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Lord Rooker: My Lords, I wish to clarify that if a new burden is placed on a fire and rescue authority, it will be dealt with under the new burden rules, which we follow meticulously in financial arrangements. In response to the points that the noble Baroness raised about the extra money in the New Dimension programme, we recognise the need to provide ongoing
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funding for resilience purposes and will be doing that in consultation with the Chief Fire Officers' Association and the Local Government Association, so long as the need exists.
There is also the implication of what she said about the ongoing costs of dealing with such incidents. We believe that we have in place arrangements for funding New Dimension incidents. The Government will provide funding annually from 2005–06 to meet the crewing needs of this investment. The level of funding and the means of its allocation is the subject of ongoing continuing discussions at present between authorities, the Local Government Association and central government. We do not think that the Bill needs to make separate provision for that.
The draft order places a duty on fire and rescue authorities to plan and equip for emergencies, such as flooding and chemical spills. Much of fire and rescue services' time is already spent dealing with such non-fire emergencies, as the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has just said; they are known as special service incidents. They have acquired a range of equipment and expertise in these matters. It is worth putting on record that in 2002–03 the total number of special service incidents, excluding road traffic incidents, accounted for 12.7 per cent of all operational incidents attended by fire and rescue authorities in England. We are simply creating a clear framework in the Bill to enable the fire and rescue authorities to plan and respond to some of these incidents. The costs of dealing with such incidents are met from existing fire and rescue authority funding streams.
If, as a result of a Clause 9 order, a new burden is placed on a fire and rescue authority, it will be dealt with under the new burden rules. At the moment, the only new challenge in the draft order is responding to the increased terrorist threat. We recognise that and have funded accordingly, providing £188 million over three years, which includes training. We are also discussing with the Chief Fire Officers' Association and the Local Government Association the revenue implications of responding to New Dimension incidents. It does not matter where the work is carried out, whether it is in its own area or another fire and rescue authority area, the equipment, training and additional funding to cover resource costs will still have been provided by the Secretary of State. So we do not think that there is any need to make provision for an additional payment.
I remind noble Lords that the early draft of the order, of which they have a copy, is not yet available to the public. We expect to launch a full public consultation on it later this year. In many ways, the key issue is ensuring that we are not trying to get something on the cheap. If there is a new burden, it will have to be dealt with under the rules, which are set out clearly. Local authorities are not slow to point out the new burdens. We operate it meticulously. In any event, in my experience in Whitehall and from the papers that I see, Ministers' attention is drawn to the fact that this is a new burden and therefore will have to be paid for.
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6.45 p.m.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply; it more or less answers the situation. The only trouble is that Ministers have a great habit of pruning their budgets—where they see a new burden that might have been paid for a couple of years before, they suddenly decide that it can be taken out of the budget. We are talking about serious areas associated with the fire and rescue services, such as potential terrorist threats and others, as the Minister said. I accept now that the Government would ensure that the appropriate fire authority—that is what it would be; it would not necessarily be all of them—would be reimbursed. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 11 [Power to respond to other eventualities]:
Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 24:
"( ) The power conferred by subsection (1)(b) may be exercised outside as well as within the authority's area in respect of events or situations relating to functions conferred on the authority by the Secretary of State under section 9 with a requirement that such functions be discharged outside the authority's area."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in Committee, I did not feel that the Government got to grips with why we thought that the amendment was necessary. The proposed subsection would restrict the power under Clause 11 to functions conferred on the authority under Clause 9 and in respect of which the Secretary of State has given the authority an obligation to operate outside his area. We are talking about limiting the power on an authority to act outside its own area on discretionary matters.
The Minister said in Committee that an unintended consequence of the amendment would be to reduce local flexibility and the power to equip for any eventuality. We do not see why that is the case. The Minister gave the example of a co-responder scheme that addressed risks posed to the community. But this misses the point precisely because presumably this would happen within the authority's area. The point is rather that fire and rescue authorities are also empowered by Clause 11(4) to respond to eventualities, broadly defined, in other authorities' areas.
We want to avoid a situation arising where two neighbouring authorities, which might have very different priorities in their discretionary services, can interpret this part of the legislation as giving them a free pass to set up various discretionary services in a neighbouring authority's area because they have identified this as necessary in their integrated risk plans. Can the Minister say whether there is anything to stop one authority taking action that it considers appropriate in the area of another? I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the Q&A section at the end of my brief contains an interesting point about mutual assistance schemes. I do not think that the noble
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Baroness was talking about mutual assistance schemes; she was almost talking about private enterprise schemes.
Baroness Hanham: Predatory takeover, my Lords.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, predatory action. The amendment is identical to that moved in Committee. We have read Hansard; there is clearly concern that there was cross-purpose in the discussion, for which I take full responsibility. Clearly, the noble Baroness's chief concern remains the ability of a fire and rescue authority to act outside its area under Clause 11.
Amendment No. 24 goes much wider and would prevent the fire and rescue authority preparing to respond to the risks and needs of its community as identified, for example, in its integrated risk management plan, because Amendment No. 24 explicitly links Clause 11(1)(b) to the exercise of functions placed on the authority by the order under Clause 9. That approach is unnecessary. An order made under Clause 9 provides a fire and rescue authority with the powers necessary to make provision to discharge the functions placed on it. That includes the power for the fire and rescue authority to act outside its area, so there is no obvious benefit to the operation of Clause 9 by the approach placed on the amendment.
The effect of Clause 11 would be diminished if the amendment were agreed. The purpose of Clause 11(1)(b) is to ensure that the fire and rescue authority can plan and prepare to respond to an event or situation. It is not a power to respond to the event or situation which is found in Clause 11(1)(a). But this power anticipates the need to meet future risks. It is crucial if the fire and rescue authorities are to be empowered to meet local need and to create safer communities. Amendment No. 24 would remove that flexibility and discretion.
In Committee, as today, the noble Baroness questioned the unrestrained ability of fire and rescue authorities to move into a neighbouring area and effectively set up business; that is, predatory, as the noble Baroness has just said. We do not share the noble Baroness's concerns about empire building which has—I have got to read this out—more than a touch of the regionalisation by stealth theory that remains ever popular on the Benches opposite.
This is not a surreptitious takeover. It is not another avenue for the Secretary of State to regionalise the whole country. There is no secret sub-plot for fire appliances to be sent out carrying ballot papers or new Bills for elected authorities. We have no plans for that. It is not regionalisation by stealth.
The Bill defines the statutory fire and rescue authority for an area and on whom rests the obligation to provide core functions. There is no argument about that from a legal point of view. There is nothing in Clause 11 that would override either this definition or the statutory responsibilities.
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Clause 11 provides a fire and rescue authority—perhaps one specialising in rope rescue or another specialist activity—the authority to provide that service within another fire and rescue authority's area. I apologise, I cannot read this for laughing.
In view of the assurances that I have given about its operation, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment.
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