Most Labour MPs will be surprised - and ministers will be indignant - at the accusation that the Blair government is planning to enact the most sweepingly authoritarian piece of official legislation in modern peacetime. After all, the draft of the civil contingencies bill, published yesterday by the Cabinet Office, was presented by ministers as a merely practical measure. Its aim, according to yesterday's consultation document, is to provide "a wide range of coordinated, capable resources" to deal with a range of modern peacetime emergency situations, ranging from the terrorist attacks of which the head of MI5 warned this week, to foot-and-mouth and a fuel crisis. What reasonable person could object to that?
No one can possibly dispute the general proposition that a government is entitled to arm itself with certain reserve powers to deal with major upheavals. But government should not be given a free pass when it comes to examining the scope and detail of such powers. The public in general, and MPs in particular, need to be aware that the new bill, when it is brought forward in the autumn, will confer sweeping authority on ministers to do almost anything that they like in an emergency.
Though the bill is being justified, reasonably enough, in the context of particular modern emergencies, it will also apply to any other situation of any kind that the government deems to be an emergency. The Emergency Powers Act 1920, which this bill replaces, was mostly used against striking trade unions, most famously in 1926, but then on many occasions for the next half century. These powers, along with some real safeguards in the 1920 act, are largely being transferred to the new bill. At the very least, MPs need to think through whether such powers are necessary on such an unrestricted scale in modern peacetime.
Britain unquestionably needs a modern emergency powers and planning act. The coordinating function which occupies the first part of the new bill is broadly welcome. But the second part is potentially the greatest threat to civil liberty that any parliament is ever likely to consider. That does not necessarily mean that it should not be passed. But it does mean that there is an absolute obligation on the press and on MPs to scrutinise it with an eagle eye. The consultation period that began yesterday is short. No one who cares about civil liberty should fail to take part in it. This is far more than just a legal tidying-up exercise.
