PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Draft Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Amendment of List of Responders) Order 2023 - 25 January 2023 (Commons/General Committees)

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Amendment of List of Responders) Order 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. The order was laid before the House on 6 December. I think we all agree on the importance of improving the UK’s resilience, and the recently published resilience framework illustrates the need for clear roles and responsibilities in order to drive planning activity across the risk lifecycle.

This statutory instrument will provide for exactly that by creating the legal basis for improved co-operation, information sharing and integration between both the Meteorological Office and Coal Authority and the wider list of categorised organisations operating at local level in the United Kingdom. It will deliver those important changes by making both organisations category 2 responders as defined under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, in turn bolstering the planning activities conducted by local resilience forums in England, a further commitment of the new resilience framework. That will ensure that they are well integrated in wider emergency planning frameworks, able to collaborate in the development of localised risk assessments, and contribute information and expertise to support local resilience forums—otherwise known as LRFs—in planning for and responding to emergencies.

Both organisations hold information and experience that is integral to the process of civil protection, with the Met Office able to support effective management of severe weather risks and the Coal Authority positioned to ensure that due consideration is given to the unique risks presented by our industrial heritage. Approximately 25% of property across the UK is located on a coalfield, and the Coal Authority responds to a wide range of incidents—including but not limited to subsidence, sudden ground collapses, emissions of water or gas, coal tip slips as well as metal mine pollution incidents, with extreme weather often heightening the likelihood of those risks materialising.

The Civil Contingencies Act, also known as the CCA, was introduced in 2004 following a review of emergency planning arrangements as a result of the fuel crisis and severe flooding in 2000, as well as the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001. That Act establishes a framework for civil protection in the UK. It imposes a clear set of roles and responsibilities on those organisations with a role to play in preparing for and responding to emergencies.

Category 1 responders are those organisations that collectively form the core of local emergency preparedness and response. They include emergency services, local authorities, health bodies—including NHS England, foundation trusts and integrated care boards—His Majesty’s Coastguard and Government agencies. Category 1 responders are subject to the full set of statutory civil protection duties, including assessing risks to inform contingency planning, warning and informing the public, and putting in place business continuity arrangements.

Category 2 organisations, which include the Health and Safety Executive and utilities and transport operators, are “co-operating bodies” and, although less likely to be involved in the heart of planning work, are heavily involved in incidents that affect their own sector. Category 2 responders have a statutory duty to co-operate and share relevant information with other category 1 and 2 responders. The Act and regulations made under it create the basis for these organisations to collaborate through LRFs, where all responders can come together to ensure effective multi-agency emergency preparation and response. Regulations made under the CCA also place a duty on responders to help to co-ordinate risk assessment at their local level through the production of the community risk register, which ensures that the LRF members hold a consistent understanding of the hazards and threats across their area.

The CCA is reviewed every five years. The most recent post-implementation review was laid before the house in March 2022 and proposed the categorisation of the Met Office and Coal Authority as one of its key recommendations. The Met Office and Coal Authority perform important functions in preparing for and responding to risks associated with extreme weather events and the coalmining legacy. Recent examples include several heatwaves in 2022, a number of floods in recent weeks and, in the past few days, a sinkhole that has opened up in Caerphilly. The two organisations have significant expertise and technical knowledge in their respective fields and provide critical support, such as severe weather warnings, hazard assessments, training and response planning.

Although the organisations already work closely with local partners, our consultation and engagement with LRFs indicated that without their integration in the legal framework, that work was taking place in an inconsistent or ad hoc way. Categorising the organisations will ensure that they are able to systematically share information and co-operate with local resilience forums across the UK in a more regulated and structured way. Ultimately, that will improve the preparedness of local partnerships to respond to incidents related to coal mining or severe weather and strengthen their ability to protect the public and save lives.

The instrument is being made using powers set out in section 13(1) of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which allows a Minister of the Crown to amend the list of categorised responders. It will add the Met Office and the Coal Authority to the list “Category 2 Responders: General” under part 3 of schedule 1 to the Act. Importantly, these amendments do not add significant financial burdens to the Met Office or the Coal Authority, as the organisations are already equipped to perform these additional duties under their current budgets, with a de minimis impact assessment completed in December 2022.

The provisions will be implemented across the UK, and we have consulted officials from the devolved Administrations throughout the process. We have also formally notified each Administration, via ministerial letters, of our intention to lay the instrument, and all devolved Administrations were supportive of the inclusion of these agencies as categorised responders for the whole United Kingdom. I thank each Administration for their engagement and collaboration.

I hope that colleagues will join me in supporting the draft regulations, and I commend them to the Committee.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Twigg. I am pleased to be speaking to this statutory instrument.

Labour will be supporting the instrument; these two additions to the list of responders—the Coal Authority and the Met Office—are sensible and necessary. However, the legislation gives rise to more questions over the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and how ready we as a country are for the next major emergency. Two of the questions raised by the legislation are: why is it so late, and why are only two more organisations being added to the list?

The Civil Contingencies Act is an excellent piece of legislation and a Labour invention, introduced in 2004, but it is important to note that the Government at the time recognised that it would need to change and adapt over time. Between 2004 and 2010, the Government attempted to improve and develop it; sadly, since 2010 it has been left to gather dust and deprioritised by successive Conservative Governments. This is only the second SI introduced on the Act in the past 10 years, despite all the threats and dangers that we have faced and the learning from them, including the pandemic. The changes made on those occasions were piecemeal and fairly inconsequential.

