Fire Sprinklers Week

George Howarth Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and the hon. Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) and for Southend West (Mr Amess) on securing this timely debate, and I commend the promoters of this, the first fire sprinkler week. I applaud the promoters’ aims of widening awareness and knowledge of sprinklers and, as the hon. Member for Waveney and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse have done so well, debunking the myths and misconceptions about sprinklers.

It is welcome that the trend in the incidence of fire fatalities has been downward and has now been stable for some time. I congratulate the current and previous Governments on that trend, as well as the fire and rescue authorities that provide vital services. It ought to go without saying, although I am pleased to say it, that it is the commitment and courage of firefighters on the front line that save lives, minimise harm, protect property and promote safety in our communities on a daily basis. As other Members have done, I pay sincere and grateful tribute to them for their work.

The facts about the incidence of fire deaths and injuries and damage to property resulting from fire are well documented and have been thoroughly referenced by hon. Members in this debate. I will touch briefly on some facts that I see as particularly relevant to fire sprinkler week. I thank the Chief Fire Officers Association and others for drawing them to my attention. In 2011-12, 380 people lost their lives in fire-related incidents in Great Britain, 287 of them in dwelling fires. It strikes me as apposite to remark that no lives were lost in the UK due to fire in homes fitted with domestic sprinklers, that fire injuries were 80% lower in sprinklered premises, and that there is a more than 90% chance that a sprinkler system that is correctly designed, installed, maintained and supplied with water will control or extinguish a fire.

How many of those 380 lives lost in 2011-12 could have been saved? How much of the trauma of bereavement and tragedy we have discussed today could have been avoided if sprinklers had been fitted? Without wanting to be mercenary when talking about people’s lives, I am conscious of the economic impact of lives lost, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) highlighted exceptionally well. The cost of each fatality in a road traffic accident is estimated at £1.65 million and each serious injury at £185,000. As the hon. Member for Waveney pointed out, the cost of fire-related deaths and injuries cannot be that dissimilar.

Further, sprinklers fitted in commercial and industrial premises can save British business, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) pointed out when she mentioned Findus Foods. I must admit that I remember those pancakes. I am not saying I ate many, but I remember them well. Sprinklers fitted in commercial and industrial premises can save British businesses and the British economy millions of pounds of losses from entirely preventable fires. Research undertaken by the Centre for Economics and Business Research states that fires cause a direct financial loss to businesses of £230 million per year. If that is combined with the job and tax losses that follow a fire, we must clearly look seriously at the business case for sprinklers.

The figures put a practical slant on any financial deliberations we make about introducing precautions such as sprinkler systems. As a relatively new holder of the shadow fire brief, I am still learning my way around the job, so I have been travelling the country meeting councillors, fire officers and firefighters, who have been universally keen to share their views and enthusiasms with me. I have seen more fire engines in the last couple of months than in my entire life previously. Sprinklers have been on almost every agenda prepared for me, regardless of whether I have visited a county, combined or metropolitan authority.

That there is a case for sprinklers is undeniable, given the evidence about reducing deaths and business losses from fire. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd said, there were strong objections and opposition to the regulations introduced by the Welsh Government requiring the installation of sprinklers in a wide range of dwellings. The Home Builders Federation, the Federation of Master Builders and the Residential Landlords Association have all expressed concerns about the cost of installation and the impact that it will have on development.

Clearly, we need a dialogue. My purpose today is to suggest that we take a considered and intelligent approach to that dialogue, seeking cross-party consensus and aiming to build a broad coalition of interested groups with the clear intent of reducing fire deaths and injuries while achieving sensible regulation and balancing cost and benefit.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I apologise, Mr Brady, for not being able to be present at the start of the debate. My hon. Friend is making a very constructive and helpful point. Does she agree that there will be practical difficulties—the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) referred to one—but with good will and through negotiation, they can be overcome, and will she join me in urging the Minister to take up that suggestion?

[Lyn Brown]

I am certainly hoping to be constructive in my contribution today and not to make party political points or to take an easy option. I, too, suggest that we work together to see whether we can overcome the obstacles and objections that are being placed in our way. We need to talk about whether we need to ensure that sprinklers are provided in all care homes, in children’s homes, in new schools, in new and purpose-built student accommodation and, perhaps, in all new social rented accommodation.

Let us talk about the role of sprinklers in the domestic setting—whether we should expect in the future that more homes will be built with sprinklers and they will become commonplace and expected. Let us talk about whether the costs to builders and developers could hold back the building of much-needed homes. Let us learn from the experiences of other countries in introducing new requirements. The starting point for that dialogue should be risk.

We know what the risk factors are and we have figures for fire fatalities that illustrate the impact of that risk most graphically. For example, those over the age of 65 accounted for 40% of fire fatalities in 2011-12—a period when that age group accounted for 16.6% of the population. The figure of 40% for 2011-12 is up from the 2005-06 figure of 35.6%, showing perhaps the impact of an ageing population, as well as being a side effect of more people being able to live longer in their own homes. We know who the vulnerable groups who are more at risk of death, injury and loss from fire are: they are in homes, in the lower income bands and in more deprived areas.

We can implement our response to risk differentially, which may be one way of achieving the balance between cost and benefit and getting the best outcomes for the money spent. Requiring sprinkler systems in some categories of new build may well be part of an answer, especially where the installation of sprinklers allows cost savings elsewhere—for example, through less costly conventional fire precautions and insurance.

I thought that it was important today to press this point, despite the fact that I could not easily find a place to put it in my speech. There are already very interesting and imaginative solutions to keep high-risk individuals safe. When I visited Lincolnshire fire and rescue service on Monday, I learnt how local partners are working together to provide vulnerable adults with appropriate fire suppression devices, such as portable misting devices. They told me about the success in Humberside, where misting devices had saved lives—more than once, a misting device had extinguished a fire for a vulnerable older person.

As a Parliament, we may not wish to make an assumption that the answer is sprinklers always and everywhere, but I cannot conceive of a holder of this brief, whether in opposition or in government, who would not advocate practices that would save lives, save businesses and protect economic capacity. In my closing remarks, I want to offer the Minister cross-party co-operation and, indeed, cross-party talks to try to get consensus on the way forward on sprinklers and to consider the Government action necessary for both domestic and business properties, because I think that lives can be saved, injuries minimised, damage to property avoided and money saved if we have the will to co-operate and the motivation to succeed.