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Mr. Eddie Loyden (Liverpool, Garston): In their inimitable styles.
Mr. Howarth: Who am I to disagree with my hon. Friend, who has had long experience?
In their inimitable and characteristic styles, the hon. Members for Billericay and for Sutton and Cheam raised the questions of London and Essex and went into rants about the Labour-controlled local authorities responsible in both cases. However, they failed to deal with the fact--and my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) made this point powerfully--that local government can respond only to the financial framework that central Government sets. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam should be quiet. I listened to her in silence.
The difficulties that fire authorities in Essex and in London are experiencing stem from the manner in which central Government have dealt with fire service financing not only in the past two or three years, but since the late 1970s and early 1980s. If the Government do not accept that responsibility, central Government will continually try to blame local government for what is going on.
Mr. Bendall:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howarth:
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman because I have only a short time and he was not here at the beginning of the debate.
The Government must accept that they have those responsibilities. The hon. Members for Billericay and for Sutton and Cheam and their colleagues who have spoken in the debate may feel that the responsibilities taken by local government go too far, but, under section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947, the Home Secretary must approve those. He must verify each reduction, whether it involves job losses, tenders being taken out of commission or fire stations being closed. If they have a gripe over those they
should take it up with the Home Secretary, who has created the financial framework and will ultimately make the decisions.
Mr. Howarth:
I shall give way to the hon. Lady, because I mentioned her, but I hope that she will be brief.
Lady Olga Maitland:
Will the hon. Gentleman take into account the fact that in London alone there is £27 million in the reserves? How can he suggest that the Government are underfunding fire authorities when they have managed to build up such a sum, bearing in mind, too, the fact that each year there is a real increase in support?
Mr. Howarth:
I sometimes wonder whether the hon. Lady listens to the debates in the House at all. Sometimes I feel that she may be on another planet when such matters are being discussed. The London fire and civil defence authority has operated within the guidelines set by the Department of the Environment for the maintenance of balances and reserves. It has to put money aside for the pension fund contributions that, as she has heard the Home Secretary acknowledge, represent a real problem for local authorities, because the pension fund is unfunded. The contributions in any one year do not match the payments that have to be made. The hon. Lady should understand the facts before she gets to her feet to condemn local authorities.
Mr. Howard:
If the hon. Gentleman is so keen on the facts, why does he not acknowledge that the director of finance of the London fire and civil defence authority has said that the reserves are too high? Does he suggest that the director of finance does not know that provision has to be made for pensions?
While the hon. Gentleman is worrying about his answer to that question, will he join us in seeking a withdrawal of the strike ballots in Essex and Derbyshire? Will he call on the Fire Brigades Union to withdraw the ballots in those two counties?
Mr. Howarth:
It is a bit rich when a Home Secretary who has spent so much time being defended in the courts attacks Labour-controlled authorities--[Hon. Members: "Answer the question."] If the Home Secretary believes that the level of reserves in London is wrong, will he tell us what the right level of reserves would be? Will he also tell us what the fire services have done wrong in terms of the guidelines from the Department of the Environment, within which they have operated?
I have little time left, so I want to move on and draw a sharp contrast between the speeches by the hon. Members for Billericay and for Sutton and Cheam and those made by my hon. Friends, especially my hon. Friends the Members for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland), for Nottingham, East (Mr. Heppell) and for Crewe and Nantwich. From direct experience and knowledge of the fire service, my hon. Friends understand vividly exactly what the effects of the Government's failure to face the difficulties in fire service financing are. They put their cases strongly and well.
The Government's failure is not a new phenomenon. Dennis Davis, the president of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association, has been quoted at some length from more recent occasions, but in his address to the 1995 conference at Harrogate he said:
That is the Government's record on fire service funding.
Another issue covered was the future of the Fire Service College. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) raised the matter again, having also done so on a previous occasion when we debated the fire service--rightly so, as he is the local constituency Member. He seems rather embarrassed by the support that we have lent him, but I tell him again that we are serious about the need for a long-term strategy for the future of the college--and I accept the fact that he is serious about it, too. I would join him and any Minister in any reasonable plan that they could devise for that purpose.
However, the hon. Gentleman seems prepared to wait a long time for Baroness Blatch to come up with a solution. So far there is an options paper, which has yet to see the light of day, a working party here and a sub-committee there, all considering the matter, yet nobody has come up with a solution to the problem created by the Government in 1992. We hope that the security of the Fire Service College will be assured, but there is no solution on the horizon, and until there is, if I were the hon. Gentleman I should be very gloomy.
Mr. Jeff Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr):
I have listened to most of the debate, but no one has mentioned the remarkable contribution of the voluntary sector and the fire service in the creation of the Young Firefighters Association. The association is a youth movement for those aged from 12 to 18, and was born out of the public service in, I might add, the west midlands. We should pay tribute to the association, as it is almost unique for such a movement to be created in the British public service.
Mr. Howarth:
I obviously join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to that organisation.
Finally, I wish to refer to the question of fire safety and deregulation. In what I think was the most disgraceful section of any speech that I have heard the Home Secretary make--there have been some pretty disgraceful ones among that number--he said that our arguments for proper regulation of certain matters related to fire safety amounted to "red tape". The Home Secretary considers the regulation of children's nightclothes and of houses in multiple occupation to be "red tape".
Mr. Howard:
The hon. Gentleman must not misconstrue and distort what I said in that way. I said that it behoves any responsible Government to look at regulations to see if they are necessary and, if not, to eliminate or revise them. Any party that condemns any attempt to scrutinise regulations--as the hon. Member for Blackburn did--is a party of red tape.
Mr. Howarth:
It is a frequent phenomenon, but the Home Secretary's cage has been rattled. Does he deny
Mr. Howarth:
Will he give us a categorical assurance?
Mr. Howard:
The hon. Gentleman bears out the charges that I levelled against him. Of course we must look at all these matters to see--[Hon. Members: "Oh!"] Listen to Opposition Members. Of course we must look and see whether regulations that were put in place years ago still match the requirements of today. Any party that is not even prepared to look at those regulations is behaving in a disgraceful fashion and is a party of red tape.
Mr. Howarth:
The Home Secretary has a strange view of history, as the regulations to which I have referred were put in place in 1988. But he has given no categorical assurance. The Government are considering deregulating children's nightclothes, foam-filled furniture and houses in multiple occupation. [Interruption.] The Home Secretary says "Yes". He should be ashamed of himself and of the stewardship by his Government of the fire service. He should go, and the sooner the better.
"But just look at what's happening. At a time when CACFOA members sense real opportunity to move into the next phase of fire service development, to change for the better, to move our community to fire safety, through prevention rather than cure, we are on shifting sands and effectively lost in the fog of indecision."
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