Emergency Services (Interoperability)

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pawsey]

I shall come to local resilience forums and the useful part that they play in bringing people together. Communications are key, with people working together and understanding the different ways of operating. Clearly, through training at an institution such as the one in my hon. Friend’s constituency, emergency services personnel can get to understand more about the actions of colleagues not only in their own service but in other services. That understanding can be crucial in getting the right help to an incident as fast as possible. Not only must the police, fire and ambulance services be able to work with each other, but every individual force within each service needs to be able to do so as well. There are 53 police forces in the UK and their work often overlaps, most often at a force boundary but also when specialist forces such as the British Transport police are involved or when officers travel to another area to provide support at an event. Good communications are at the heart of such interoperability.

One organisation cannot work with another if it does not know what the other organisation is doing or trying to achieve. Sometimes that is straightforward, such as ensuring that all staff within a service use the same sort of language as other services. For instance, there is anecdotal evidence about the terminology used by the emergency services during the 7/7 bombings. To some, talk of “casualties” found in the tunnels meant injured people, but to those in another service a “casualty” was someone who had died, so when they heard the word, support was not prioritised because they believed it was too late. Another example—the blowing of whistles—comes from the time of the IRA bombings in Manchester in 1996. When the police blow a whistle, all available officers run towards the sound; when the military blow a whistle, everyone stands to attention; and when the fire service blows a whistle, everyone runs away because it is a sign that a building is in danger of collapse. There was no danger as a result in that particular incident, but the different responses to the sound of a whistle show how important it is to make certain that everyone responding to an emergency speaks the same language and works to the same procedures.

I am pleased to note that in July 2007 the National Policing Improvement Agency produced a guide to language to be used over the Airwave network, “AirwaveSpeak”. That was an early step to ensure that all police agencies spoke the same language. The development should be continued more broadly, to include other emergency services.

The quality of the technology is also important to ensure the achievement of interoperability. Before the Airwave network was rolled out nationally in 2005, the emergency services throughout the country used different systems and were not able to communicate easily with one another, leading to practical difficulties. For example, police officers working at force boundaries had to swap radio handsets regularly in order to keep in touch with each other. Now the situation has changed and members of all three emergency services and up to 300 other organisations have access to a common communications platform.

A recent example of the benefits of interoperability occurred last summer, during the 2011 riots, when unprecedented disorder took place in some towns and cities throughout England. An important point to note about those events was the sheer scale of the operations that the emergency services had to deal with. The number of police on duty in the capital rose from 6,000 to 16,000, and officers came to London from 25 different forces, from as far afield as Devon and Cornwall and Strathclyde. Crucially, even with such substantially increased numbers, all the forces involved were able to communicate with one another because they were operating on a common communications platform. Therefore, the necessary complex response to that event was co-ordinated and officers from different parts of the country could work together. There was criticism of the Airwave radio network—hon. Members may have read such criticism in an article in The Observer in December 2011—but the company’s rebuttal and subsequent media reporting clearly show that the network did exactly what it was created to do and supported interoperability in action.

A recent experience of our emergency services looking after a substantial number of people at an event was the diamond jubilee weekend, when the communications network helped the emergency services to work together effectively. I shall give an insight into just how many people used the network at the weekend. I have been told that, as we might expect, the key time was the river pageant on the Sunday. That was the peak day of operations, and during the 12-hour period between 6 o’clock in the morning and 6 o’clock in the evening, 125,315 radio handsets were used by the emergency services across the network. There were more than 1 million interactions across 135 sites. Some 74 organisations, including police, ambulance, fire and rescue services— emergency blue-light services—from all over the country were on the network and forces came from as far afield as the Isle of Wight, mid-Wales and Fife.

In addition to the police services, which were defined as clearly marked users, making use of the system, a further 93 users were recorded as having used the Airwave direct network, including groups such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Transport for London, the Highways Agency and the Port of London Authority. The fact that emergency and non-blue-light services could talk to one another therefore led to success on that day. The Olympics are just around the corner and will start in 45 days. The diamond jubilee weekend was useful, early experience for our emergency services in preparation for what will almost certainly be the biggest test of working together. They can go into the rest of the summer with confidence.

I understand that the Port of London Authority, a user of the system, is looking forward to working on the Olympics and to facilitating

“a response which is both integrated and resilient”.

