§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw)With permission, Madam Speaker, I shall make a statement about our preparations and arrangements for the period around the millennium. This coming new year poses particular challenges, and I therefore felt it right that I should let the House know about the arrangements.
My right hon. Friend the President of the Council made a statement to the House last week on action that the United Kingdom has already taken and on its preparedness for the date change. The House was, I believe, reassured by her statement. The United Kingdom is one of the best prepared countries in the world. However, my right hon. Friend the President of the Council also warned about complacency. Problems may still occur, and we need to be ready to deal with them.
Alongside potential millennium bug problems, there is the possibility of public disorder and other general difficulties. Celebrations on any new year's eve can produce crowd-related problems. There is obviously an increased risk this year because of the additional number of events that will be held, some of which will attract very large numbers of people.
To ensure that people can celebrate this special occasion in safety, a great deal of careful preparation and planning has been carried out by the police, fire, ambulance and other emergency services and by central Government's emergency planning staff. That has been co-ordinated nationally through the civil contingencies committee, which I chair. Its members include Ministers from all key Departments, representatives of the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Administration, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Metropolitan police. The committee held an important exercise to test the systems as early as last May. Since the summer, it has met regularly to oversee and review operational readiness in the public services.
We want to ensure that millennium celebrations across the country are conducted safely and that, if anything goes wrong, our emergency services can cope effectively. The emergency services are ready to deal with problems at any time. However, we have needed to ensure that those services could cope with a potentially heavier load and a wider range of problems at the end of this year.
The police service will be in a very high state of readiness. The police national information centre at New Scotland Yard will receive information from every police force in the country. That is important because of the large scale of celebrations across the country. We know of major events in 22 cities. Special events will take place in most other cities, towns and villages. The fire and ambulance services will also be in an enhanced state of readiness. To cope with all that, the police service across the country has decided to cancel leave; additional ambulance and fire service personnel will also be on duty. I pay tribute to all those from the emergency services who will give up their time with their families and friends to ensure that everyone else can enjoy the celebrations on new year's eve.
The celebrations in London will attract the largest numbers. To help ensure safety on the streets of central London, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
673 has declared a traffic limitation zone for an area covering the west end, the City and the south bank and a separate zone in parts of Greenwich. The main central London zone will be in operation from the afternoon of 31 December until the early hours of 1 January; it will be dismantled progressively as deemed sensible by the police.
Residents and those with businesses in the traffic limitation zone will be allowed to travel by vehicle in it, but those seeking access by vehicle are asked to carry company letters of reference or other identification, a resident's parking permit or proof of address. There will be no restrictions on pedestrians or pedal cyclists. Disabled car drivers who hold an orange badge will be able to enter and park, including on single and double yellow lines where they are not causing an obstruction. Specific roads—those closest to the river where the crowds will be thickest—will not be accessible by vehicle at all. Large numbers of people will come into the city centre and, apart from the disabled who are not in a position to do so, everyone is advised to use public transport. There will be enhanced public transport arrangements, not only to get people safely into the centre of London but to get them out again in the early hours of the morning.
In Scotland, a torchlight parade will take place in Edinburgh—one of 60 events there. Glasgow will hold a range of events, as will Aberdeen and surrounding towns. There will be a major fireworks display in Dundee. Major events in Cardiff and Swansea will include a lantern procession as well as a major pop concert at the Millennium stadium in Cardiff. There will also be major events in Belfast city centre and elsewhere in Northern Ireland. A wide variety of events will take place across England—for example, fireworks and giant video screens in Birmingham and Coventry, a lantern procession and open air rink in Bristol, a street festival in Brighton, and quayside fireworks in Newcastle.
In our planning, we have had to take account of the potential impact of some apparently unrelated issues. For example, it is anticipated that several million extra mobile telephones will be sold in the last few weeks of this year. It is highly probable that many mobile phones will be used around midnight on new year's eve as people who are out seek to ring family or friends at home or abroad. High levels of use could swamp the system. The public telecommunications operators and the emergency services have therefore put in place arrangements to manage the networks in such circumstances. There are other arrangements, too, such as the Government's own alternative emergency communications network, which connects central and local government, and the police and fire services and the military, with each other.
