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Clause 19
Power to make emergency regulations
Patrick Mercer: I beg to move amendment No. 37, in
clause 19, page 12, line 35, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c) and insert
(b) one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, whose sole responsibility relates to civil contingencies'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 95, in
clause 19, page 12, line 36, leave out paragraph (c).
Patrick Mercer: Amendment No. 37 stands in my name and the names of hon. Friends. Amendment No. 95 was tabled by the Liberal Democrats, and I have no doubt that they will give it due cognisance in its own right.
It is clear from amendment No. 37 that we believe that too many people can say too many things about too many parts of the Bill. Clause 19(3) states:
''In this Part ''senior Minister of the Crown'' means—
(a) the First Lord of the Treasury (the Prime Minister),
(b) any of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State''.
My contention is that this part of the Bill will allow the powers to be used far too broadly by far too many Ministers under far too many different conditions. This problem has consumed the United States, which has amended its constitution as a result of the events of 11 September 2001. It will come as no surprise to anyone in this Committee that the Americans have chosen to establish one Minister, one Secretary of State, one director who will be in charge of this style of operation. It has given powers to one individual, Tom Ridge, and his Department of Homeland Security. The amendment would mean purely and simply that there would be one figure, one focus, one part of government that would be able to deal with these problems and invoke these powers.
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Mr. Allan: The hon. Gentleman cites the American example, of which he approves. I am curious to know what would happen if Tom Ridge is unfortunately taken out in some incident and someone else has to take over. How would that work?
Patrick Mercer: That is an extremely helpful intervention. A pre-established chain of command in the Department of Homeland Security takes exactly that point into account. In the event that Secretary Ridge is killed or injured or becomes unavailable to make decisions, it is fully established that the next person will step up. Given our earlier discussion, I believe that we have no such clear chain of command, and that is my criticism of this part of the Bill in particular. The point will be made a little more clearly in amendment No. 95, on which I am sure the hon. Gentleman will comment. However, unless we make it clear that there should be one focus for the powers before us, there is a danger that they might be invoked in a series of different situations. Clausewitz said that war was the province of confusion, and it is probably fair to say that emergencies will be exactly the same.
This country has probably been preparing for traumatic disaster since we first contemplated the possibility of poison gas being used on our population in the 1930s. We certainly made such preparations during the cold war. None the less, we have no experience of emergencies on the scale that we are discussing, which is why the Bill seems perfectly acceptable. However, nations that have been through such traumas—I am thinking particularly of America—suggest that power should be in the hands of one person. The Government should accept the amendment so that the power before us lies entirely in the hands of a senior Minister of the Crown, such as the First Lord of the Treasury—in other words, the Prime Minister. If not, they could think about establishing the post of Secretary of State for homeland security, or whatever else they might like to call it. That could be a job for the Deputy Prime Minister. As they stand, however, the proposals are wholly unacceptable and wide of the mark. The great problem is that the decision-making process will lead to misunderstandings and further delays in times of emergency.
Subsection (3)(c) relates to other Ministers who may be able to invoke the powers before us and refers specifically to
''Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury.''
I do not, for one moment, want to cast aspersions on the powers or suitability of the Whips, and their noble office is well represented here today. However, there is no question in my mind but that such powers must not be dispersed willy-nilly so that they can be used by the Whips Office in an emergency. That may be a tradition, but it is one that we can well do without, and it should certainly not constitute a precedent, because it would become one only once it had been tried. I therefore believe that we need a Secretary of State or a Minister for homeland security and that, in a state of emergency, the powers before us should, on no account, be devolved down to a bunch of Whips.
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Mr. Allan: I rise to speak to amendment No. 95, which is in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland. It directly targets the Whips, rather than any Department for homeland security—we know no fear on these Benches, although perhaps we have no future. The amendment takes up points that were ably made by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) on Second Reading, when the provisions were called into question.
The wording of subsection (3) is wonderfully arcane and obscure. There is the reference to
''the First Lord of the Treasury''
although I am glad to see that, as a result of some modernisation process, we can now also call him the Prime Minister. That is a major innovation, which I am sure that Committees could have debated over months and years. However, the reference to
''Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury''
remains as obscure as ever. When I looked at the Bill, I wondered who they were and assumed that they were civil servants. I looked at the explanatory notes to see whether they clarified matters, and paragraph 39 says
''the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury (the functions of the Treasury are customarily carried out by the Commissioners)''.
That is all we have by way of explanation.
I went to find the list of Ministers and, lurking quietly at the back, is page 112, which is entitled ''Government Whips'', so I found out who the Lords Commissioners are. The hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Ms Prentice) is not one, but—and I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong—the Lords Commissioners are the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong); the Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth); the Comptroller of Her Majesty's Household, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy)—I say nothing bad about him; and the Vice Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who assisted me with a private Member's Bill last year, so he is all right. There are then five other hon. Members—the hon. Members for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy), for Nottingham, East (Mr. Heppell), for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan), for West Carmarthen and South Pembrokeshire (Mr. Ainger) and for Halton (Derek Twigg). As I understand it, those nine are the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury. My reading of the Bill, therefore, is that any of the nine could exercise these extraordinarily comprehensive powers.
Jim Dowd (Lewisham, West) (Lab): I am not certain that the hon. Gentleman is correct. I was a Lords Commissioner for four years, and my feeling was that list was made up of the First Lord, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the five Lords Commissioners—just those seven. It did not include the Officers of the Royal Household, whose names the hon. Gentleman read out.
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Mr. Allan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Standing Committees exist precisely to elicit information about who is and who is not a Lords Commissioner. I am sure that we shall find out in the course of the debate. I hope that the Under-Secretary can respond on that point. In that case, it is even more extraordinary that the more junior members of the Whips Office—those who are more junior than the Officers of Her Majesty's Household—can exercise these powers.
The powers can be exercised by those in the Whips Office, but that does not include even the Chief Whip or those at the top level. The Whips may be perfectly able, but they are not normally held accountable to the House. They do not speak to the House in their own right and they would never introduce regulations in normal circumstances. The Bill is clear that the regulations will be brought into play in an emergency and then must be brought to the House of Commons within seven days. Therefore, those people must stand up and justify why the regulations have been introduced. It seems extraordinary that those who normally never conduct such parliamentary business should be given that power.
We can argue about Secretaries of State. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) may have a point that, unless there is a major crisis in theatreland, it is hard to see why the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport should make emergency regulations. However, at least all Secretaries of State regularly make regulations and justify what they do to the House and, in the public's view, are accountable in the ordinary sense of the word. Whips are not normally publicly accountable, which is why it seems extraordinary to include them in the Bill.
I should appreciate clarification from the Under-Secretary as to the extent of the power. It may be more restrictive than I first imagined and only seven of those individuals would be given the power, rather than the nine whom I listed. However, the Government will have to make a powerful case for moving down the chain of command to the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, when however many Secretaries of State are available as well as, potentially, the First Lord of the Treasury. It would be much better if the Government conceded that it would be better if the Bill named the Prime Minister and the principal Secretaries of State and left it there.
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