The Olympics provide a fantastic opportunity for our country. The eyes of the world will be on the UK and London in particular, and excitement is rightly starting to build in London as we approach the event. However, for our emergency services, the Olympics are their biggest challenge. Having visited the Olympics site with the all-party group on emergency services earlier in the year, I am confident that our services are well prepared for the challenge, and I look forward to their success.

One feature will be the armed forces’ contribution to Olympics security, and we will start to see interoperability between the emergency services and the military. The interest in the military’s role in providing security was evidenced by questions to the Secretary of State for Defence in the House just yesterday. The armed forces will use the same communications network as the emergency services, with about 8,000 military personnel having access to that service, making up around 3% of communications network users throughout the Olympics. They will act as reservists, and 13,500 personnel will be called up for the games, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch said, the police will be the lead service in terms of security.

I was interested to attend a recent all-party group on the armed forces briefing on the military’s contribution to Olympics security. Their role is divided into three sections: safety and security; support for operations; and a wider contingency role. It is clear that the planning is detailed, and the attention to detail is impressive. I was interested in a senior naval officer’s response when asked what success would look like. He said that he hoped that the 64 days of the summer Olympics and Paralympics will be the most boring of a servicemen’s career. I think that we all endorse that. I welcome the joining up of the work of the emergency services and armed forces.

I turn to shared assets. There is a link between services working closely together and their ability to share assets. Sharing assets is a big opportunity for public services more broadly to effect financial savings. I recently spoke at a Royal United Services Institute conference entitled “Blue Light Air Assets: Future Operations”, when particular consideration was given to the future of air assets. Sharing such assets is vital in helping the emergency services to work together with the coastguard and air ambulance services.

I pay particular tribute to the air ambulance service. In recent years, I have become involved with the Warwickshire and Northampton air ambulance service, which operates in my constituency. Air assets are used extensively and to great effect by all the emergency services, and in the UK the majority of those air assets are helicopters. RUSI’s research papers all point to the importance of the blue-light air service’s contribution. Crucially, in the UK, there is currently no co-ordination of those air assets, nationally or across agencies. Sadly, individual emergency services and regional forces currently operate their own air assets in isolation, and that goes back to the issue that I referred to earlier: silo thinking.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree that, as we have the great benefit throughout the country of an air ambulance service for which taxpayers pay nothing whatever, the ongoing situation whereby the Royal National Lifeboat Institution is exempt from VAT on fuel, but the air ambulance service must pay VAT on the fuel that it uses should be changed? Will he join my campaign to put the matter before the Backbench Business Committee to try to persuade the Government to review VAT on the air ambulance service?

[Mark Pawsey]

I, too, am a great supporter of the air ambulance service as a charitable institution, and I know about its tremendous work to raise funds in and around the midlands. I share my hon. Friend’s concern that charitable funds are used to pay tax. I am more than happy to join him in his representations.

On silo thinking, the RUSI report argues that there must be much greater co-ordination in the use of our air assets. Its report on operations for the future makes it clear that the aim should be to ensure that organisations do not consider their air assets in isolation and that they investigate joint working and asset sharing with others. If those twin policies were pursued, there would be a welcome reduction in costs and improved efficiency in the use of assets. The report calls for, as I do, greater collaboration between Government agencies and asset sharing.

A helpful case study comes from Northern Ireland during the troubles when all helicopter assets were owned and operated by the Ministry of Defence in the UK in direct support of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the civil authority. A single air-tasking cell enabled a helicopter in the air to switch from a life-saving mission to a police task, depending on need and urgency.

Given my background of owning and running a business over 25 years before first arriving at the House, I have always been keen to ensure the maximum use of any item of capital—effectively, to sweat the asset as much as possible—and it certainly seems that there is a great deal of sense in sharing key assets that might sometimes be idle. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on how sharing helicopter assets between police forces and other bodies could contribute to more effective working.

There are several examples of how interoperability can be a success. Existing emergency helicopter provision in north-west England contains many gaps, so there are proposals for a rescue helicopter in that area. Those looking to procure the new rescue helicopter point out that neither police helicopters nor air ambulances are equipped with a winch, and they therefore have to land to load or unload personnel and equipment. Air ambulances are classified as commercial aircraft and can therefore provide an emergency service only during daylight hours. To counter those problems, the proposal in the north-west is for a rescue helicopter that has a winch and uses night-vision devices. Such an asset will therefore have multiple roles and provide an affordable option that will allow all fire and rescue services in the north-west to enhance their response and service delivery, while providing support and resilience to other emergency services and rescue agencies. That is a good example of the widespread benefits that interoperability can bring.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) mentioned the local resilience forums that exist around the country, based on police authorities. The emergency responders—fire, police and ambulance services—meet as a group to consider the risks that affect their areas and to work out strategies to deal with them. That strikes me as an excellent example of interoperability in action that should be welcomed, and I look forward to the Minister’s remarks on how those local resilience forums can be built on.

