Fire Safety: School Buildings

David Amess Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered fire safety measures in school buildings.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this subject. I promise not to start to beat my hon. Friend the Minister up immediately, but as with so many of these debates, it is about such a simple straightforward issue that I am puzzled as to why it has not been dealt with over the last couple of decades.

At the heart of it all, the House either does or does not think that having sprinkler systems will help to save people’s lives. That, to me, is the issue. I would have thought, looking at all the evidence, that the House has clearly come to the conclusion that it would be good common sense for all schools to have sprinkler systems fitted.

I have the highest regard for the Minister, but I simply do not understand this situation. Given that the Government have the power to give money for new schools to be built, surely it should not take Einstein to come up with a plan whereby people cannot tender for such a contract unless a sprinkler system will be part of the new build project. This is quite a simple matter. I have correspondence from our noble Friend Lord Nash on the issue, and it is wonderful that all sorts of consultations will take place, but I have to say to this Minister that I will not shut up until I get the straightforward answer that, in the future, contracts will be awarded only to builders who insist that sprinkler systems will be installed.

I have the great pleasure of being the chairman of the all-party fire safety rescue group; I was also the chairman in the previous Parliament. I am looking at my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) for a reason that will become obvious. When I had the privilege of becoming the Member of Parliament for Basildon, three particular incidents made me admire the wonderful work that our fire service does. On two occasions, our local fire service was attending incidents in which small children died. The emotional effect that that has on our firefighters is beyond most of us to understand. One of the incidents was, sadly, in Long Riding, which I think is still in the area represented by my hon. Friend. A gentleman who ran a Chinese takeaway restaurant came in to find that his wife, who had mental health problems, had smothered their five children. That has nothing to do with fire, but it was the fire service that attended.

In the second tragic case, in what used to be Barstable school, a number of children got locked in a shed in the grounds. They must have been playing with matches and, as a result, a fire took place and they lost their lives. That was a funeral I will never forget attending at St Martin’s church, as my hon. Friend is only too well aware.

Then this was the irony of all ironies. I cannot remember which election it was that I was canvassing in; it must have been the 1987 one. I was canvassing in Nethermayne, the rural part of the constituency, and I knocked on a door. A rather dishevelled gentleman came to the door. He seemed to be not entirely with it; I will put it like that. We went to the property next door. Unbeknown to me, he was carrying a bowl of paraffin and the next minute—we were standing talking to the neighbour—he went up in flames. That was the first funeral that I attended after that election. I went into a state of shock and I saw how our firefighters dealt with the situation. Unfortunately, in those days I used to drag along one or two of my children to canvass with me. I never did that again. I know that this is not the Minister’s brief, but we all have great regard for the work that our firefighters do and I have first-hand experience of the way they deal with the tragedy of children being killed.

I thank the Fire Sector Federation, the Chief Fire Officers’ Association, Zurich Municipal insurance and the National Fire Sprinkler Network for providing me with the evidence and information on school fires that I have drawn on for my contribution to the debate.

I remind the House that yesterday was National Burn Awareness Day. When I first became a Member of Parliament, we never had these specific days. We never wore ribbons, but that changed once the AIDS movement adopted the red ribbon and now every day of the week is a national day. If I had had the opportunity at Prime Minister’s questions, National Burn Awareness Day was the thing that I would have raised. Unfortunately, it got no media coverage, which is a great shame. It was for that reason that the all-party group put in for this debate.

I praise the work of the Children’s Burns Trust. I know that next February there will be a National Sprinkler Awareness Day, which I hope we will be able to get more of a profile for than we seem to have done thus far. I would like to assure the Children’s Burns Trust that although their day yesterday went by without great attention, many Members will continue to raise these issues, on which we feel very strongly.

I, along with many members of the group here today, am very frustrated that this issue, which is very simple—I cannot see a cost to the Government—has not been dealt with. I cannot yet blame the present Government, or can I? No, I will not; it is a little too soon. However, I just do not understand why the issue was not dealt with under the coalition Government, which obviously my party was a supporter of and led, or the previous Labour Government. I am sure that this Minister will have the answer as to why we have not taken action.

