Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England)

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[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?

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Hilary Benn]

Since it is my hon. Friend, I will go against what I just said and give way.

[Chris Williamson]

I am interested in the point that my right hon. Friend is making about the lower fitness standard. Is he as incredulous as I am at the Minister saying that the Government are implementing the Williams review, when that review said that the lower aerobic fitness standard ran the risk of

“sudden death particularly while undergoing high levels of physical exertion”?

Is it not a disgrace and a stain on Government Members that they are prepared to put firefighters at risk of being killed while on active service?

[Hilary Benn]

The advice that has been given to Ministers by Dr Williams should be taken seriously, including that on the safety of firefighters, because the safety of firefighters impacts on the safety of the work that they do on behalf of members of the public in fighting fires. If a lower figure is recommended by the working party, the Minister will have a big problem, because Dr Williams has told her clearly that a number of firefighters will not be able to maintain their fitness up to the age of 60.

There is another problem.