Fire and Rescue Services: Funding

Brian Mathew Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Matt Vickers]

First, we have to see central Government funding in place to ensure that we can run safe and effective fire services. Secondly, within that funding envelope we have to ensure that local fire authorities spend the money wisely. In recent years, many of them have looked at those efficiencies, but we are now getting to the point at which we need to go further and the Government need to step up.

Like other businesses and organisations, our fire brigades have been hit by the national insurance increase and spiralling energy costs. We need to ensure that our firefighters receive a fair pay settlement. If the fire precept is not increased in the coming years, the funding gap in Cleveland could rise to nearly £4 million. The answer is not simply to increase council tax even further. In my part of the world, Stockton’s Labour council has already increased council tax by 54% since 2016. It is for this Labour Government to fund our fire services properly and to fix the apparently “fair” funding formula, which is damaging Cleveland and Durham fire brigades. I am sure that the Minister will say that Cleveland’s core spending power has increased, but as the chief fire officer told me himself, it is nowhere near enough to meet the increasing cost pressures.

[Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)]

People in our area of Dorset and Wiltshire have been told that we face the potential closure of eight fire stations. At a time when, quite apart from anything else, we do not know what is happening on the international scene and people are talking of dark days ahead, does the hon. Member agree that cutting these essential services seems like total and utter madness?

[Matt Vickers]

I could not agree more. More than ever, we are seeing fire services that are lean and efficient, having undergone all sorts of savings. We have now got to the point at which there is no fat and we are hitting the bone. We cannot go on like this without real consequences for public safety. These funding decisions have real consequences for Cleveland, including a likely reduction in frontline firefighters and cuts to the number of fire appliances. Demand on our firefighters is rising. It is not acceptable to ask them to do even more with even less.

It is not just our fire brigades that are under pressure. I have also heard from Cleveland Mountain Rescue, a hugely valued voluntary mountain rescue team that provides vital cover at fell races and mountain bike events. Are the Government thanking it for their incredible service and commitment? No, they are hitting it with Care Quality Commission registration and inspection regimes: more bureaucracy, more red tape and more costs. If the mountain rescue team is forced to reduce its services as a result, that will put yet more pressure on our local fire brigades. Has the Minister considered the consequences of these changes and the impact that they could have on fire services?

There is a broader point here: whether it is Cleveland Fire Brigade facing funding pressures or Cleveland Mountain Rescue facing new bureaucracy, the Government must support the people who protect the public, not make their job harder. By incident per head of population, Cleveland Fire Brigade is one of the busiest non-metropolitan fire services in the country. It attends six times as many deliberate fires as the national average. Last year alone, it saw a 25% increase in arson and deliberate fire incidents, which cause huge concern within our communities.

The Government’s “fair funding” approach is neither fair nor reflective of need. It systematically disadvantages places such as Stockton-on-Tees and the wider Cleveland area. It creates unacceptable risks for emergency response and public safety, because it fails to recognise local need. Factors such as individual risk, level of deprivation and geographic complexity must be given a proper weighting.