Alongside those detailed preparations by the emergency services and others, the Government have an extensive set of arrangements in place to monitor events and to involve Ministers if decisions need to be taken centrally. A Government millennium centre and emergency planning and information officers will operate on a 24-hour basis, and I and a number of my colleagues across government will be on duty over the period. The civil contingencies committee will meet on new year's eve and again on new year's morning. Our hope is that people across the United Kingdom will be able to enjoy the 674 millennium celebrations safely, but the House, I am sure, will share our view that it has been right to undertake the planning and preparation that I have outlined.
§ Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury)I thank the Home Secretary for his statement and for his courtesy in letting me see a copy of it in advance. I have a number of questions, about both the national emergency planning arrangements for the millennium holiday and the specific issue of how those matters should be handled in central London. I shall deal with the national issues first.
As the Home Secretary made clear, large-scale celebrations are planned not only in London. What audit has his Department made of local and regional emergency plans, and is he satisfied that local authorities and other agencies are prepared and equipped to cope should a genuine emergency arise during the new year period? Can he say a word about the costs of the operation for the police and fire services? Can he confirm that most police forces and fire services have already cancelled all leave for officers and civilians from 31 December until 3 January? What assessment has he made of the cost of that in overtime for the police and fire services? Can he assure the House that providing that cover during the millennium holiday period will not be paid for by cuts in response times and beat policing later in the new year? We know that a certain amount of additional grant has already been made available to the Metropolitan police, but is it still open to other police authorities to apply to the Home Office for additional assistance to cope with the particular duties that will arise during the millennium holiday?
The Home Secretary commented on the arrangements in central London. Can he give the House additional information about what he meant when he said that there are contingency plans to manage the mobile telephone networks? Clearly, mobile phones could be important for summoning assistance in the case of an accident or injury to an individual or if people attending the celebrations become aware of disorder or a problem elsewhere in central London and want to find out what they should do in such circumstances. How will those possibilities be managed in practice? May I impress on him and his colleagues the importance of making sure that they give high priority to providing public information up to and during the millennium celebrations? Members of the public will expect such information to be available, and there is complete support from Members in all parts of the House for making it so.
The Home Secretary commented on traffic management and the large number of visitors to central London expected on new year's eve. Obviously there is a difficult balance to strike between ensuring public safety and allowing as much free movement as possible through the centre of the capital city to people and vehicles. What is his planning assumption about the expected number of visitors to the millennium celebrations? There have been a great many different reports in the media about the number of visitors expected. The planning assumption adopted by the Home Secretary will obviously be important in that it will enable us to assess whether our preparations are appropriate.
Can the Home Secretary confirm that workers in central London and central London residents will be restricted to 50 or 60 vehicle checkpoints if they want to enter the traffic limitation zone on new year's eve? Is there not a 675 risk of gridlock immediately beyond entry and exit points? What instructions are being given to police officers who will have the difficult job of checking the credentials of people seeking to enter the zone, and how will that problem of management be dealt with?
What will be the position of those who have been invited to central London as the guests of residents? Will they be expected to produce a proof of identity, or a letter of invitation? Is there a risk of differences of opinion at the checkpoints? Presumably much will be left to the discretion of police officers on duty at the checkpoints, but I should be grateful if the Home Secretary would tell us how he intends the problem to be tackled.
Another potential problem is posed by the fact that all the main centres of worship in central London—Westminster abbey, Westminster cathedral, St. Paul's cathedral and Southwark cathedral—are within the traffic limitation zone. Orange badge holders are to be given access, but no exemption appears to be planned for elderly people who would normally use their cars to attend a millennium eve service in those churches. I am sure that even the Home Secretary would not wish the abiding image of the millennium eve to be an image of elderly and infirm people struggling up the escalators at tube stations, and then hiking some distance to their place of worship, while Cabinet Ministers can swan into Westminster tube station and enter their specially commissioned tube train.
I join the Home Secretary in paying tribute—in my case, on behalf of the Opposition—to all members of the emergency services and to the civil servants who will give up their holidays to ensure that adequate plans are in place to ensure the safety and enjoyment of the British public. We all hope that those plans have been well thought through, and that the emergency plans will not need to be implemented.
§ Mr. StrawThe hon. Gentleman asked whether the local and regional emergency plans had been audited. They have been tested, to the extent that we have been able to test them. This is an exercise in predicting the unpredictable. We hope very much that the arrangements will work and that we have anticipated everything that could go wrong, but what happens remains to be seen. No doubt I shall have to make a further statement as soon as the House reconvenes after the Christmas recess if the plans do not work out as intended, but the emergency services, local authorities and others have put a huge amount of work into the exercise, with the aim of ensuring that people can enjoy the millennium safely and without risk.