Many members of the all-party group were very surprised to hear that since 2010 there has been a decline in the number of new schools and academies being installed with automatic sprinkler systems. That is crazy. How on earth could there be a decline? But there has been. The reason why we were so surprised was that in 2007, when our noble Friend Lord Howard of Lympne was serving as an MP, he raised a similar issue. In his constituency, on 13 September 2006, Lympne primary school tragically suffered a fire. It started as a consequence of an electrical fault above the staffroom at the start of the day. The chief fire officer responsible for leading the efforts of the fire services to extinguish the fire said at the time:

“If the school had been fitted with a properly designed and installed sprinkler system the fire may have been controlled if not extinguished in its early stages”.

Instead, the school was completely destroyed—thankfully, no lives were lost—as a consequence of no such system being in place.

Why, over all these years, have successive Governments failed to put in place even a framework or a strategy—whatever the buzzword is that the civil servants in the Department for Education use? Why have we done nothing to make sure that such a tragedy never happens again? My hon. Friend the Minister may respond that the tragedy in 2006 was an isolated incident, and some may ask why we should waste valuable public money on infrequent events. Well, how can we put a price on one life? That is the simple point I wish to make. There is evidence to suggest that this was not an isolated incident, and our children’s safety and security should be ensured, irrespective of the cost.

Refurbishing or rebuilding schools following a severe fire can be very expensive. The most recent statistics I have, provided by Zurich Municipal, show that £58 million was spent on school rebuilds following fires in 2009. The last year for which the Department for Communities and Local Government has cost figures is 2004— 11 years ago, which is crazy—when there were 1,229 fires, which were estimated to have cost about £52 million. Why we do not have more up-to-date figures, I do not understand.

I am an Essex Member—we look over the River Thames at Kent—but I am going to praise Kent County Council. Following the fire at Lympne primary school, it was a welcome relief when the council confirmed that the rebuild would include the installation of a fire sprinkler system. However, why must we be reactive? We, as legislators, should attempt to pre-empt such incidents. Now that the Government, which I support, have a majority, they cannot blame things that go wrong on the Liberal party. I want them to do something positive and good with their majority. I want us to be proactive, rather than reactive.

Although there were no fatalities as a result of the fire at Lympne, and there have been no fatalities across England as a result of school fires, we cannot just sit back on our laurels and be complacent—a tragedy could happen. It is within the Government’s gift to make sure we never have a tragic incident, by insisting that, when contracts are signed and schools are built, a sprinkler system is installed.

The issue is not party political. My goodness, we have representatives here from the Scottish National party, the Conservatives and the Labour party—with only eight Members, it is probably a bit difficult for the Liberals to service all our proceedings, but I know they very much agree with the point I am making.

What is frustrating is that, since 2007, when the former Member for Folkestone and Hythe brought this issue to the attention of the House, the situation has got worse. From April 2007 to May 2010, an estimated 70% of the schools and academies built had automatic fire sprinklers installed—there was room for improvement, but we were basically on the right track. However, since May 2010, the figure has plummeted to 35%—it has been halved. That is absolutely unacceptable. Some 65% of new builds are without fire sprinkler systems. That is incredibly disappointing, given the commitment that successive Governments have made to improve the situation.

In a recent statement, the Secretary of State for Education, for whom I genuinely have the highest regard, said that, in line with departmental guidance, the relevant specification does not make the fitting of sprinklers mandatory, but it does suggest instances where their installation could be beneficial. Well, I say to the Government, “Let’s make it mandatory!” It is no good us complacently saying that it is not mandatory at the moment—let us do something about this. A proposal to make the fitting of sprinklers mandatory could be taken through the House immediately, and all political parties would agree with it. My right hon. Friend’s statement was some way from the cross-party commitment we had in 2007.

I referred earlier to the cost benefit of mandatory installation, which cannot be ignored—as a Conservative, I am sympathetic about the challenges the Exchequer faces. However, when it comes to fire safety, the costs are not merely financial, and we must look at the long-term implications of the mandatory installation of fire sprinklers across the country. Of course, schools are not only attended by our children, but rented out to all sorts of organisations to increase revenue.