What can we do in the future to improve interoperability? We have already seen how the adoption of a common platform for communications can significantly improve the performance of emergency services by enabling them to work together. There is, however, more that can be done. About 18 months ago, I attended a reception in the House of Commons for the emergency services. During the discussions that took place around the table between Members and representatives from all the emergency services, it struck me that it was one of only a few occasions in which members of the police had a detailed conversation with people from the ambulance and fire and rescue services. It was a great opportunity for people to network socially, and a greater understanding of each service is vital because, as we have already heard, different words mean different things to different services.

RUSI’s report on shared air assets states that, to achieve interoperability, agencies must fully understand one another if they are to work together effectively. The key question for people to understand is what their agency, and other agencies, are trying to achieve. The one-size-fits-all approach is not necessarily the best way for organisations to act in joined-up way; they need to identify which capabilities, policies, technologies and operational processes need to be shared and, of course, which are best not shared for perfectly good reasons.

We have spoken about the need for interoperability between Departments to help achieve interoperability between services. I understand that the Home Office is looking at the future of emergency services communications, and it is important that national co-ordination is maintained and strengthened to avoid any slipping back.

Interoperability can be enhanced in many ways, and I will refer to a letter that Roy Wilshire, the director of operational response at the Chief Fire Officers Association, has made publicly available to show how working together can be improved. He stated that incident commanders from all three services should train together to ensure that they understand where their procedures are the same, where there are differences, whether those differences are problematic and how they can be aligned—that returns to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds. Furthermore, we should ensure that incident commanders understand each other’s roles and that throughout each service people understand the special skills that their colleagues in other services can provide and ensure that they are used effectively.

An emergency command doctrine should be jointly developed, setting out policies for responding at the earliest stages of a major incident. We need a national, Government-funded programme of exercises to deal with the main threats faced by the country. The Government should ensure that important information, such as Ordnance Survey maps and Met Office data, continues to be available free to the emergency services, so that they all operate using the same information. Finally, the Cabinet Office and Departments that sponsor the three blue-light services—the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government—should work together to ensure greater interoperability. I hope that all those suggestions have been borne out in my remarks, and I look forward to hearing contributions from colleagues and the Minister.

In conclusion, it is clear that interoperability between the emergency services has come a long way. The response to the 7/7 bombing and the riots in London last year showed that, by working together, emergency services can respond effectively to crucial events as they occur. I am pleased that the introduction of a common communications platform—currently through a company based in my constituency—has had a positive impact on the ability of the emergency services to work together. In future, each emergency service will greatly benefit from a greater understanding of the role played by their colleagues in other services. I look forward to greater departmental interoperability. If the Government have a concerted interoperable approach, a fully interoperable emergency service will be that much closer.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I suggest that we all owe a huge debt to our emergency services. Would we be able to deal with an ambulance situation, cope with an arrest or fight a fire? I suggest not. Those men and women are the cornerstone of our country and the cream of the crop whom we should support, laud and applaud. I am proud to record my thanks to them, both nationally and locally in my constituency.

This is an issue of great importance, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) on securing the debate. With the forthcoming Olympics, we have one of the most serious security operations ever mounted in this country, and credit must go to the many security and emergency forces that are preparing for the ultimate test. I have a friend who was trained as a senior nurse in the bulky green chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear event outfits that make people look like something from Mars. They are extremely useful against nuclear attack, although they will not be troubling Usain Bolt during the 100-metre dash. Such things are good preparation, and as my hon. Friend said, it is clear that the emergency services are working much better together. As various events have tested them over the past five to 10 years, their ability to co-ordinate—under successive Governments—has much improved.

