Cabinet Office UK Resilience

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Emergency Powers

Part 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 contains the Government’s generic emergency powers legislation.

Emergency powers are a last-resort option for responding to the most serious of emergencies where existing legislative provision is insufficient.

They are a mechanism for making temporary legislation in order to prevent, control or mitigate an aspect or effect of the emergency.

Emergency regulations must be necessary to resolve the emergency and proportionate to the effect or aspect of the emergency they are aimed at.

What emergency regulations will contain will depend on the specific requirement arising out of the potential or actual circumstances of the emergency.

There must be no expectation that the Government will agree to use emergency powers and planning and response arrangements must assume that they will not be used.

• Emergency Response and Recovery: Chapter 14 - Emergency Powers [PDF]

Key Links

You should refer to:

• The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 - full text [External website]
• Central Government’s Concept of Operations [PDF 80 pages, 574KB] - Document setting out the arrangements for the response to emergencies requiring co-ordinated UK central government action