Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Amendment of List of Responders) Order 2023

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for this. This comes in the midst of strong negative comments across the House about the way in which Ministers are now handling too many SIs and too much delegated legislation. This seems to be a model of how it should work, and I compliment the Minister.

I am most acutely interested in the flood prevention area. As the “Saltaire” in my title suggests, we live on—happily, above—the River Aire. Indeed, the weekend before last, we walked down to see just how high the river had got. We well remember when, four winters ago, it was higher than it had been for over a century. All of us in Yorkshire who live below the Pennines are now conscious of the increasing flood risk which we all face and how much of a problem this becomes in terms of the multiagency response when floods happen. Happily, we are not in the Yorkshire coal-mining area, and lead mining is more of a legacy problem in the Dales, but I am conscious that in the acute wet weather last summer, there were potholes in the limestone region which filled up with water for the first time in nearly a century. Clearly, we are in exceptional circumstances and the potential for danger, loss of life and loss of property is now higher than it has been.

I have a few brief questions. In the consultation, were other agencies considered for addition to the list of category 2 responders? How good are the links between Defra as responsible for the countryside, the Environment Agency as responsible for drainage and the various LRFs and others concerned with flood risk? We are all aware, particularly those of us who live in the shadow of the hills, that how you look after catchment areas relates very clearly to the degree of flood risk that is involved. As the climate changes, that is something that needs broader attention at local, regional and national level. Are the Government happy that local resilience forums work well? The Minister will also have noticed the growing chorus of unease about the overcentralisation of England and the weakening power and finances of local authorities and local agencies. Local resilience forums are very important in areas such as this—these are people who know the ground; they know where the coal mines were and where the other local hazards are—and I hope that they work well.

Finally, my noble friend Lady Brinton raised electricity supply as one of the factors in dealing with disasters. I am conscious that we are moving in a direction in which electricity will increasingly become the only source of power supply for a growing number of homes. As it happens, at present my wife is in dispute with BT, which is trying to remove our landline and give us phone access only by broadband. That means that when and if there is an electricity problem, we are likely to run out of juice with which to make phone calls fairly rapidly. That is an extra hazard that we are moving into because one of the utilities wants to get rid of the costs of maintaining landlines. I hope that the Cabinet Office has also considered this as an important risk factor in case of emergency.

Having said all that, I welcome this order and I repeat: this is a model SI in the way it is being scrutinised—unlike many others.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I too welcome the Minister’s introduction to the SI. Certainly, it is one of the least controversial ones that I have ever dealt with, so I will not labour the point too much.

I would like the Minister to comment on how well the CCA five-yearly review works. Bearing in mind that, on Radio 4, the Environment Agency’s comments on the risk of river flooding were so closely aligned to the Meteorological Office’s warnings, I wonder what difference this statutory obligation will make. Will it have added value? The two things here that have come out of the review are so logical that one wonders why this was not done before. Will the department add other elements of the review? Are there elements that will still require action?

Certainly, there can be no reason for not adding these two bodies as category 2 responders; I am sure that both are currently working to provide information and support. The Minister said that they will not perform additional duties; they are already performing the duties, so there will be no additional cost, but I would like to know how this statutory responsibility will add to the benefit of their work.

With those few comments, I support the order and wish it well.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for this short and very positive debate. It is nice to be able to celebrate delegated legislation that is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, particularly given that, in another world, when I was a poacher rather than a gamekeeper, we used to ask questions about these things together. I thank him very much; it has made my day.

I will respond briefly to some of the helpful points made. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised the very important question of how the legislation works in practice for vulnerable people such as her granddaughter, whom I am delighted to hear is now off the ventilator. A bit of good news is that there are additional recommendations in the CCA review of the legislation—the PIR—which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, referred to, which look to strengthen the requirement on the local resilience forums to consider vulnerable people, and a dedicated BEIS-led programme on power supply is part of that.

I will write to the noble Baroness with more information about that, but she is right that we should be improving things for vulnerable people across the board. I will liaise with my noble friend Lady Bloomfield, and between us we will see what we can do about the point that the noble Baroness raised about electricity and, indeed, the more general question about vulnerable people. We have a new resilience framework, and we are very keen for it to think more about the user and to have more of a whole-society approach. The noble Baroness’s point is an excellent example, if we can crack it, of what we should be doing.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, asked what other agencies we thought of adding to category 2. Obviously, it is important to ensure that structures are efficient and effective, and balance is critical in making sure that those important to local planning and preparation are included but do not overwhelm the system. Noble Lords will remember that I used to work in the supermarket industry. We always thought that our role was very important but, in fact, we were not category 2 responders, although we were involved in assisting in the event of terror attacks, flooding, and so on. The honest answer is that other organisations and agencies did not make the cut in terms of benefit versus burden, but if I have any more information, I will pass it on.

The point about phone use and the move to the internet is something I have experienced where I live when I am in London. Exactly the same thing has happened with Virgin Media: we have moved from having a home phone to it now being linked to the wi-fi. I think the noble Lord raises a good point; I do not know what is being done about it, but I will make some inquiries.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, talked about outstanding commitments from the review. As he probably remembers from previous debates, I am very keen on post-implementation evaluation. There are two other potential legislative changes. The first places a reporting obligation on categorised responders to set out publicly how they comply with their statutory duties under the Act. However, we think that may require primary legislation, so it will not be done overnight. The second removes the legacy role of regional nominated co-ordinators in Part 2 of the Act; the regional government offices in England were closed in 2010. That also requires primary legislation, although it is probably less urgent, given its nature.

There were also some non-statutory recommendations. We have committed to placing the national resilience standards, which set out expectations of good and leading practice for local resilience forums, on a statutory footing. We have committed to updating the statutory and non-statutory UK guidance that accompanies the Act. The requirement to produce a community risk register is to be strengthened, with a requirement for responders to consider community demographics, particularly for vulnerable groups, in preparing their community risk register. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will be delighted to hear this and it might be relevant to her point. The multiagency preparedness activities conducted by local resilience arrangements require enhanced accountability, which is being given further consideration as part of DLUHC’s reform programme of the local resilience forums. Noble Lords may remember from the debate on extreme risks the other day that I explained that those forums had got more support and are regarded as very important.

In addition, assurance of the preparedness activities conducted as part of local resilience arrangements needs to go further than the current voluntary assessments and peer review. There are various obligations on central government departments to improve information sharing and planning between national and local, such as through a statutory duty to co-operate and information sharing paralleling what we have with category 1 and 2; there are various options that could be looked at. That needs further consideration, but I hope noble Lords can see that that work is in hand.

The recent crisis, including the increasingly eccentric weather—it was -7C in my part of Wiltshire this weekend, which is extraordinary—means that we need to do more in these areas. I hope we have made it clear that that is exactly our plan. It is one of the reasons that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster put out a major document within the last month.

Finally, what difference will the SI make? I make it clear to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that the intention of this intervention is to improve the civil protection framework and ultimately to increase the level of preparedness of relevant organisations to respond collectively to emergencies. The “collective” is as important as anything. As I said in my opening remarks, the new categorisations will increase responder understanding of severe weather, climate change and mining-related risks, and better inform our work to prevent, prepare, respond and recover, thereby improving resilience and reducing adverse impacts.

I believe that the Civil Contingencies Act delivers a strong framework for civil protection in the UK. These two additional responders will strengthen it. I hope that colleagues will join me in supporting the regulations, which I commend to the Committee.