CIVIL DEFENCE (PUBLIC PROTECTION) (SCOTLAND) REGULATIONS 1967 (Hansard, 18 July 1967)

§ LORD HUGHES

My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Civil Defence (Public Protection) (Scotland) Regulations 1967, a copy of which was laid before this House on June 28, be approved.

These draft regulations correspond substantially to the Public Protection and the Casualty Services Regulations for England and Wales, which were approved by your Lordships on July 14. Like them, they are needed to implement the reorganisation of local authority civil defence, to which reference was made in debating in this House on March 23 last a Motion by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie.

A new duty which these regulations would lay on local authorities is that of training members of their staffs in civil defence control duties. There would be no obligation on individual local authority employees to undertake training in these duties: staff participation in the arrangements would therefore be voluntary, and, on this understanding, N.A.L.G.O. (Scottish District) have raised no objection on behalf of their members.

244 Otherwise the draft regulations follow generally the existing regulations, made in 1949, which they would revoke. They do not deal with the war-time ambulance services which will be covered for England and Wales by the Casualty Services Regulations to be made by the Minister of Health. The reason for this is that, in Scotland, the local authorities have no responsibility, in peace or in war, for the ambulance services: the ambulance auxiliary corps in Scotland is part of the National Health Service Reserve and is administered by the Scottish Ambulance Service, which is the direct responsibility of the Secretary of State.

One effect of the revocation of the 1949 Regulations would be to transfer from the police authorities to county councils and the town councils of large burghs the responsibility for functions hitherto discharged through the warden section of the Civil Defence Corps, a duty which the police inherited because of their experience in organising the warden service in the last war. In its new role, the Corps will not have specialist sections, and its organisation and training for the discharge of its warden-type duties, as well as for its other tasks, will become the concern of the local authority.

I should like to take this opportunity of expressing the thanks of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to the voluntary aid societies—the St. Andrew's Ambulance Association and the Scottish Branch of the British Red Cross—for their ready agreement to co-operate with the local authorities in the planning of the war-time first aid service; and to the local authority associations, through their representatives on the standing local authority civil defence co-ordinating committee, for their assistance in the drafting of these regulations and other measures required to implement the reorganisation of local authority civil defence to meet current needs. It is proposed to bring the regulations into operation on September 1. I hope the House will have no difficulty in approving them. I beg to move.