Hilary Benn
Main Page: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds South)Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England)
Hilary Benn Excerpts
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England) Regulations 2014 (S.I., 2014, No. 2848), dated 23 October 2014, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28 October, be revoked.
This is an extremely important debate—I thank the Government for providing time for it—about an issue that firefighters feel very strongly about and which has been the cause of industrial action. Ministers ought to ask themselves why that is.
Let me begin by saying to the Minister that it was not acceptable to table a written statement this afternoon suggesting that all the concerns have been dealt when, on reading it, we discover that that is clearly not the case. Nor is it acceptable to claim, as she did in Communities and Local Government questions earlier, that she will guarantee an unreduced pension to firefighters who cannot maintain their fitness and cannot be redeployed, when in fact her own letter to me, also of today’s date, confirms that that is not the case. She should not try to pull the wool over firefighters’ eyes. I will return to that point later on.
This dispute is not about the need for change in this or other public sector pension schemes. We know that we are living longer and will therefore draw a pension for longer, and that means higher contribution rates and later retirement ages. Any Government have to ensure that public sector pensions are financially sustainable. Nor is this debate about challenging the cost ceiling for the regulations, because we accept that. This debate is about producing a pension scheme that is fair to firefighters and workable—something that, to date, DCLG Ministers have failed to do. Unlike the Governments in Scotland and Wales, Ministers have laid before the House regulations that are unfair to firefighters who, through no fault of their own, may have to retire between the ages of 55 and 60, and that are not based on what we would regard as a common understanding of fitness levels. I want to deal with each of those points in turn.
The Minister knows that the scheme is not the only one possible within the cost limit. The Government Actuary has told them that, and firefighters know it too. That is why the devolved Governments have proposed lower actuarial reductions. Firefighters in England, a very large number of whom have been lobbying their Members of Parliament in recent weeks, are therefore asking this question: if a different scheme can be offered to firefighters in Scotland and in Wales, then why not in England?
Regulation 61 of the statutory instrument deals with the penalties firefighters will face should they need to retire between the ages of 55 and 60. Under the Government’s proposals, firefighters will lose 21.8% of their pension at the age of 55, yet the Government Actuary has shown that there are two different ways of calculating that reduction: one that seems fair to firefighters, and another that is not, which is the one that the Government have chosen. This issue of the reduction is where negotiations in Scotland and Wales have made most progress. Scotland is not proposing a 21.8% reduction, as in England, but a 9% reduction, and in past weeks, Wales has also moved to consult on 9%.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
I am so grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I just want to put on the record that we have a very amicable settlement with firefighters in Northern Ireland. Every time he referred to Scotland and Wales, my colleagues and I were saying that we have a very good settlement in Northern Ireland, which is why we do not have industrial action. The Government need to learn lessons from a very successful process in Northern Ireland.
Hilary Benn
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. Indeed, there has been no industrial action in Northern Ireland, and that is why I did not refer to the agreement that is in place.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is rather difficult for people like him, me and the Secretary of State, who do not need to maintain a level of fitness in order to earn our income, to understand the very real fear among firefighters? This issue has not been put up by the Fire Brigades Union; firefighters really do fear that they are not going to be able to cope with the inevitable deterioration that age brings to strength.
Hilary Benn
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the concerns that very many firefighters have talked to many Members of the House about. That is, in part, the nub of this issue.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
Although the Scottish Government have sought to find the best solution possible for firefighters in Scotland within the envelope available, does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that 60 is not an appropriate age for firefighters to retire and agree that we need to revisit the question of whether that is an appropriate healthy working life expectancy?
Hilary Benn
I do not agree with the hon. Lady, because when the 2006 regulations were introduced they made provision for that retirement age. The difference and the reason that there was no industrial action in 2006 was that firefighters felt that other jobs were available for those who could not maintain operational fitness. As I shall say in a moment, those jobs do not exist anymore.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons this Government cannot reach agreement on local government pension schemes in particular is that they are vindictive towards public services in general? We should also bear it in mind that this country’s fire service in general has suffered massive cuts under this Government.
Hilary Benn
My hon. Friend’s latter point is absolutely correct. It is very clear from this debate and the campaign that is being waged that Ministers have completely failed to win the confidence of firefighters.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. There is a limited time for this debate and a lot of people wish to speak. We must have very brief interventions.
Hilary Benn
I agree with my right hon. Friend and I shall come back to that point later.