It is not just the Opposition saying that. I have been speaking to experts for over a year now and finding out more and more about this interesting and necessary field of government. Those experts include members of the National Preparedness Commission, who are also concerned about the lack of proactive development of civil contingencies policy since 2010.

The Minister highlighted the national resilience framework published by the Government just before Christmas, and there is also the post-implementation review of the Civil Contingencies Act that was carried out last year. Notwithstanding the fact that it was late, why is this just a framework? Why is it not a strategy, as originally promised? Where is the detail and the meat behind it? More to the point, why has it taken a deadly pandemic to force any kind of action or review of the Act? The whole point of civil contingencies is to continually plan ahead, think ahead and deliver ahead, but all the Government seem to do is react when it is too late.

I return to the purpose of the instrument. It is all well and good adding these two further organisations to the list of responders but, going ahead, a more fundamental issue needs to be addressed: communication between all these responders. As the National Preparedness Commission has pointed out in its review of the Act, the mechanism for effectively building relationships between the local resilience forums and the category 2 responders—all responders—that can work in a crisis is very weak. The Minister highlighted the often inconsistent and ad hoc nature of that. In fact, the report says that category 2 responders are seen as second-class citizens, which is eroding the sense of partnership on which resilience depends. Resilience depends entirely on partnerships that spring into action to prepare and deliver in an emergency. We saw that most acutely during the pandemic, with whole sectors brought into the covid-19 response on a scale never seen before.

I advocate a shift in the Government’s thinking towards investing more in improving the relationship between category 1 and category 2 responders, and supporting local resilience forums. We could add as many organisations as we wanted to the list, but if they were not ready and had little or no relationship with category 1 responders, it would all be pointless. On that point of adding more organisations, does the Minister plan to do that? Will we be back again next week and the week after?

The National Preparedness Commission has recommended adding several more organisations to the list, including the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Food Standards Agency, the internal drainage boards, operators of COMAH and REPPIR sites—under the control of major accident hazards, and the radiation emergency preparedness and public information regulations—the UK oil pipeline system, the Oil and Pipelines Agency, the Crown Estate, and St John Ambulance and other charitable ambulance services. It further recommended that the status of the British Red Cross as an auxiliary to the UK Government, with its particular and valuable capabilities in planning, needs assessment and humanitarian assistance for emergencies, should be recognised in statutory guidance.

Does the Minister intend to bring forward further instruments to add more agencies to that important list? What other reforms are being brought forward following the post-implementation review?

To summarise, we support the draft instrument, but it cannot end here. A lot more work needs to be done in this area, and we need to go further and deeper if we are to get an Act that delivers on its purpose of keeping all British residents and citizens safe. I will be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts on the questions I have asked.

It is a pleasure to be able to speak about this important draft statutory instrument. I welcome the extension of the list of responders under the Civil Contingencies Act.

In reading the explanatory notes, which is always a pleasure on these occasions, I noticed that the expansion of the list, to include the Coal Authority as one of named responders, would have no practical effect in Northern Ireland, so that part of the United Kingdom will not be covered. Will my hon. Friend the Minister clarify whether that leaves any potential gaps in the ability of that area of civil contingency to be met in that part of the United Kingdom?

I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury and the hon. Member for Putney for their contributions. I hope to answer some of their questions.

I can only apologise for the fact that between 2004 and 2010 everything was absolutely perfect and that since 2010 it has been a total car crash. I have no idea why that might have happened; I am sure it has nothing to do with the change of Government.

Let me answer a couple of questions. The framework sets out the Government’s intention to make fundamental improvements to UK resilience, but the hon. Member for Putney wants a detailed strategy to get into, so I will write to her with that. I will ensure that she understands clearly what that strategy is. That is extremely important.

Why does the draft order include only two additions to the list? There is always a balance in getting organisations into these things: ensuring that those critical to local resilience planning are on the list, without it being too onerous. There can always be arguments about why there are only two additions and why there are not more, but that is where the line has been drawn at the moment.

On the legislation being late, we have an obligation to review every five years, but we may review and amend at any time. It is fair to say that it is important that we allow lessons to be learned from covid. As for adding more organisations—as much as I have enjoyed this morning, I have no plans to come back next week to do the same thing—this is an ongoing process. On the issue of when the situation changes, the Government have demonstrated flexibility with this review by updating the framework and adding the Coal Authority and the Met Office to the list, to ensure that the legislation is appropriate and responds the challenges we face under the Civil Contingencies Act.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury asked a very good question about Northern Ireland—to which I do not know the answer, I am afraid. I will write to him with the details. The draft order has been agreed across the devolved authorities—it is important to make that clear. Elected representatives in Northern Ireland are happy that this is covered and the same effects are achieved, but to ensure that I get the answer right, I will write to him about the specific levers used in Northern Ireland to achieve the same outcome.[Official Report, 27 February 2023, Vol. 728, c. 4MC.]

To conclude, the Civil Contingencies Act delivers a strong framework for protection in the UK. Categorising the Met Office and the Coal Authority as responders strengthens that framework further and recognises the integral role of those organisations in national preparedness. I hope that colleagues will join me in supporting the draft order, which I commend to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.