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a precise figure for the cost of the operation. He is right to say that an additional allocation was made to the Metropolitan police in the current budget to cover the extra costs. All police leave has been cancelled, but all fire service leave has not—staff who are at home will be on call and will report for duty if the need arises.
I do not expect there to be an impact on the general occupational capability of the police service. I cannot stop a police force outside London claiming an exceptional grant to cover additional costs, but I am not encouraging it. By definition, the police service is an emergency response service, and money to deal with contingencies of all kinds is built into its budgets.
676 The hon. Gentleman asked me about plans for the management of mobile telephones. The telephone service operates in such a way that should the whole service become swamped, mobile telephone operators are able to protect telephone services used by the emergency services. Although I quite understand that people may wish to use their mobile telephones to call the emergency services, the experience of the emergency services is that, because of mobile telephones, they often receive multiple calls—sometimes running into scores, occasionally into hundreds—about the same incident. However, save in very exceptional circumstances, if citizens' mobile telephones go out of service for a time, the usual arrangements for land lines—there are a huge number of call boxes in all our major cities—should apply.
I am glad that the hon. Member was rather more balanced in his remarks on traffic management than the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) was yesterday. There is plainly a balance to be achieved between public safety and ensuring vehicular access for those who need it. However, we have made arrangements for the disabled, and Westminster city council—which is in the lead on the matter—has, very unusually, lifted its restrictions on orange badge holders parking on double yellow lines, when it is safe to do so, and on single yellow lines.
The disabled apart, those who are able to walk to and from their cars—in normal circumstances, people would have a very long walk from their cars to any celebrations, including to church services—should be able to use the very extensive public transport services available at the millennium in London and in some other cities. I therefore do not anticipate the difficulties that the hon. Gentleman suggested.
I invite people going to dinner parties in central London—even those who are going to the dinner parties of Opposition Members—to make use of the bus or tube, as Cabinet Ministers will be doing.
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman endorsed my thanks to members of the emergency services, who, as I said, will be giving up their time with their family and friends to enable the rest us to enjoy our time with our family and friends.
§ Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston)My right hon. Friend will be aware that emergency planning has a high priority in constituencies such as mine that contain major hazards. He is also aware of the tremendous work done by Cheshire fire service in providing back-up. During millennium activities, the Cheshire fire service will be partially diverted to population centres where celebrations will be held. Is my right hon. Friend therefore satisfied that there will be sufficient first-line support in the private sector operations containing major hazards?
§ Mr. StrawThe judgment on fire cover is best left—indeed, it is left—to chief fire officers in each area. I have had no specific reports about the circumstances in Cheshire, but I have no reason to believe that the usual arrangements to ensure the highest levels of co-operation between the Cheshire fire service and, particularly, firms in the petrochemical industry in my hon. Friend's constituency and elsewhere in Cheshire are not in hand for the millennium period.
§ Mr. Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington)I thank the Home Secretary for his statement and join him in 677 thanking the emergency services for forgoing time with their family and friends during this important celebration. I also thank him for being on call himself during that period.
The Home Secretary's statement prompts various questions. First, has he had any discussions with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions about Southern Aviation of Zambia and Gulf Air which, last Thursday, were the two airlines that had failed to provide any information about their millennium compliance?
Secondly, will the Home Secretary confirm whether the £50 million cost of the policing arrangements that were listed in The Times on Saturday is correct? If so, where will that £50 million, which is significantly more than the £35 million that has so far been set aside for the 5,000 new officers, come from?
Thirdly, what discussions has the Home Secretary had with the train operating companies in the last couple of days? He will have seen the Evening Standard and know that Connex has said that it will not provide the millennium service. What is he going to do to make sure that it does? What will he do about contingency arrangements if party-poopers decide to pull the plug on that service at the last moment?
Finally, will the Home Secretary be giving anyone a mobile phone at Christmas? If so, what advice will he give about using that phone on new year's eve or new year's day?
§ Mr. StrawI understand that Gulf Air has been accepted as safe, and the Zambian airline to which the hon. Gentleman referred is not flying in or out of the United Kingdom.
It is difficult to make a precise assessment of the policing costs of the millennium. We have made a special allocation to the Metropolitan police for this year, but it is in the nature of things that we will not know the full costs until after the event.