I applaud and welcome all the points raised by my hon. Friend, but most of the issues that I wish to address concern non-life-threatening scenarios. It is clear that we are getting better at dealing with very serious events—the 7/7 bombings are a good example—but I suggest that, in 2012, we are still manifestly struggling to deal with the day-to-day interaction between police, fire and ambulance paramedics. That is not working as it should. It is a question not just of how the services co-ordinate with one another on a day-to-day basis, but of the sharing of buildings, how the location issue is addressed and how people who represent the individual emergency services work together.

Questions asked in the House provide a telling illustration. My hon. Friend has made the fair point that the ambulance service is the responsibility of one Department, the fire service is the responsibility of another Department and the police service, of course, is represented by my hon. Friend the Minister responding to the debate today. The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) asked a question of the Department of Health on 23 March 2011. She asked the Secretary of State for Health what discussions he had had with ministerial colleagues on

“arrangements to improve liaison between ambulance services and other emergency responders”.

The Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), said:

“The Department of Health, along with the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government, continues to encourage and support regular communication across all emergency services.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 1195W.]

It is laudable that there is support for communication across all emergency services. Everyone would understand that, but I do not get the impression that it is actually happening.

The hon. Lady also asked a question of the Home Office, to which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice replied. The hon. Lady asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions she had had with ministerial colleagues on

“arrangements to improve liaison between police services and other emergency responders”.

The answer was:

“The strategic defence and security review records Ministers’ agreed intention to improve the ability of the emergency services to work together during emergencies.”—[Official Report, 1 April 2011; Vol. 526, c. 556W.]

Again, it is wonderful that there is an agreed intention to work together.

Undaunted, my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) asked this question:

“Is the Minister satisfied that local forces are doing enough to share the costs of facilities such as human resources and IT with other public bodies and other emergency services?”

The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice also replied on that occasion:

“It is important that police forces do more to take up such opportunities. We have already seen an increase in the collaboration between police forces over operational matters, but there are valuable opportunities to collaborate and share services for the back-office functions such as IT and human resources, which would result in significant savings.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 504.]

I endorse all those comments. I come now to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) on 24 January 2012. He asked the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether he planned

“to review the level of joint training undertaken by fire and ambulance services.”

The answer from the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), was:

“My Department is working with other Government Departments and the emergency services to improve joint ways of working in response to particular identified risks. In particular, in response to the Report of the Coroner’s Inquests into the London bombings of 7 July 2005, the Government agreed that it would co-ordinate a wider review of multi-agency considerations in single-service training. The Cabinet Office”—

another Department—

“are co-ordinating this review and will ensure that results are made available once it is completed.”—[Official Report, 24 January 2012; Vol. 539. c. 137W.]

I accept entirely that efforts are being made and that steps are being taken down the road, but if ever there was an example of why we have this problem, it is the fact that I have just managed to cite four different Departments, including the Cabinet Office, of all people, having overall control of the review and implementation of the changes. I suggest that unless the Government—successive Governments have failed on this; let us be honest—take control of how we mesh the services together, we will struggle going forward.

This issue is particularly important in a time of austerity. In other countries, the main emergency services share buildings. It might be hard for some people to believe, but in other countries there might be a fire station, an ambulance station and a police station all in the same building, all working together without any fundamental problems from a union that says, “We can’t possibly co-exist with this other organisation,” without any particular problems of individual commanders saying, “We can’t possibly share a building,” and without the problem of Government being told, “We can’t possibly have a situation in which the IT is provided to this organisation but not paid for by this organisation; it’s going to come out of my budget.” There is a possibility that we can amalgamate the services and run them at far less cost to the taxpayer and with much greater efficacy.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I commend to my hon. Friend and to my hon. Friend the Minister the example of what happens in Gloucestershire, where all three services have a common call centre at Quedgeley. Not only does that save costs; it works incredibly efficiently.

[Guy Opperman]

Clearly, in relation to call centres and IT, we are taking steps. There is clearly a positive way forward. However, in broad terms, we have got into a situation in which individual parts of the emergency services in local areas are fighting for their own turf to much too great a degree. It is perfectly understandable that people wish to have an all-singing, all-dancing fire service, ambulance service and police stations. We might totally endorse that, but we have to ask, given that taxpayers’ money is paying for it all, how can we integrate matters better? I suggest that we look not only at the example cited by my hon. Friend, but at examples from overseas, where progress on these matters has been made.