On the offers made in Scotland and Wales, those devolved Governments are subject to exactly the same cost ceiling, so they have adjusted their accrual rates to come up with a fairer scheme. Why does that matter? It matters because firefighting demands certain standards of physical fitness, yet some firefighters reaching the age of 55 will, after decades of service and through no fault of their own, find they are unable to continue because they cannot meet the fitness requirements.
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Hilary Benn
May I make some more progress, if my hon. Friend will bear with me?
The FBU has proposed a fairer scheme, accepting that the accrual rate will need to be adjusted. In other words, firefighters will accept less pension if the Government will accept a smaller actuarial reduction for those forced to retire early. Indeed, an e-mail to the Department in January from the Government’s own deputy chief actuary reported back on the calculation of active early retirement factors from age 55. It confirmed that Ministers could indeed propose a scheme with a 12.8% reduction at age 55—rather than the proposed 21.8%—and calculated the exact accrual rate to ensure that the Treasury bears no extra cost. In other words, Ministers could reduce the actuarial reduction if they wanted to. Instead, they have laid regulations before the House that will leave those retiring at 55 facing the loss of more than a fifth of their pension. How is that fair?
That is the first problem with the regulations, and I now wish to turn to the second problem. The concern that many firefighters have expressed about having to take early retirement with a reduced pension would not be so great if there were other, non-front-line jobs in the fire service that firefighters over the age of 55 could be redeployed to for the rest of their career. The Minister talked about such jobs earlier. That used to be the case, but, as has been pointed out, reductions in funding for the fire service mean that there are far fewer of those jobs.
The Government commissioned Dr Tony Williams to conduct a review of the normal pension age for firefighters and to consider the associated fitness issues. This is the second relevant matter to this debate. Dr Williams published his report in January 2013, but I do not think that Ministers have taken proper account of what he had to say. There is not currently a nationally agreed fitness standard across the 46 fire and rescue authorities in England. Dr Williams says there should be one, and so do the chief fire officers. There is a very strong case for it, but the Government’s position has been that individual fire and rescue authorities should determine their own appropriate standard. In England, many use an aerobic fitness test, among others, that measures a firefighter's maximum oxygen intake with each breath, the so-called VO2 max measurement. The Williams review stated:
“The general standard used by many FRSs is a minimum fitness level of 42…while some have an ‘at risk’ standard of 35…where firefighters are allowed to continue on operational duties for a limited period while they undergo remedial fitness training.”
The Government, however, claim that firefighters will be able to maintain operational fitness until the age of 60 based on the following line in the report:
“a 35…VO2 max would ensure that 100% of firefighters who remain physically active will still be operational at age 60 assuming they remain free from injury and disease.”
Mr Donohoe
One of the most important aspects is the safety of the public. If a 60-year-old comes to my house and he is unfit, I am not sure that I want him to deal with a fire.
Hilary Benn
That is the concern of everyone in the House. The most important thing is that firefighters should be fit to do the task they are asked to undertake and that they volunteer to do on behalf of society, and I am coming to that point.
We have two different potential measures of fitness, one of 42 and another of 35. Why does that matter? Dr Williams adopted a VO2 max of 42 as the benchmark for his recommendations because fitness levels are not academic. It is a question of safety. He said:
“Studies show that below an aerobic fitness standard of 42…the risk of sudden catastrophic cardiac events increases, and below the level of 35…the increase is significant”.
More recently, an interim report, produced by the university of Bath in March and entitled “Enhancing the Health, Fitness and Performance of UK Firefighters”, identified that
“firefighters with an aerobic capacity below an occupational fitness standard of 42.3…would not be guaranteed to be safe and effective in their ability to complete necessary roles within their occupation…the lower VO2 max standard of 35…for continuation of work with remedial training amongst operational firefighters is potentially unsafe for the majority of firefighters.”
The House is owed an explanation from Ministers. What do they have to say about that? I hope that the House will now understand why concern has been expressed about the question of fitness standards.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Barbara Keeley
Will my right hon. Friend come on to the issue of women firefighters, many of whom are fearful of being driven out? On the one hand, we are trying to get more women firefighters and on the other they are terrified of being driven out by these fitness standards.
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?
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.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Hilary Benn
Time is very short and I want to bring my remarks to a close.
While claiming that firefighters will be able to maintain their fitness, the Minister has simultaneously reassured the House that there will be redeployment opportunities. However, she has provided no evidence of that being the case. At oral questions on 10 November, the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) asked:
“Given that the Minister has recognised that there remain severe reservations about the fitness test for firefighters, is she saying that she will pass regulations that will ensure that firefighters who fail the fitness test will not lose their jobs, because there are insufficient numbers of back-office jobs in the fire service to accommodate them?”—[Official Report, 10 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 1165.]