I contacted the local authority that serves my constituency to find out how many schools there have sprinkler systems installed. It sent me an email saying that schools in Southend do not have to itemise whether they have sprinkler systems—it therefore has no information about the issue. Well, I say, “Come on, local authority!” There are not that many schools in Southend; someone could phone them up and ask the chairmen of the governing bodies whether they have a sprinkler system. To me, the local authority’s response is absolutely pathetic. If local authorities throughout the country are giving other Members similar responses, shame on them. The chief executive of my authority should say, “We can do far better than that.”

The House of Commons Library, which is fantastic—I regard it as the fountain of all truth—told me that such information is not collected centrally and that local authorities are not obliged to collect it, although I do not know why that is. Well, authorities might not be obliged to do that, but I think they should. I praise Kent County Council for collecting data after the fire at Lympne primary school. Between 2001 and 2003, there were 125 recorded fires in Kent. By 2011 to 2013, the figure had plummeted to 41—a fall of approximately 66%. There were only seven school building fires in 2013. That is seven too many, but at least there was a fall. Kent is therefore doing much better than other areas. Those figures show that, through local co-operation and a sensible policy, the number of fires can be significantly reduced.

I call on the Government to recognise the benefits of taking an approach like that of Kent County Council and the Kent and Medway Towns fire authority. I and the other members of the all-party group would also like to have a meeting with my hon. Friend the Minister to discuss the issue in more detail.

In his letter, Lord Nash told me that a consultation on the Government’s version of “Building Bulletin 100”, entitled “Design for fire safety in schools”, will begin towards the end of the year. Well, we can have all the consultations in the world, but it is just like the rubbish about obesity that has been going on this week, with Jamie Oliver turning up at the House of Commons—it is as if obesity has just been invented. Ten years ago, when I was on the Health Committee, I had the idea of having an inquiry into obesity. If all our recommendations had been followed then, we would not have to have all this business about a sugar tax, a fat tax and all the rest of it now. The longer I am a Member of Parliament, the less I hear anything original. My frustration is that hon. Members make good suggestions, but nothing whatever is done about them. If Parliament is worth anything, it is up to hon. Members to hold the Executive to account, so that good ideas are acted on.

In March 2007, a commitment was made by the then Minister, the former Member for South Dorset, Jim Knight—now Lord Knight of Weymouth—that all new schools and academies that were built would be expected to have automatic sprinklers installed, except for a few low-risk schools. I do not quite know how we define low-risk schools, but that was a great commitment and of course the Government had three years to run at that time. Figures show that only 35% of new schools are fitted with sprinklers. I hope that the present Government will use the impetus of a fresh election victory to do something about that.

We have the power to ensure that fewer fires occur in schools across the country; that would mean fewer people in harm’s way, fewer costs for refurbishment or rebuilding, and fewer worries for the Government. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will respond positively to the point on which I have managed to speak for 20 minutes. It is a simple one: the contracts for all new-build projects for schools should be required to include the fitting of a sprinkler system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir David Amess]

I thank all colleagues for their contributions to this debate. I welcome the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell), and I completely empathise with her about Eastbourne pier. Southend pier has had three fires. It is still standing, but the fires have set us back. I know how local residents feel, and she is right to bring the tragedy of this recent fire to the House’s attention. The statistic she shared of there being only three or five sprinklers is shocking.

I welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) on behalf of the Scottish National party. Scotland was robbed in the rugby match on Sunday. She is right to draw on the excellent achievement of schools in Scotland compared with the rest of the country. She highlighted the savings that have been made. We must not be churlish about the arrival of these 56 Scottish nationalist Members; we can learn some good things from them. She has brought some excellent points to the House’s attention today.

I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). I know that the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) agrees with him on the points he has shared with us. I listened carefully to the Minister, and I accept all his points on the reduction in the number of fires in our schools—I particularly accept his points about arson—but I repeat that no contract should be awarded for new build projects unless sprinklers are fitted. He says that the Department reckons there would be a 10% increase in costs, but I simply do not accept that. No doubt we will debate those and other matters in our meeting.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered fire safety measures in school buildings.