I have the great good fortune to represent more than 1,000 square miles of Northumberland. Parts of the area are semi-urban, but to the west and the north of Hexham is a vast expanse of territory that genuinely suffers from a lack of emergency services. Let me give an example. One of my local schools, a secondary school, has a catchment area bigger than the area covered by the M25. That will enable people to grasp just how large that area is. It is centred around the town of Bellingham, a place where I have spent a great deal of time assisting the Friends of Bellingham Surgery and attempting to understand how we can have ambulance, police and fire services in that location. Currently, we have a police station. I credit the chief constable of Northumberland for retaining that police station. We also have a fire station, but we do not have an ambulance facility. As everyone knows, ambulances are required to have a 75% reach to patients who need urgent medical assistance within eight minutes. In relation to places in the far west of Northumberland, it is patently extremely difficult for the ambulance service to provide that. There are, however, examples of how that situation could be changed. For example, the Friends of Bellingham Surgery and the practice itself have been working extensively—for years, I suggest—to try to get a localised ambulance service. It could be located on the site of the fire station. One would think that that was not a very radical step, but it is clearly quite radical when one considers that these examples are only just being considered at this stage.

Just a mile over the border in Cumbria, there are two examples of local success that I should like to share with the House. In Alston, which my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) represents so successfully, the community is setting up a community-run ambulance, with the backing of the league of friends of the local hospital, but also working with their local health trust and local GPs. The impression given—the project is at an early stage—is that that community ambulance would provide a rural area with a facility that is currently lacking.

Also in Cumbria, last December, the county council, the fire and rescue service and the police have come to an arrangement whereby the emergency services will operate from seven fire stations. Cumbria police have cut back the number of police stations, so the police and the fire services are working in the same building. In a large number of areas, the police have set up in fire stations, with cost savings to both parties and the benefit of interoperability. I suggest that that is clearly the way forward and something that, as police and crime commissioners come into being, individual commissioner candidates will need to consider.

On Saturday, I was delighted to select Mr Phil Butler, a former police officer from Northumbria, as the police and crime commissioner candidate on behalf of the Conservative party for Northumbria’s police and crime commissioner election. The candidates will need to look at the provision of individual police services in a rural area, how they interlink and the funds for the local community going forward.

I look at the individual examples of success in Cumbria and suggest that they are manifestly a good thing. We have to put them in the context of the disastrous FiReControl project. If ever there were an example of a disastrous Government project to provide a single-issue service without integrating it into other services, surely the fire service project—introduced, I am sad to say, by the previous Government—is it. The National Audit Office assessment, issued on 1 July 2011, of the FiReControl programme said:

“The FiReControl project was flawed from the outset because it did not have the support of those essential to its success—local fire and rescue services. The Department rushed the start of the project”

and failed

“to follow proper procedures. Ineffective checks and balances during initiation and early stages meant the Department committed itself to the project on the basis of broad-brush and inaccurate estimates of costs and benefits and an unrealistic delivery timetable, and agreed an inadequate contract with its IT supplier. The Department under-appreciated the project’s complexity, and then mismanaged the IT contractor’s performance and delivery. The Department failed to provide the necessary leadership to make the project successful, over-relying on poorly managed consultants and failing to sort out early problems with delivery by the contractor. The Department took a firmer grip of the project from 2009 and terminated the contract in December 2010 to avoid even more money being wasted”.

That is a classic example of a failure to take one service and work with the other services. That project was introduced at a time, not necessarily of plenty, but when there was an awful lot of money in the Government’s coffers. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Department for Communities and Local Government to fund projects on an ongoing basis, as it has successfully done this year—certainly in my part of the world—it is patently clear that, in times of austerity, it is vital that the emergency services work together.

I will go into the detail of that with an example from my constituency. Setting aside the amazing efforts of the GP’s practice and the fact that the paramedics are increasingly situated in the location of the practice—in other words, in Wooler, and in Bellingham going forward, a paramedic is working with the GP—if an ambulance was required and a paramedic was not available, for whatever reason, we would wait for the ambulance. I have met the area’s paramedic, who is outstanding. Why could not the individual police officer or fireman, with improved, suitable training, step in and act as first responder? It is manifestly wrong not to train individual firefighters and police officers to address such issues on an ongoing basis.

