequently in Committee debating the Bill, and I honestly feel angry about today's guillotine. I know that the voluntary sector, which gave copious evidence to the pre-legislative Committee, feels that it has been taken for a ride. Hardly any of its recommendations were considered for long and they were certainly not agreed to. For the first time in my 13 years in the House, I believe that I have been taken for a ride as well.

9.46 pm

Mr. Shepherd : My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said that the fight would go on. The fact is that we have not had a proper discussion of the most important part of the Bill, which affects our civil and political liberties. That is what it is all about. The House has not divided properly over the part 1 contentions of the Bill that there should be proper structures and arrangements for the civil defence of this country.

Intelligent discussion has taken place in Committee and on the Floor of the House, but as a result of the guillotine we have considered only four groups of amendments. We have not touched on part 2 at all, so we have not debated the scope of emergency regulations, the jurisdiction of the courts or the duration of the provisions. Ministerial responsibility, compensation and costs of compliance, the definition of an emergency—none of them has been discussed. All those matters are of great concern to many people outside the House and to many Members within it. Other issues include miscellaneous and consequential amendments, civil protection regulations procedure and what is called "human rights"—though I believe that it should be civil and political rights.

This democratically elected House has debated none of those issues. Because of the guillotine, it cannot debate such fundamental considerations as the scope of emergency regulations. We never touched on that in our debates, but I have profound misgivings about the scope of some of the regulations. Under clause 21(3),

That is a fundamental contention affecting human rights. There it is on the face of the Bill, giving powers to a Minister—we shall return to that in a moment—to do away with things without compensation. We did not debate that issue.

Who can make such powers to prescribe emergency regulations? Her Majesty the Queen may do so through an Order in Council if she is satisfied that certain conditions are met.
 
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So may a senior Minister of the Crown. However, that part of the Bill includes in the definition of senior Minister of the Crown,

[Interruption.] I hear the Whips cheering their own elevation to the status of senior Minister. We did not discuss that provision, but I would have liked to hear the justifications for why a Whip should become a senior Minister for the purposes of the Bill. If the provision were intended to give the Chancellor of the Exchequer a role, as the Second Lord of the Treasury, I would have gladly supported it. But to suggest that Whips who never speak, have no departmental experience and do not make decisions should be able to sign the order for a regulation is, on the face of it, outrageous. They do not have the experience, the weight or the authority to convey to the British public the fact that the issue is so serious and such a matter of principle that it is necessary to move regulations of great importance to our liberties and freedoms.

As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) said, the Bill has some good aspects. That is not in dispute. We do need better co-ordinated emergency services, and that is agreed on both sides of the House. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Bill's deficiencies could be dealt with in the other place, but every Member of Parliament will have to tell their constituents how their property could be confiscated without compensation. We will have to tell our constituents why regulations that touch on our freedom from arbitrary arrest and the right to trial could be suspended by statutory instrument—not even primary legislation—and how that could be done with only 90 minutes of discussion. We tabled an amendment to suspend Standing Order No. 16, which limits debate to 90 minutes, but of course we have not reached it.

For the reasons I have given, I am in the invidious position of having to say that I will vote against this measure. I know that the Government's majority will be marshalled to vote for the Bill, as it is for whatever the Government produce and would be for any regulations made under the Bill. But how can I trust the Government when they have reduced debate to such a trivial function of this House and we cannot discuss the very things that we are sent here to discuss? I will vote against this Bill.

9.53 pm

Mr. Hogg : I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) has said. Like him, I wish to focus on part 2 of the Bill. I am prepared to accept that there is much of merit in part 1, but I have focused on part 2 and, indeed, that is what I addressed on Second Reading. It is regrettable that part 2, which concerns most people most, has hardly been touched on at Report stage. The Bill will go to the other place with part 2 largely undiscussed.

The truth is that part 2 strikes at many of the rights that we value. To start with, the definition of emergency is extraordinarily wide. It includes the threat to a single life, interruption to fuel supplies, interruption to the
 
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railways and many other factors. They would all trigger the powers in the Bill, and those powers are astonishingly wide. For example, my hon. Friend mentioned the power to confiscate property without any form of compensation. Other powers include the power to impose curfews, to prohibit demonstrations and assemblies, and to prohibit political debate and public meetings.

Those are very widespread and draconian powers.

Oddly enough, the Bill does not contain a power to prohibit industrial action, which might be thought to be a useful power. Ministers may not prohibit industrial action, but they may prohibit political assemblies called to protest against that industrial action. That is a bizarre state of affairs.

My hon. Friend, who is not a former Whip, also complained about the fact that very junior Ministers—Whips—will have the powers to make emergency regulations. I share his concern. I was a Whip, and I know perfectly well that Whips know absolutely nothing about the functions of Departments, so when they state that they are satisfied as to this, that or the other, they are exclusively reliant on the advice of officials about matters of which they themselves are wholly ignorant. I regard that as an extraordinary and undesirable state of affairs.

I also object to the fact that there is no proper attempt to get consensus behind the emergency regulations. My colleague on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), sensibly tabled new clause 3, the object of which was to try to muster some consensus behind the emergency powers. His concept was a consultative committee, but I want something more than that—a majority within the committee as a necessary precondition to laying the emergency regulations, which by definition have excluded the parliamentary process.

I hope that when the Bill goes to the other place, their lordships' House will consider that issue again. Their lordships also need to focus on the question of human rights. It would be churlish not to recognise that amendment No. 93 seeks to address the human rights question, but I am not at all sure whether that is a judicable issue. The Minister has to issue a certificate to the effect that he or she is satisfied that the convention rights are protected, but it is not clear to me whether the courts can challenge that certificate. That is a matter that the House has a right to address.

In the convention—I believe that it is in the first protocol—we find the right to property. We also find the right to free speech, free assembly and so on. Yet those rights can be directly excluded by the clause 21 powers given, in principle, to Whips. We need to know whether those powers are subject to the courts' jurisdiction.

I share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills. Perhaps this is a Bill that, at the end of the day, should be supported—but it is clear that the House is not now in a position to make that judgment, because we have not had ample time to debate it. We could have done so. Next week is a light week, and the rest of this week, too, is pretty light. Had the Government wished part 2 to be properly debated, there was ample time. Speaking for myself as an
 
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individual, I consider that a sufficient reason to vote against the Bill, so if anybody calls "No" to its Third Reading, I shall be pleased to join them in that protest.

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