What is the civil contingencies bill?
The proposed legislation would give the government stronger emergency powers to deal with major catastrophes. Its aim is to provide "a wide range of coordinated, capable resources" to deal with various of modern peacetime emergency situations, including terrorist attacks, but also environmental catastrophes, epidemics, internet attacks and any collapse of the financial markets.
What sorts of incidents would it cover?
The draft bill widened the definition of what constitutes an emergency to include any event which "presents a serious threat to human welfare, the environment, political, administrative, or economic stability, and the security of the UK or part of it".
In response to warnings from civil rights organisations, the government has tightened its definition of an "emergency" to make clear the new powers cannot be triggered by an event which merely threatens the "political, administrative or economic stability" of the country.
Critics had worried that this could be used by a future government to protect its own status, no matter the level of public dissent.
The new definition states that an emergency is an event or situation which "threatens serious damage to human welfare, the environment or the security of the UK or part of it". A small but significant change.
What measures does it propose?
For the first time the government would have the power to declare a state of emergency on a regional as well as a national basis, and then seek parliamentary approval of its decision within 30 days. The state of emergency would be declared by royal proclamation, although this could be dispensed with as "in some circumstances it might prove impractical". Ministers will have to clearly define the nature of the emergency and the scale of the crisis must be sufficiently grave to warrant the powers being invoked. They must also show that their planned response to the crisis would not be possible under non-emergency legislation.
It will allow ministers to issue orders barring the public from access to sensitive sites or evacuating affected areas.
The state could take control of major financial institutions or declare a bank holiday to protect the markets from massive fluctuations in the wake of a disaster.
The government's account could be removed from the Bank of England to allow it to continue to function following a major terrorist attack on the City of London.
How would it affect local authorities?
The bill would establish a new framework for civil defence, which has remained largely unchanged since the height of the cold war in the 1950s. It would require local and regional authorities, including councils and the emergency services, to draw up detailed plans for dealing with a catastrophe. This would involve the creation of a new tier of regional civil protection organisations, described in the draft bill as "resilience bodies", to coordinate the response by local and national government.
The bill creates two categories of individuals and organisations responsible at the local level for dealing with emergencies, which could also include disease epidemics or disruption to supplies of food, water, energy or fuel.
"Category one responders," including councils, police chief constables, fire authorities, NHS trusts, port health authorities and the Environment Agency, are required to assess the risk of emergencies occurring and to maintain a plan for dealing with them if they do.
"Category two responders", such as utility companies, transport operators and the Health and Safety Executive, are given the duty to cooperate with these organisations in the event of an emergency.
Why is the current legislation inadequate?
The government claims that existing legislation - the Civil Defence Act 1948 and the Emergency Powers Act 1920, were respectively designed to deal with Soviet attack and industrial and civil unrest. Local council emergency planning procedures devised in the cold war were also ill-prepared to deal with terrorist attacks on the scale of September 11. Experts warned that plans to deal with disasters in the UK were shambolic and could not cope with a catastrophe on the scale of the destruction of the World Trade Centre. Local authority emergency planning officers said that, because of poor coordination, Britain lacked the infrastructure to manage the sort of massive long-term relief operation launched by the US authorities.
What concerns are there about the proposed legislation?
The bill will confer sweeping authority on ministers to do almost anything that once an emergency has been declared. According to the Guardian, its poses "potentially the greatest threat to civil liberty that any parliament is ever likely to consider".
The Emergency Powers Act 1920 was mostly used against striking trade unions. These powers are largely being transferred to the new bill. The proposed legislation could not be used to break strikes or force conscription into the armed forces but it would allow the police to impose travel restrictions in the event of a crisis.
As a consequence of worries the government held a four-month public consultation, during which time both civil rights group Liberty and a cross-party committee of MPs and peers criticised the bill as it stood.
As a result, the Cabinet Office minister in charge, Douglas Alexander, made small changes to the bill ahead of its passage through the Commons and Lords, admitting: "I am very grateful for the work of the joint committee, the defence committee and others involved in the pre-legislative scrutiny process. I am also pleased that so many practitioners took time to contribute to the policy development process. The bill has benefited significantly from their contributions."
The director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, said that the government had responded to most of the group's concerns over the civil liberties implications of the bill, particularly by tightening the definition of an emergency.
However, Ms Chakrabarti warned: "This is a statute that is likely to sit around for years to come and we have to remember not just what might be done by a future government with good intentions, but we have to provide for a possible government with less good intentions."
Provisions allowing the declaration of a state of emergency in the case of disruption to communications networks were still a cause for concern, she said.
Tony Bunyan, the editor of Statewatch, was less enthused, saying: "The limited concessions made by the government in no way change the fundamental objections to this bill.
"The powers available to the government and state agencies would be truly draconian. Cities could be sealed off, travel bans introduced, all phones cut off, and websites shut down. Demonstrations could be banned and the news media be made subject to censorship. New offences against the state could be "created" by government decree.
"This is Britain's Patriot Act. At a stroke democracy could be replaced by totalitarianism."