Aside from being a very fat jockey, I was formerly a business man. Just as in business there can be one man, two jobs and everyone works together and can mesh and interlink their respective jobs, so it should be with the individual firefighter, police officer and ambulance man. Another example is the community support officers who we already have in the police. They perform a manifestly brilliant role throughout the country. They are able to assist the police in the performance of their duties, but are fundamentally members of the public given basic training. Why can we not have a community support fireman or paramedic? Why is the fireman unable to interlink with individual police officers and assist the police officer as a CSO? I see absolutely no reason whatsoever why that cannot be the case. Surely, these things must be done in future.

I have discussed the suggestion with my local emergency services. Without naming the individual organisations, it is fair to say that there may be somewhat of a turf war and an issue with individuals protecting their domains. Whether that is about unions or about power, it is not the way forward. Given that these are shared services that we all need and enjoy, there must be a better way going forward. Speaking for myself, if I could secure the construction of one substantial building for the future—for example, in Bellingham—that housed police, fire and ambulance services, I would regard that as a major success.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) on raising this important subject. He made some very sound points about the need for national co-ordination, efficiencies and interoperability between emergency services. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. Co-ordination is vital.

I am reminded, as you will be, too, Mr Havard, that only this weekend there were very difficult circumstances of flooding throughout mid and west Wales. Looking at the reports from places not too far from my constituency or yours, we see that major rescues were undertaken involving Royal Air Force Sea King helicopters from the military, inshore lifeboats, fire service rescue boats, Dyfed-Powys police, the Environment Agency, Ceredigion local council and voluntary agencies, all working together to respond to an emergency that flared up in a very short time.

A lot of planning is done for events such as flooding, major aircraft disasters, fires, building collapse, and indeed terrorist incidents. That planning is vital. Interoperability of the emergency services and the need to co-ordinate their efforts is an important part of the planning process, but, as the hon. Member for Rugby highlighted, it can be improved. Whatever any Government do, now and in the future, there are always efficiencies, improvements and information exchanges that can help those services to be provided in a much stronger and more efficient way and to prevent failures. I echo the tribute paid to those who put their lives on the line on any occasion. It is valued by all Members.

The flooding happened this weekend, but as has been mentioned, a simple, regular, unfortunate incident, such as a road crash, involves operability between services. Major events such as the recent jubilee weekend, the forthcoming Olympics and the events of 7/7 also demand responses from a range of agencies across the board. The riots of last summer involved police forces coming into London and needing to work with other police forces. I can recall as a Minister being in Cobra for 7/7, for fuel and prison strikes, and to look at the question of riots and services in Northern Ireland. There is a need for planning, but it is also vital that operability and information flow requirements are met.

The landscape that the hon. Gentleman outlined is indeed complicated. There are not only the three UK Government Departments that he mentioned, but, as I said in my intervention, the devolved Administrations, which deal with health and the fire service in Wales and Scotland and with much of everything in Northern Ireland. We have a range of bodies—the national health service, the coastguard, the police, the British Transport police, the Army and voluntary agencies outside Government, such as the air ambulance service, St John Ambulance and the Red Cross—that very often deal with emergency response.

The hon. Gentleman made some valid points, and I agree with him on the need for the dissemination of common language and an examination of efficiencies in equipment, and to ensure common equipment that is compatible with all services. I will return to Airwave in a moment, but I want to talk about common practices. I was struck by the example of arguments about whistles and what they mean. Common practice is important, and common information should be provided. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) that there should be a drive toward shared facilities by Government and local authorities. The ambulance service in one town in my constituency is considering removing its station and sharing a facility with the police and fire service, to provide a better service—the same level of service but provided more efficiently. We can look forward to that.

In the few minutes available, I want to focus on the dichotomy highlighted by the debate between the need for greater central planning and control, with efficiencies driven from the centre through the Cabinet Office, Government co-operation and work with devolved Administrations, and the present Government agenda. I do not say that to be critical, because this is not the time to be critical; but it is fair to say that the Government agenda is driving many services into a more local context. That is true of a range of issues highlighted by the hon. Member for Rugby. Cobra will have an overarching view from the Cabinet Office, as Ministers and officials look at major international and national events, and there will be co-operation between the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Home Office and others at national level, but I want to put things into context and get a feeling from the Minister about how things fit together.

