| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Fire Services
11 am
Mr. John Austin-Walker (Woolwich): I make no apology for this being the fourth occasion in as many weeks on which I have raised my concerns about the fire service. On previous occasions, those concerns were related to the situation in London. Today I wish to widen the debate in view of the fears expressed by other hon. Members about the situation in their constituencies.
We now seem to be embroiled in an annual ritual fight over budgets for fire brigades: a fight to save fire stations, to save fire engines on the road, to save firefighters' jobs and, ultimately, to save lives. Implementation of the proposed fire service cuts will cost lives that the firefighters are there to protect and also the lives of firefighters themselves.
Earlier this year, hon. Members received a letter from Dennis Davies, president of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association, in which he stated:
Mr. Davies, who is chief fire officer for Cheshire, said that current expenditure in real terms on the fire service exceeds formal allocations, as expressed in the revenue support grant, by about £80 million. He said in his letter:
He added, however, that a crisis had been averted in many cases because
The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), agreed with that point when he said in a reply to the hon. Member for South Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer) that
So there we have it from the mouth of the Minister. Fire cover can be maintained in the shire counties, despite underfunding, by cuts in education or social services. The hon. Members for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) and for South Worcestershire were rightly concerned about the possible risks to their areas from the proposed closures of Beudley and Pebworth, the halving of staffing at Kidderminster, the reduction in the number of appliances and the removal of a hydraulic platform.
Principal fire officers have instituted countless reviews and embraced many new ideas. The Audit Commission has also conducted an in-depth review. It is now estimated that that review will result in only £7 million savings from improved performance, whereas the initial optimistic forecast was for £67 million. Either figure would leave the service with a substantial shortfall.
I share Mr. Davies's concern that, despite routine local reporting of fire service difficulties and the generally held belief that our communities should be safe, the fire service predicament has not yet reached the national consciousness and we have not yet had a national debate. I hope that today's debate will lead to a full national debate.
Fire services have a responsibility to comply with operational standards set by the Home Office. Increasingly, however, performance to minimum standards--measured, in the case of the fire service, by speed of attendance at the scene of a fire--has become the acceptable quality standard. Attendance times are important--they can mean the difference between life and death--but as the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association said,
What real value is there in the fast arrival of an ill-equipped or ill-trained fire crew?
The current situation--and this trend is accelerating--is that the absolute need to ensure a fast response is taking money from training, vehicle replacements, equipment purchases and public education and prevention programmes. The association has warned that the fire service--which needs technical development to meet more complex hazards, with better information systems and personal protection--is short of basic capital investment, that new skills training is stagnating when it should be growing and that research into better options for public protection is slowing down.
Last month, firefighters from Tyne and Wear came to Parliament to spell out the consequences of the £2.3 million shortfall in their 1996-97 budget to hon. Members.
Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South):
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning Tyne and Wear. As I believe he knows, we are faced with losing, through natural wastage, 92 front-line firefighters. That is bound to have an impact on a service which has always received the auditors' approval for its cost-effectiveness.
Mr. Austin-Walker:
I certainly take that point.The loss of 92 firefighters' jobs and the loss of five firefighting appliances in my hon. Friend's area will obviously affect public safety.
Mr. Mullin:
It is seven appliances.
Mr. Austin-Walker:
I stand corrected. Those losses are happening in an area in which three members of the public died in a fire after a fire station less than one minute from their home had been closed.
The problem does not exist only in urban and inner-city areas. In Scotland, many rural areas may be left to burn when stations in Balmoral, Gordonstoun, Rothes, Cullen, Banff and Kintore are closed. When a firefighter lost his foot, the fire authority concerned was criticised by the court for inadequate training; yet the current funding levels will mean further cuts in training for firefighters.
The Government's approach to the fire service has been typical of their approach to all public services: they want to know the cost of everything but recognise the value of nothing. The Fire Service college is a case in point. That former centre of excellence and one time world leader has been reduced to agency status, and profit rather than professionalism has become the priority. Throughout Britain, firefighter training has been restricted as a result of understaffing and underfunding, and many brigades can no longer afford to send staff to the Fire Service college.
The key issue is insufficient total funding of the fire service, and the situation is bound to worsen due to the effects of the pensions time bomb. Eighteen months ago,
in the debate on the Queen's Speech, I drew the Minister's attention to the problem facing the London fire authority and warned that unless that problem was dealt with, there was a
In the debate on 9 February this year, I pointed out that in London the fire authority is already devoting 19 per cent. of its budget to pensions. I further stated:
Nationally, it is estimated that in 10 years' time employers' contributions to the pension fund will absorb 25 per cent. of total fire service revenue expenditure.In London, the 25 per cent. level will be reached by the year 2002 or 2003. Throughout the country, the result of the Government's financial settlement will be a loss of hundreds of operational posts and a virtual freeze on recruitment. That will inevitably exacerbate the pension problems as fewer firefighters will be contributing to the pensions of more retired firefighters.
The Minister tells us that authorities have reserves or that further savings can be made, but it has already been shown that the efficiency savings identified by the Audit Commission are more likely to yield only £7 million rather than the £67 million hoped for by the Government. Services have already been pared to the bone.The Government claim that that is political posturing by Ken Cameron and the Fire Brigades Union, or by Councillor Tony Ritchie of the London fire authority, but the truth is that anyone who knows anything about the fire services holds the same view.
Mr. Clarkson, the previous chief fire officer for London, is on record as having said that he had already cut the service to the bone and that there was no more room for cuts. He is not a member of the Fire Brigades Union, and he is certainly not a member of the Labour party. It was revealed by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mrs. Prentice) in a debate on 1 February that Mr. Clarkson is in fact a Conservative nominee for the police committee in Kent.
Ms Margaret Hodge (Barking):
Does my hon. Friend agree that the loss of 15 fire appliances from the capital is particularly absurd at a time of threats of disruption from bombs and that it is particularly inappropriate that as we develop the site for the millennium festival in Greenwich the two stations next to that site are to lose fire appliances? Does he further agree that Londoners would prefer to pay 4p per week and feel secure in the knowledge that they have a good fire service rather than face the cuts imposed by the Government?
"The fire service is facing a serious financial situation which needs to be remedied if it is not to create major operational difficulties."
"To date the service, locally managed through Fire Authorities although substantially centrally funded, has sought to keep its quality by internal changes and innovation."
"local government has consistently placed Fire higher in the list of local service priorities, often to the detriment of other services."
"a shire county is not limited in its spending on its fire brigade by the fire service share of its SSA. What matters is the overall SSA for the county council. It is for the county council to decide its priorities for spending across all its services."--[Official Report,29 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 1175.]
"achieving a fast arrival is just the beginning of our task."
"real prospect that we face dramatic cuts in the cover provided by fire and civil defence authorities in the next financial year."--[Official Report, 18 November 1994; Vol. 250, c. 293.]
"The estimate of the pension requirements in 1996-97 is£45 million. The calculation in the SSA is £41 million--a difference of £4 million".--[Official Report, 9 February 1996; Vol. 271,c. 630.]
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |