Fire and Rescue Services

John Hemming Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Bayley. I will try to do my speech in about six minutes, depending on interventions of course. I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on securing this debate, but particular congratulations should go to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) for his excellent work in what is a cross-party campaign. Although there may not be many Government Members here, that is merely because the metropolitan areas are primarily represented by Opposition Members, so one therefore presumes that the proportion of people here is much the same on both sides of the Chamber.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Possibly the reason why many Conservatives are not here is that they have actually looked after their authorities through the formula funding.

[John Hemming]

My point was in relation to the proportion of people in metropolitan areas, not in proportion to the number of Members.

[Joan Walley]

Will the hon. Gentleman take into account the fact that I represent Staffordshire, which is not a metropolitan area, but that I do not see any Government Members from Staffordshire here?

[John Hemming]

I was referring to Members from metropolitan areas. We do not have many Government Members from metropolitan areas, but a lot of them have turned up, while many who are not here are also concerned about this issue.

Obviously, we disagree with some of the things said by the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South. The reality is that we are in a very difficult financial position. I refer the hon. Lady, who hopes that we can spend our way out of recession, to Sir James Callaghan’s speech in 1976 in which he basically said that that was not possible. We face the challenge of how to deal with a reducing budget nationally in an equitable and acceptable manner. My personal view is that, because of various constraints, we are going to face austerity for some time beyond the next general election and possibly into the 2020s. It is therefore very important that whatever mechanism is used to distribute funding across the country is equitable.

Local government funding—in many ways, fire and rescue is part of that—has been referred to as being like the Schleswig-Holstein question as it is very difficult to understand. It was perceived as unjust that, under this complex formula, certain areas of the country had much greater cuts than others. It is a complex formula, so it is difficult to see the equity in that result. When there are places, such as in the metropolitan areas, that are much more dependent on grant funding, the cuts in grant funding will impact much more on the total budget of some organisations than on those of others.

In meetings with the Minister’s predecessor, we asked him to ensure that fire and rescue service officers in the mets had direct contact with civil servants in the Department for Communities and Local Government, so that the operation of the formula was transparent. In some circumstances, there should be a floors-and-ceilings type of approach to avoid a situation in which some authorities get more money and others get less. That would obviously be difficult, because there are changes in demand—some areas will see much higher growth in the number of people living there than other areas, and consequently have greater demand.

The essence of the situation is that the funding conclusion is perceived by both Government and Opposition Back Benchers to be unfair. When the budget is constrained, that relates both to prevention and to incident responses. We all pay tribute to the excellent work done by firefighters throughout the country in protecting our constituents but, at the end of the day, there has to be a long-term solution that is seen as equitable across the country. That is the challenge for the Government, as it will be for future Governments. When there are no more goodies to share out, but there are constrained circumstances, it is a nil-sum game in which increasing spending in one area means having to reduce spending in another; that is the difficulty.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I agree, as will some of my hon. Friends, with part of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but does he really believe that the fact that so few Government Members represent metropolitan areas is unrelated to the outcome, which is that those areas are facing the biggest cuts?

[John Hemming]

No, I do not believe that. We have a complex formula into which figures have been slotted and an outcome has emerged. That is not the cause. My argument was that, given the relatively small number of Members who represent metropolitan constituencies, a large proportion of such Members in the Chamber today are Government Members. That demonstrates that concern about the formula—my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), who could not be here today, is equally concerned about this—exists among both Opposition and Government Back Benchers. Obviously, the Minister has just been chucked into this and cannot give us any major assurances now, but what is critical is that the long term has to be far more transparent and far more equitable.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Hemming]

Is the Opposition’s position that there should be no further cuts, or that the cuts should be equal?

[Chris Williamson]

Well, we would not be starting from here—let me put it like that. The cuts have gone much too far already. After listening to the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, I thought that he was on the same page that we all are.

[John Hemming]

indicated dissent.

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman is shaking his head now, so he is not. I hope that he agrees, however, that the cuts have been very severe. If the further planned cuts go ahead, lives will be put at risk, as we have heard from the professional chief fire officers.

[John Hemming]

rose—

[Chris Williamson]

I will not give way again, because we are short of time and I want to make a few more points.

The fire and rescue service is a can-do service with a can-do mentality. It has got on with it and made the efficiency savings. The service deals not just with fires and water rescue; it is an enabling service that does a lot of work with young people. It has been extremely effective at reducing fire deaths, anti-social behaviour and the problems of deliberately set fires and arson. However, as a result of the cuts that have already been made and the further cuts that are being planned, such fire prevention work is being compromised. From my research through freedom of information requests, I know that the result of the diminution of arson prevention work has been an increase in arson. As a result of less investment going into firefighter training, firefighter injuries are now increasing around the country, and that cannot be right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made a point about the number of front-line firefighters being lost. Back-office staff have also been lost. Fire appliances are being decommissioned and fire stations are being forced to close. There has been a 14% reduction in the number of smoke alarms fitted, which is putting people’s lives at risk. The investment in fire prevention work and smoke alarms was one of the greatest success stories of the previous Labour Government, but all that is being put at risk as a result of the cuts.

National resilience is being compromised as a consequence of these reductions. Let us be clear that the metropolitan fire and rescue authorities are the backbone of national resilience, yet those services have been singled out for the biggest cuts. I do not make a case simply for the metropolitan authorities. They have a very bad deal, but, as the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal and I agree, this problem is affecting the whole country, albeit to varying extents. I hope that the Minister’s response will take account of the fact that national resilience is being compromised and lives are being put at risk. Hon. Members have cited their chief fire officers in the South Yorkshire fire and rescue service, the West Midlands fire service and the Merseyside fire and rescue service.

I hope that the Minister can shed some light on another problem: we knew from the previous Minister that the cuts were back-loaded, but we do not know the level of the settlement. Even bigger cuts are planned in the next two years, but I hope that the Government will turn away from that course. It is very difficult for the fire and rescue authorities to plan because they do not know what the scale of those cuts will be. I hope the Minister will give an early indication of what the cuts will be because that would enable the fire and rescue services to plan for the future. Most importantly, I hope that the Minister will take account of the contributions we have heard from hon. Members, and listen to the professional fire chiefs who are making the strong case that the cuts are extremely damaging and are putting lives at risk.

The service has already made massive efficiency savings and there is little more that it can do. This is in the Minister’s hands. I hope that he will use the acumen that he displayed when he was an effective Minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, that he will bring that verve to his role in the Department for Communities and Local Government, and that he will stand up for the fire and rescue service, and stand up for the British public, to ensure that we provide the support and protection that they deserve.