For example, on 15 November, England and Wales will get 43 police and crime commissioners, who will be able to set their budgets, issues and agendas locally. The National Policing Improvement Agency will soon be disbanded, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. It recently issued guidance on issues pertinent to this debate. There is also the potential for the abolition of the Association of Chief Police Officers, which has a co-ordinating, overarching responsibility for many policing issues. The Government have not yet made it clear to me what will replace it for the co-ordination of operational policing services and the provision of operational guidance on the issues we are debating today. In the context of search and rescue and coastal agencies, the Government recently split and put out to tender private contracts covering two different parts of the country. As I understand it, the Government have so far failed to provide the assurances needed about how that will work operationally. Major changes are being made to the coastguard service at local level—again, devolving downs and removing services.

For me, there is the smidgin of a question about how things will fit in together at the local level, when the Government’s agenda, rightly or wrongly—I have my own views—is driving things down locally. How can the co-ordination that the hon. Member for Rugby so eloquently advocated be required when police and crime commissioners decide their budgets, the National Policing Improvement Agency has disappeared and ACPO is no longer in place? How can it be achieved when contracts are let to the private sector for coastguard services and local government is under pressure in relation to fire services, reportedly resulting in, at the last count, more than 2,200 firefighters being cut, 50 stations being closed and 1,000 non-operational staff being lost? A separate issue is the loss of 16,000 police officers, which I shall always mention, in every debate about emergency services.

The localism agenda needs to be examined in the light of how we co-ordinate services nationally. What are the Government’s thoughts when the demands of operational activity are becoming ever more national and regional—including the Olympics, the jubilee, the terrorist threat and major operational challenges such as the flooding at the weekend? Set against those are the Government’s drive to localism—local decisions and local budget control. How will the Minister and his Department deal with mandating services and co-ordinating the efficiencies to which the hon. Members for Rugby and for Hexham rightly drew attention, when the localism agenda says, “Do what you want in the regions and nationally we will stand back a little bit more than perhaps we have in the past”?

Airwave is an important topic in the constituency of the hon. Member for Rugby, and I have also taken an interest in it, both as a Minister in the Department and, recently, shadowing that Department. The Minister will know that the current contract for Airwave comes to an end in 2016. In a written statement on 26 March the Home Secretary said that the

“management of the contract for the Airwave radio system and its replacement (including associated staff)”—[Official Report, 26 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 95WS.]

will be further considered by the Home Office shortly. She said that the matter will be transferred into the Home Office later this year. I have tabled questions to the Minister, and the answer I have had is:

“The programme is at an early stage and is in consultation with all stakeholders, including the police, to define their requirements.”—[Official Report, 17 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 305W.]

I should be interested to know the Minister’s current thinking on Airwave, because in Government terms 2016 is not that far away. What is the Minister’s vision of Airwave’s replacement, post-2016? How does he envisage the replacement being commissioned? What does he think about the requirements for the system, taking on board the points that the hon. Member for Rugby made about operability, and the devolved Administrations and Government Departments? Does the Minister plan to have management of the system located in the Home Office permanently? What representations has he had from outside groups about the post-2016 contract? What discussion is engaged in with the Department for Communities and Local Government, the national health service, Scotland and Wales and other colleagues in his Department about the system requirements? It is important that there is efficiency in the system and value for money for the taxpayer, but it is also important to have something that works and meets the needs of the whole community.

I am anxious to give the Minister time to reply to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Rugby, but I want to mention the three driving forces that should come into play in his consideration. The first is effectiveness. The speed and type of response that the emergency services give save lives and prevent injury and are incredibly important. We need to ensure that whatever we do, and however we organise the system—I have some worries about the localism agenda supplanting the national and regional ones—there is a speedy and effective response to all incidents, and that it is planned in advance, measured on delivery, and evaluated afterwards for continuous improvement. There is a need for efficiency and cost to be considered by Ministers in relation to such matters as the potential helicopter contract now coming to light, and in terms of contracts generally. We need to consider how we drive efficiency and cost improvements in national contracts. Again I ask how, with 43 police and crime commissioners, the changes in the NHS and the localism agenda, the Minister believes we can drive the value for money agenda forward and make savings. Even more than in the past, the Minister will not be in control of how budgets are spent, unless he mandates forces and organisations to sign up to contracts, in which case he will have to set their criteria, and co-ordinate and oversee them.

[Guy Opperman]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an impressive speech, but I am a little curious about a couple of points. Clearly, there would always have been reductions and changes, even under the Opposition’s budgetary proposals. What would you have done differently to avoid the impacts that you describe as the Minister’s problem?

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

I could outline what I would have done, but the right hon. Gentleman will no doubt want to say what he thinks.