Local Government

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to follow our excellent shadow Minister, and to be able to contribute briefly to today’s debate on this statutory instrument. First, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I rent my constituency premises from the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, and I am proud to do so. As we have heard, yesterday was International Firefighters’ Memorial Day, so I would like to begin by adding my tribute to the bravery of all our firefighters, past and present. As the shadow Minister said, firefighters have played a vital part in keeping people safe during the coronavirus crisis, but they also put their lives on the line all year round, and we are all grateful to them.

Although this is a piece of legislation with limited scope, it is a motion that will prove important for the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and, perhaps more importantly, for the public it works so hard to protect. Good strategic oversight and governance of our emergency services is a key way of ensuring the safety of our communities and the effectiveness of our fire and rescue service in Manchester. It is essential that we have the best possible framework in place, along with proper funding, to ensure that the fire and rescue service is run as effectively as possible. We need the best possible means to hold to account those who manage the service, which is why I am supporting this legislation today.

In early 2018, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority carried out a review of its governance arrangements in the light of the first 12 months of the Mayor’s term of office. As part of that, it undertook a review of the fire and rescue function, and it was important that that review included consideration of the issues identified in the Kerslake report, particularly in relation to the co-ordination and communication between the emergency services following the Manchester Arena bombing. It is important that we learn the lessons of that tragic incident.

That report made recommendations for the improvement of co-operation between the fire service and other emergency services. The GMCA agreed that it would be clearer and more transparent, and that it would provide more accountable leadership for the fire functions, if the Mayor were able to delegate those functions to the deputy Mayor for policing and crime, and for the scrutiny functions to sit with the police and crime panel, which would then become the police, fire and crime panel. This statutory instrument does those two things, and I am pleased to support it on that basis.

This is an expansion of the scrutiny panel’s duties that I know the police and crime panel has been keen to achieve, not for its own sake but because it is keen to ensure real integration in how the services are run, and effective scrutiny of that integrated working. This will mean that there are clear lines of accountability to our excellent deputy Mayor. Allowing the Mayor to delegate fire and rescue functions to the deputy Mayor will enable her to accelerate the pace of change and to ensure that collaboration is implemented more effectively and that strategic risks are reviewed across both services. The changes will also provide a single point of contact for the public and ensure quicker decision making at the appropriate level, while ensuring delivery of the duty to collaborate. They will allow informed and rounded arrangements for prevention and a more co-ordinated response to manage the terror threat. As a result, I am confident that we can look forward to increased collaboration between the fire service and other emergency services, enabling them to act more efficiently and effectively in the services that they provide to the people of Greater Manchester. The issue is particularly important in the current context. The need for properly integrated services, maximising the efficiency of working between our blue light services, comes at a time when both the police and the fire and rescue authority in Greater Manchester are under huge pressure.

Ten years of austerity has hit the Greater Manchester fire and rescue service hard. Since 2010, it has seen more than £20 million per year removed from its budget. As we have heard, over that period the Government grant to the fire and rescue service has reduced from approximately £75 million to about £53 million—a decrease of almost 30%. On the ground, that means that the services have had to lose 16 fire engines since 2010, dropping from 66 to 50, a 24% reduction. According to figures from the FBU, it means that Greater Manchester lost 624 firefighters between 2010 and 2019.

All that has happened at a time when Greater Manchester’s population is increasing; there was an increase of over 150,000 during the same period. At the same time, the built environment is becoming more complex and the fire service is facing additional pressures. Following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Greater Manchester formed the high-rise taskforce to try to prevent anything like that from happening in our region. As we have heard, it has been carrying out proactive inspections of all the high-rise blocks to ensure that fire safety regulations are being complied with and that people feel safe in their homes. But Greater Manchester still has 78 buildings that have adopted interim measures because of significant fire safety deficiencies. Making all those buildings safe is now an urgent task.

That is all happening now, and it is hard enough without coronavirus. But the impact of the current coronavirus crisis on local authority budgets will inevitably take its toll. We know that the 10 Greater Manchester authorities are forecasting £424 million of lost income as well as £169 million in extra costs as a result of coronavirus. Although the £170 million of funding announced by the Government is, of course, welcome, there are no Government commitments yet to fully reimburse the authorities for that lost income. Without that money, we may well have to see further cuts to our blue light services. There will inevitably be a significant negative impact on council tax collection, which poses a risk to the police and fire budgets in future years, with collection fund deficits and implications around calculating the tax base.

In the short term, the Government really need to commit to fully reimbursing local authorities for their losses due to coronavirus. Local authorities are already struggling after years of being the hardest hit part of the public sector, and they simply cannot afford to be hit again. Longer term, when we are on the other side of the coronavirus crisis, I hope we will see the Government make an honest assessment of the levels of funding for Greater Manchester fire and rescue service and the police, and increased central funding to keep our people safe.

In this context, of course, it will take more than efficient governance to enable the fire and rescue service to continue keeping people safe—it will take proper investment in our blue light services as well. But effective and efficient governance is important, and enabling the high-level strategic overview and accountability to be integrated will help deliver efficiency and accountability to our service. On that basis, I welcome the legislation today as crucial to help improve our work and the work of the Greater Manchester fire and rescue service, and ultimately keep our communities in Greater Manchester safe.