Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England)

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

That is the concern of everyone in the House. The most important thing is that firefighters should be fit to do the task they are asked to undertake and that they volunteer to do on behalf of society, and I am coming to that point.

We have two different potential measures of fitness, one of 42 and another of 35. Why does that matter? Dr Williams adopted a VO₂ max of 42 as the benchmark for his recommendations because fitness levels are not academic. It is a question of safety. He said:

“Studies show that below an aerobic fitness standard of 42…the risk of sudden catastrophic cardiac events increases, and below the level of 35…the increase is significant”.

More recently, an interim report, produced by the university of Bath in March and entitled “Enhancing the Health, Fitness and Performance of UK Firefighters”, identified that

“firefighters with an aerobic capacity below an occupational fitness standard of 42.3…would not be guaranteed to be safe and effective in their ability to complete necessary roles within their occupation…the lower VO₂ max standard of 35…for continuation of work with remedial training amongst operational firefighters is potentially unsafe for the majority of firefighters.”

The House is owed an explanation from Ministers. What do they have to say about that? I hope that the House will now understand why concern has been expressed about the question of fitness standards.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Hilary Benn]

I will give way, but then I am going to make progress.

[Barbara Keeley]

Will my right hon. Friend come on to the issue of women firefighters, many of whom are fearful of being driven out? On the one hand, we are trying to get more women firefighters and on the other they are terrified of being driven out by these fitness standards.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and if she bears with me for just a moment I shall come directly to her point.

This is the central problem with the regulations: Ministers appear to have based all their assumptions for the pension scheme on the 35 VO₂ max measure. They assume that all firefighters will be able to maintain operational fitness when they cannot even tell us what the fitness standard will be and when their own assumption of a fitness standard would put the safety of firefighters and the public at risk, which is what the Williams report and the report from the university of Bath say.

Dr Williams also states that many of the fire and rescue authorities, understanding the importance of the VO₂ max standard, insist on a standard of 42 for operational fitness. Furthermore, Dr Williams found that in the best case assumption, if the 42 standard were used, as opposed to the 35 standard,

“the age related decline in VO₂ max”—

due to the natural ageing process—

“would indicate that 15% of firefighters would be unfit for duty at 55 years, increasing to 23% at 60 years of age”.

As for women firefighters, Dr Williams said this:

“more women are likely to drop below the required aerobic fitness standard as they age.”

Those figures amount to a lot of firefighters, yet the Government have failed to respond properly to the Williams review. In fairness to the Minister, she has set up a working party to consider fitness standards, but we do not know what that working party will recommend. Given that many fire and rescue authorities have a fitness standard of 42, is she going to tell the House that she thinks it will recommend a lower fitness standard than that which is currently applied by many fire and rescue authorities?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Anderson]

Exactly. When the former fire Minister, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who is in his place, was asked by the Tyne and Wear fire chief how he was supposed to implement the changes, he was told to “get on and manage it”. There has been cut after cut after cut.

[Barbara Keeley]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Anderson]

No, I must finish my speech.

I will make one last point. In the past few weeks, 24 million households in this country have had a tax receipt showing a breakdown of exactly where in the public sector their taxes have been spent. I ask the Government to do something more tonight. After the vote, I want them to send out to those 24 million households a copy of today’s Hansard, so that, somewhere down the line, if one of those firefighters up in the Public Gallery dies when they should not have been tackling a fire, or if one of our constituents dies while being rescued by someone who should not have been doing the job, people will know who to point the finger at.