Angela Watkinson

Conservative Party | Upminster

Fire and Rescue Services Bill

Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): I shall make my speech much briefer than I had planned, in the hope that others will be able to speak.

I want to comment on the Fire Services Act 2003 and its impact on the current situation. This Bill comes hot on the heels of that Act, which was passed as a result of the industrial dispute about pay. The result of that dispute was a pay award of 16 per cent. over three years, financed by savings. We should bear that phrase "financed by savings" in mind. Four per cent. was paid immediately, and 7 per cent. was promised last November. In fact, only 3.5 per cent. of that has been paid so far, and firefighters to whom I have spoken recently have no idea whatever when the rest of the pay award will be received.

The Act also gave the Secretary of State powers over the conditions of service of fire brigade members, powers over the use or disposal of property—fire engines and fire stations—and unprecedented powers of intervention. It gave firefighters little or no more than a rise in line with that of blue-collar workers, excluding overtime, which they could have expected without a strike. The firefighters did not come out of it well at all. The aftermath of the strike, and what was seen by most firefighters as a highly unsatisfactory outcome, left morale at a low ebb. It is essential that this Bill be dealt with sensitively, and do nothing to harm the fragile process of restoring that morale, which is essential to the efficient operation of the fire service.

Before the strike there were 40 applicants for every job, of which only four were suitable. If morale is not restored, the fire service could go the same way as teaching, the police service and nursing, with a gradual diminishing of the number of people who wish to pursue those careers.

The Minister and the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett) have referred to the need for more ethnic recruitment and for more women to go into the fire service. I know from my service on the Essex fire authority that there are some ethnic, cultural and religious groups to whom the fire service is not an attractive job; it does not appeal to them at all, partly because it involves getting dirty. I should like to make a plea that if there are to be more women in the fire service, they must be recruited to the same standard as everyone else. To lower the standards on the altar of political correctness would be most inadvisable, because it is essential that every qualified firefighter have the appropriate strength and ability to do the job. Firefighers work in very close-knit groups—the watches—and each relies on the others in life-endangering situations. If one member of a watch did not have sufficient grip strength, for example, and could not hold on to someone in an emergency, the possible outcome is easy to understand. For that reason, the fire service needs a recruitment policy that is open to anyone who can meet those standards, and whether applicants are of a certain gender or ethnic group should be irrelevant; it is attracting recruits of the right quality that is important.

The Local Government Association—a body with which I do not always see eye to eye—has stated that collaboration should be voluntary, not compulsory, that fire authorities must be able to maintain control of local services and that the additional costs of regional arrangements need to be considered, as they will be borne across the whole fire modernisation programme. The arguments against regionalisation have been well rehearsed in the debate, so I will not add to them now, but I should like to ask about the relatively new additional responsibility for fire services: dealing with terrorist threats. One has only to recall the role of the New York fire department in dealing with the terrorist attacks on the twin towers to know how important that is, and there is a clear need for strategic planning in unprecedented emergencies such as that. For that reason alone, I can understand the benefits of regionalisation, but not for the whole spectrum of duties that fire services undertake.
I should like to ask the Minister to throw some light on the cost of new dimension training—for example, for massive decontamination incidents, where firefighters could be on continuous duty for days at a time. That will have considerable cost complications. Where will the funding for such specialist training come from?

Part 3 has caused most alarm to serving firefighters in relation to setting up the national framework, the draft of which was published on 11 December last year and replaces national standards of cover for fire risk. Following the integrated risk management review, standards should be set according to local knowledge and circumstances. However, given the recent history of industrial disputes in the service, firefighters are concerned that that review will result in a reduction in the level of service either by station closures or by the removal of fire engines—and, therefore, in an inevitable increase in response times, which could cost lives. Would it not have been wiser to pilot a service based on integrated risk management in certain areas first, and to assess the results carefully before introducing a blanket policy? The effect of such a change is bound to differ between rural and metropolitan fire authorities, and between those that are efficient and those that are less so. I hope that that point will be picked up and examined closely in Committee.

Firefighting is not just a job; it is not done solely for the money. There are many easier ways of earning an equivalent income without involvement in life-endangering situations. During the last strike, which caused considerable hardship to those taking part, it was clear that firefighters felt that the Government, if not the general public, undervalued them. The whole exercise was hugely damaging to internal relations in the fire service and the public it serves. The changes proposed in the Bill—they will become law because the Government have a large majority—must be consulted on in a genuine and meaningful way. I hope that any objections will be given a fair hearing and that amendments will be considered, so that the good will among serving firefighters, which was holed below the waterline last year, can continue its tentative recovery.