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David Taylor: The hon. Gentleman describes the dilemma that the Government face, but the present Opposition face such a dilemma too. The Government are either over-zealous, nanny-stateist and alarmist, or they are neglectful of their duties, derelict in their duties and ought to be doing more. The Opposition have made a living out of that for the past three months or more.
Dr. Lewis: That would be a fair point if the hon. Gentleman could show that the Opposition have made any remark about the nanny state or over-zealousness in the context of the serious issues that we are debating. I have been present for the entire debate and have not heard one such point made from the Opposition Benches. It obviously depends on the subject under consideration. When the Labour Government inflict their opinions on the public about ways in which they should conduct their lives that fall far short of the implications for serious security or life and death of the issues that we are discussing, it is quite right for us to describe them as over-fussy. When dealing with matters of gravity, such as those before us, the hon. Gentleman will not hear comments of that sort from the Opposition Benches.
Mr. Lansley: I am interested in what my hon. Friend has to say, which he is setting out very well. Does he agree that the criticism that we might be trying to have it both ways is able to be made only when the Government have failed to tell us how they propose to deal with these matters? There is a problem with discussing the Bill in that clause 5, by its structure, effectively says nothing more than that the Health Protection Agency will co-operate with other bodies, unspecified, and that other bodies, unspecified, will co-operate with the Health Protection Agency. The argument about a list of such bodies is secondary. We need some idea of the manner in which the co-operation is to be carried out, by whom and in what structure.
Dr. Lewis:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In particular, we need to know the chain of command. What does the co-operation involve? Let us suppose that the Health Protection Agency decides that certain steps must be taken instantly in the case of a quick-
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acting chemical attack, a slow-acting biological attack or a very slow-acting radiological attack. Let us suppose that the Health Protection Agency comes up with the idea, "We'll need troops to do this and emergency services for that", but the troops and emergency services say, "That's all well and good but we haven't got the forces available", or "We've worked out rather different ways to tackle the problems." It sounds as if the people who will be theorising and conducting the surveillance—the people who are affected by the Bill—are not properly connected to those who will have to do the real work on the ground in such dire circumstances.
David Taylor: To set the hon. Gentleman's point in context, the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) rightly focused on MRSA conditions and the worsening of that problem. All the increases in morbidity and mortality associated with MRSA pale into insignificance when compared with that linked to obesity and smoking—passive or otherwise. So, on the one hand, we have the over-zealous nanny state, and on the other we are told that the Government are washing their hands of responsibility for MRSA—pun intended.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. Before the hon. Gentleman is tempted too far down that line, he might recognise—as I hope will the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor)—that that point is taking us a little far away from the subject of the Bill.
Dr. Lewis: I do, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With your indulgence, I shall respond with a single sentence. There is all the difference in the world between people who choose to overeat or to smoke and people who go into hospital because they are ill and who then fall victim to a hospital-acquired infection, without having exercised any choice.
In line with your stricture, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I return to the Bill. I am concerned about the lack of clarity about connections between those who will be governed by the operation of the new agency and of the legislation and the emergency services, the armed forces and the civil contingencies reaction force. I was impressed by the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, who referred to clause 4(2), which states:
"The Agency may do anything which it thinks is—
(a) appropriate for facilitating, or
(b) incidental or conducive to,
the exercise of its functions."
What does that mean—the agency may do anything? Ought implies can, according to the basic moral philosophy lectures that I recall from all too many years ago, but we do not know what the agency's powers will be. I suppose it means that, provided that the agency has the power to do certain things, it will have the discretion to do them—but in what areas will it be able to exercise its authority? We do not even know whether the agency will have the power to require the emergency services,
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the armed forces or the reserve civil contingency forces to co-operate with its schemes. The subsection means both everything and nothing. It is all rather mystifying.
Having touched on the information that the organisation may issue, the relationships that it might have, and the command structure that it needs but that is not clearly set out in the Bill, I am concerned that we are being asked to sign a blank cheque. If the Bill was about the ordinary business of life, we could say, well, sometimes we just have to leave discretion to people in high places to use their judgment as best they may; but the Bill deals with exceptional and grave situations. Whenever an attack occurs, be it a conventional military attack or an unconventional terrorist attack, the odds are that it will not have been predicted. All history indicates that that will be the case. We therefore have to work on the assumption that something will happen at some stage, and that when it happens it will be unexpected. For that reason, we need to have confidence that the structures are in place to mitigate the impact of such an attack when it occurs—it will be too late to plan when the attack is under way.
We are being asked to sign up to a template with few features, a plan with few details, a strategy with few conditions or explanations attached. As the Bill progresses, we will need a great deal more reassurance from the Government that they know what they are doing and that the agency will be something more than a purely bureaucratic and administrative reshuffling of the deckchairs on the deck of the Titanic.
7.24 pm
Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh) (Con): It is, as ever, a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), who speaks with great authority, especially in relation to homeland security and defence. I cannot outdo his great knowledge of the subject, which was evident in his speech, but I should like to make a brief contribution from a certain perspective. I served in the Territorial Army for some seven years during the cold war. Part of my role was to serve as what was then called a nuclear, biological and chemical, or NBC, instructor. It was my job to train those in my unit to prepare for an attack using such weapons. The nomenclature has changed: in the 21st century, we speak of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear—CBRN. The acronym has changed but the principles remain the same, and although I might be slightly rusty, points from the training that I did are relevant to the debate and, in particular, to the homeland security aspects of the Bill.
Like other hon. Members, I am concerned about clause 5, which relates to co-operation. It is a brief clause, which lacks detail. Subsection (1) states:
"In the exercise of its functions the Agency must co-operate with other bodies which exercise functions relating to health or any other matter in relation to which the Agency also exercises functions."
That is extremely loose wording. In parallel legislation, the Civil Contingencies Bill lays out in detail the responsibilities of the various agencies that would be involved were such a nightmarish scenario ever to transpire in the United Kingdom. Part of the feedback from the emergency planning community is that hitherto—under Governments of different colours; my
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point is not partisan—the arrangements for dealing with such threats have been unclear. During the cold war and while we were threatened by attack from the Soviet Union, clear arrangements were in place governing what people should do in the event of such an attack. However, in the 1990s, those arrangements were run down to save money. The incoming Labour Government continued that process of running down, to the point where who would do what in a crisis became very unclear. All experience shows that in situations in which, for obvious reasons but particularly given the type of media that we have today, the civilian population might panic, it is vital that when time is short and people are under tremendous pressure, those with responsibility know precisely who has to do to what. Unfortunately, the Bill does little to help in that respect.
Let me illustrate my point. Five or six weeks ago, a chilling "Panorama" programme envisaged a co-ordinated terrorist attack on London, with several bombs placed at major stations on the underground going off in swift succession during the morning rush hour, followed later in the morning by the explosion in the financial district of the City of London of a chemical tanker containing chlorine. Experts were invited to work through how they, sitting as a Cabinet Committee or its advisers, would respond to the attack. One of the participants pointed out that, whereas in the 1980s, every household had a "Protect and Survive" booklet to tell them what to do in the event of an attack, no such guidance is currently issued. People are advised to stay indoors and to turn on their radio, but families do not have information to hand that they can study and use to prepare themselves. I admit that not everyone would want to discuss such a gruesome subject over Sunday lunch, but if people had such material at home, they could read it. I wonder whether the Health Protection Agency could have a role in providing such information—in giving people non-alarmist, factual guidance on what to do in the event of an attack.
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