Policing and Crime Bill (Third sitting)

Amanda Milling Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Lyn Brown]

I am frightened of giving the hon. Gentleman ideas, particularly if he is going to rise to the Front Bench.

We know that the Chancellor is very fond of mayors. I have no problem with them, but they should not be imposed. The coalition Government balloted people, and in nine out of 10 metropolitan areas, people said no. However, the Chancellor likes to get his own way by attaching mayors to combined authorities in exchange for devolved powers. Could he get more mayors by developing the role of PCCs? Is that what this proposal is about? Get PCCs to take over fire and rescue, and what is next? Will it be probation, the ambulance service or some of the free schools? Perhaps I should not give anybody ideas.

We must also question what expertise PCCs are supposed to bring to the management of fire and rescue services that those services do not themselves possess. Most of the present batch of PCCs were selected by their parties before they even knew that PCCs could take control of their fire services, so a candidate’s vision, plans and manifestos for their local fire service cannot have played much role in their political ascent.

[Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not agree that PCCs have as much experience as many members of the fire authorities, who are councillors? I do not see any additional expertise there.

[Lyn Brown]

The hon. Lady is mistaken. Councillors play a prominent role on many management committees of fire and rescue services, but they are not the only players. I do not know whether she has met many of them, but they are people who have devoted their time in local government to truly understanding and working on fire issues. They know so much. There is a wealth of knowledge and experience on those panels. When I am in a room with them, I cannot but be impressed by their collective—

[Amanda Milling]

indicated dissent.

[Lyn Brown]

I hear the hon. Lady saying that about her own fire and rescue authority. When I get back to my office, I will have a look to see which fire and rescue authority it is and why she has such a view, but in my experience of speaking to people from each political party who have served on fire and rescue service committees, they are highly knowledgeable and committed to the area for which they are responsible. I do not like to denigrate local democracy in that way. We in the Labour party appreciate what our local councillors do, many of them for not much reward at all.

The point that I am making is not that PCCs are bad and fire services are good; it is that in the Bill, the Government are creating unnecessary conflicts with one preferred model: PCC control, the favoured approach. It is not about what works locally, and it should be. If the Government are to turn PCCs into mini-mayors with responsibility for all sorts of policy positions, which I think is their real agenda, they should at least do so openly, so the democratic process can respond to the expanding office.

I genuinely think that the proposals come with significant risks. The most important is that fire, with its much smaller budgets and less media attention than policing, will become an unloved secondary concern of management, a Cinderella service. I have raised that point repeatedly with the Minister, but he has not indicated what he proposes to do to mitigate that risk. I know that he wants to champ on with the Bill, but I would like him to answer that particular point. What will he do to ensure that the fire services taken over by PCCs do not become Cinderella services?

Peter Murphy, the director of the public policy and management research group at Nottingham Business School, has argued that slipping into the status of a Cinderella service would only be a repeat of what happened the last time the fire service had to share an agenda with policing. I shall quote him, because it gets to the point. He said that

“if the current plans are implemented, there is a very strong chance that the fire and rescue services would go back to the ‘benign neglect’ that characterised the service from 1974 to 2001, when the Home Office was last responsible for fire services. Police, civil disobedience, immigration and criminal justice dominated the Home Office agenda, as well as its time and resources.”

If the fire service becomes the lesser partner in a merged service

“the long-term implications will include smaller fire crews with fewer appliances and older equipment arriving at incidents. Prevention and protection work, already significantly falling, will result in fewer school visits and fire alarm checks for the elderly, not to mention the effect on business, as insurance costs rise because of increased risks to buildings and premises.”

What a chilling vision for the future of our fire service.