I have had no personal conversations with the train operating companies—in particular, Connex—although I did see the Evening Standard yesterday. I have read and digested an excellent publication from London Transport and the train operating companies called "Seeing in the New Millennium" which gives details of every train service in and out of London before new year's eve and on new year's day. I am sure that any changes to that will be announced.
Earlier, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) said that only 60 access and egress points would be available for the zone and that gridlock could occur. Of course there may be traffic jams around the zone. However, if the hon. Gentleman looks at the zone, he will see that there are not more than 60 access and egress points in any event—only about 60 streets usually give access to the whole of the zone.
The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) asked me to disclose the nature of my Christmas presents. These are a secret between myself and Father Christmas.
§ Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Inverclyde)I take it that the safety needs of those employed in the 678 maritime industry have not been overlooked, as seafarers will be going about their work during the millennium period.
My right hon. Friend sensibly encourages people to use public transport to attend the huge events in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and, presumably, Blackburn and Greenock. Might not it make good sense to waive fares between 7 pm on new year's eve and 7 am on new year's day? The city of Sydney has followed such a policy for many years, and it works exceedingly well, especially by positively deterring car drivers from coming into the city.
§ Mr. StrawMaritime safety is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and Regions. Clearly, arrangements have been put in place.
Given his anxieties about the matter, my hon. Friend may wish to know that special arrangements have been tested in respect of safety on the Thames. There will be 32 patrol boats from the police, the Port of London authority and others patrolling the river, instead of the usual handful. Other boat traffic will cease for the key period, and cruise operators and others have been informed of what is expected of them. There has been an independent risk audit and five exercises involving the police, fire and ambulance services, the PLA and the London boroughs in respect of safety on the Thames.
Free travel is a matter for the public transport operators in co-operation with those who fund them. In London, all tube, bus and docklands light railway services from 23.50 on Friday 31 December to 9 am on Saturday 1 January will be free. However, it is stressed that one must have a valid travel ticket at all other times.
§ Mr. David Tredinnick (Bosworth)My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) referred to the difficult balancing act for the Home Secretary in relation to restrictions and security. Does the Home Secretary recall the problems in the autumn when all kinds of travel restrictions were talked about and a massive media campaign warned people about the difficulties in Cornwall—I speak as a Cornishman rather than a Leicestershire Member on this point—which resulted in a collapse in the number of people who went there? It was a fiasco for the county.
I am worried that some of my constituents in Hinckley may have second thoughts about coming to London because of concerns about whether they can get out of Euston or St. Pancras. They may wonder whether the traffic will simply be stopped at a certain point on the M1 or the M40. The Home Secretary owes those of us in the midlands a reassurance that every effort will be made to ensure that the traffic flows properly off the M1 and the M40, that there are overspill car parks and that those travelling by train will actually get there. If there is a tiny disturbance at Euston, will the whole east coast main line shut down for the millennium?
Will the Home Secretary advertise the special services that are to be offered on new year's eve?
§ Mr. StrawThe hon. Gentleman talked about the eclipse in the autumn; I think that it took place on 679 11 August. There was a lower attendance than anticipated, but that is in the nature of events. We cannot entirely predict human behaviour.
§ Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex)It was raining.
§ Mr. StrawI recall that it rained in Cornwall under the previous Administration, too. These days, we live not in a command economy but in a world of private enterprise, albeit informed by policies of social justice. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It is called the third way. People cannot be directed to enjoy themselves, even if that is antithetical to Conservative Members. Facilities are laid on and people are invited to take part, but they make their own choices.
I was asked earlier about the size of the crowds. There will be large crowds. It is only an estimate, but the Government office for London put the number at between 1.5 million and 2 million people. By definition, there will be very large crowds. Those who do not like crowds should not come into London.
The hon. Gentleman also asked whether we could abolish traffic jams just for new year's eve. Just as it rained under the previous Administration, there were traffic jams then, too. One absolute certainty—I promise it—is that, whoever wins the next general election, and the one after that and the one after that, there will occasionally be traffic jams and gridlock.
The purpose of the traffic limitation zone and all the arrangements in respect of public transport is to ensure that the maximum number of people can get into and out of central London in the greatest possible safety and that it is safe for people to walk about and enjoy themselves there. I understand Conservative Members' attachment to the motor car, but they need to bear in mind the fact that 90 per cent. of day-by-day journeys into central London are on public transport, so this is well within people's experience.
One final point for those who are concerned about accuracy: the hon. Gentleman asked whether, if there was trouble at Euston, the east coast main line would be affected. The answer is no, because that line runs into King's Cross.