The answer from the Minister was, “Yes.” If firefighters believed that answer, there would not be a problem, but they do not. The reason is that the Minister has been completely unable to explain to the House how she intends to ensure—that is an important word—that firefighters who find themselves in that position will not be dismissed. Indeed, when I asked the Minister last week in a written parliamentary question
“how many redeployment opportunities there are within the Fire and Rescue Service to accommodate firefighters who are unable to maintain an operational fitness standard”,
she replied:
“We do not keep data on redeployment opportunities for firefighters.”
If the Department has no data, the Minister does not know, so how exactly can she make the promise that she has made? Where will the jobs suddenly come from?
The Minister then tries to rely on the Government’s promise to put fitness principles on a statutory footing, but there is a problem with that, too. The national framework is only guidance and cannot be binding because section 21 of the Fire and Rescue Act 2004 requires only that fire and rescue services “have regard” to the advice. In case there is any doubt, the Local Government Association employers said in response to the consultation:
“Whilst an FRA would of course have to be mindful of the content of the Framework it would not be compelled to comply with it”.
If fire and rescue authorities cannot be compelled to do so, where is the guarantee?
The alternative would be to pay an unreduced pension. My final question is where the Government’s guarantee is on that. I have here today’s written ministerial statement, which I have read carefully. Where is the guarantee? There is not one. I also have here the letter that the Minister wrote to me today, in which she says:
“The Framework also reminds fire and rescue authorities of the fact that they have the opportunity to retire firefighters over 55 on an unreduced pension if they so wish.”
That is not a guarantee. There is no guarantee.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Hilary Benn
I am going to finish my remarks.
If we follow the Government’s logic, either the regulations are based on a flawed assumption about VO2 max levels or an additional burden will be placed on fire and rescue authorities at a difficult time. The truth is that the Government have put the pension regulations cart ahead of the fitness horse.
To conclude, the regulations are unfit because Ministers have drawn them up based on the flawed claim that all firefighters can maintain their fitness—it is flawed because Ministers cannot tell us what the fitness standard is and because their assumption on fitness is not safe. The Government claim that they will be able to maintain operational fitness standards for firefighters, and they try to offer reassurances that anyone who falls below those standards will be redeployed, even though by her own admission the Minister cannot say how many redeployment opportunities there are. They have failed to come forward with fairer early retirement actuarial reductions, despite the Government Actuary costing the alternative within the same financial constraints. Ministers have claimed that there is a guarantee that firefighters who cannot be redeployed and cannot maintain their fitness will get an unreduced pension, but the documents before the House today show that there is no such guarantee.
For all those reasons, we cannot support the regulations. Members on both sides of the House, many of whom have signed the early-day motion, know that the regulations are not fit for purpose, and I urge the House to revoke them so that Ministers can come back with something that will actually work and is fair to England’s firefighters.
Penny Mordaunt
Bear with me.
The fire and rescue service faces a time of change as it responds to the changing needs and priorities of the communities it serves. If it is to reach its full potential, we need its firefighters to focus on that goal and not to be distracted by industrial action, divisive negativity, scaremongering, and poor employer practice. They deserve better: they deserve better than the 2006 scheme. The new scheme provides substantially better early and flexible retirement terms, focuses more on good practice in fitness, and pays more regard to supporting a more diverse work force, and women in particular.
Penny Mordaunt
No. The right hon. Gentleman has had his say.
The regulations that I have laid are fit for purpose, and follow the recommendations of both Lord Hutton and Tony Williams. They are enhanced by the changes in the national framework for fire and rescue for England, and underpinned by the working group facilitated by the chief fire and rescue adviser.
I understand that firefighters may not want to work longer than they planned to, but, although I have ensured that those who are closest to their normal retirement age will be fully protected and will experience no change, not all of them can be immune to public service reforms that are affecting every other public service work force. The firefighters’ pension schemes have been reformed according to exactly the same principles as other public service pension schemes, and the 2015 firefighters scheme will remain one of the best.
Members will be aware that if the regulations—which follow three years of negotiations—fall today, no scheme will be in place after March 2015. The existing schemes will be closed under the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 on 13 March 2015, and if a new scheme and transitional protections for the old schemes are not put in place shortly, firefighters will not have access to a pension scheme from 1 April 2015, and those who have protections will have lost them.
Members will be able to express their thoughts about what action should be taken in future years, but, for all the reasons that I have given, it is vital that these regulations stand.