Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service

Bridget Phillipson Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Hosie, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) on securing this important debate and setting out with such clarity and conviction the challenges we face. Let me pay tribute to the immense dedication of our firefighters in Tyne and Wear, and across the country, who take risks every day on our behalf. We owe it to those brave men and women to ensure that they have the resources they need to do their job properly and keep us safe. Our firefighters rely on excellent support staff, to whom we are very grateful.

Well-founded and real concerns arise from the proposed measures in the integrated risk management plan. On Friday I heard directly from firefighters at Farringdon community fire station about their fears regarding the risks that may be faced by the public under the proposals. The proposals would result in one fire engine at Farringdon being “on call”, which follows previous reductions in service across Tyne and Wear, as well as at Rainton Bridge community fire station in my constituency.

When firefighters are called to respond they do not fully know what lies before them, and it is vital that they have the resources they need to tackle the incident, so that the risk of harm is reduced as much as possible. Last Friday, and on every occasion I have met local firefighters, they impressed on me their determination to serve the community, whatever the circumstances. We discussed recent serious and tragic events in Sunderland, where firefighters have been called to respond and where there have been fire deaths. We cannot, and should not, expect those who put their lives on the line to be exposed to unnecessary risk, and the underlying factor in all this is the unfair funding settlement that leaves those areas of greatest need wanting.

Year after year the fire authority has had to confront difficult decisions driven by funding cuts from central Government, rather than what works and is in the best interests of our community. In 2012, I secured a Westminster Hall debate on that issue. In advance of this debate I reviewed what had been said then, and it is remarkable how little has changed, other than that the situation has got progressively worse. There has been an increase in incidents and fires, a massive reduction in the number of firefighters, and increased response times. If there were a backdrop of reducing demand, Ministers might find the rationale for these measures understandable, but demand is increasing, not reducing.

Since 2010, major cuts and efficiency savings have been made, yet we are facing even more. We have seen some of the worst funding settlements across fire and rescue services in England, and by 2019-20, there will have been a 19% budget cut at a time of rising cost pressures for the authority. I hope the Minister will listen to the concerns raised by hon. Members this morning on behalf of our communities and the firefighters who serve our constituents. I live in hope that the Minister will not just respond in the customary fashion, and say that these are local decisions and it is for local fire and rescue services to manage these cuts, or that local decisions fall to local decision makers to make better choices. That is not good enough when we know that the areas of greatest need have borne the brunt of austerity cuts. The Government should do the right thing for fire and rescue services, for firefighters who put themselves in harm’s way, and for the public who depend on the risks they take.