Heather Wheeler
Main Page: Heather Wheeler (Conservative - South Derbyshire)Fire Sprinklers Week
Heather Wheeler Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee and congratulate the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on securing the debate, which I want to take in a slightly different direction. I am proud to be an ambassador for the Derbyshire fire and rescue service. In that role, we proselytise about the great use and implementation of sprinklers. In pushing forward that brilliant plan and idea, I am delighted to tell everybody in today’s debate that my local council, South Derbyshire district council, led by the eminent councillor—apparently my husband—Mr Bob Wheeler, will be building new council housing because of the changes to housing funding, and because of that, it will be installing sprinklers in all the new council houses and council properties that it builds in future.
Along with that, part of my role as an ambassador for Derbyshire fire and rescue has involved encouraging the planning department at South Derbyshire district council to make it an informative in all new planning applications and planning permissions, both commercial and residential, that the council would encourage the developer to install sprinkler systems in new builds. At the moment, it is an informative, because it is not a matter of English building regulations. I am sure that the Minister will contemplate that point when he replies.
I again congratulate everybody involved in securing this important debate. Nobody wants people to die unnecessarily. We all know that in Derbyshire—if I can talk about that for a few more seconds—the number of fires has been reduced by 50% in the past six years or so. That is a fantastic story, but the vulnerable people and vulnerable areas where such problems persist can be identified. The fact that sprinkler systems would deal with that absolutely overnight is overwhelming, and I recommend that the Minister gives us some joyous news later in his contemplations about English building regulations.