Fire and Rescue Services

Debate between Bob Ainsworth and John Hemming

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[John Hemming]

I was referring to Members from metropolitan areas. We do not have many Government Members from metropolitan areas, but a lot of them have turned up, while many who are not here are also concerned about this issue.

Obviously, we disagree with some of the things said by the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South. The reality is that we are in a very difficult financial position. I refer the hon. Lady, who hopes that we can spend our way out of recession, to Sir James Callaghan’s speech in 1976 in which he basically said that that was not possible. We face the challenge of how to deal with a reducing budget nationally in an equitable and acceptable manner. My personal view is that, because of various constraints, we are going to face austerity for some time beyond the next general election and possibly into the 2020s. It is therefore very important that whatever mechanism is used to distribute funding across the country is equitable.

Local government funding—in many ways, fire and rescue is part of that—has been referred to as being like the Schleswig-Holstein question as it is very difficult to understand. It was perceived as unjust that, under this complex formula, certain areas of the country had much greater cuts than others. It is a complex formula, so it is difficult to see the equity in that result. When there are places, such as in the metropolitan areas, that are much more dependent on grant funding, the cuts in grant funding will impact much more on the total budget of some organisations than on those of others.

In meetings with the Minister’s predecessor, we asked him to ensure that fire and rescue service officers in the mets had direct contact with civil servants in the Department for Communities and Local Government, so that the operation of the formula was transparent. In some circumstances, there should be a floors-and-ceilings type of approach to avoid a situation in which some authorities get more money and others get less. That would obviously be difficult, because there are changes in demand—some areas will see much higher growth in the number of people living there than other areas, and consequently have greater demand.

The essence of the situation is that the funding conclusion is perceived by both Government and Opposition Back Benchers to be unfair. When the budget is constrained, that relates both to prevention and to incident responses. We all pay tribute to the excellent work done by firefighters throughout the country in protecting our constituents but, at the end of the day, there has to be a long-term solution that is seen as equitable across the country. That is the challenge for the Government, as it will be for future Governments. When there are no more goodies to share out, but there are constrained circumstances, it is a nil-sum game in which increasing spending in one area means having to reduce spending in another; that is the difficulty.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I agree, as will some of my hon. Friends, with part of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but does he really believe that the fact that so few Government Members represent metropolitan areas is unrelated to the outcome, which is that those areas are facing the biggest cuts?

[John Hemming]

No, I do not believe that. We have a complex formula into which figures have been slotted and an outcome has emerged. That is not the cause. My argument was that, given the relatively small number of Members who represent metropolitan constituencies, a large proportion of such Members in the Chamber today are Government Members. That demonstrates that concern about the formula—my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), who could not be here today, is equally concerned about this—exists among both Opposition and Government Back Benchers. Obviously, the Minister has just been chucked into this and cannot give us any major assurances now, but what is critical is that the long term has to be far more transparent and far more equitable.