Fire and Rescue Services

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about averages. For example, does she realise that in Durham and Darlington the figure for the first year is 14%, while for the second it is 15%?

[Bridget Phillipson]

My hon. Friend’s constituency is not covered by a metropolitan authority, but Durham and Tyne and Wear face many of the same challenges. We do much cross-border work, and that will increase as a result of natural events such as flooding. We will call on firefighters from different authorities to provide cover and help out where needed.

The metropolitan authorities—West Midlands, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, and Tyne and Wear—have shouldered the biggest burden so far. In the previous settlement, 11 non-metropolitan services received extra funding, while all six mets received budget cuts. The Minister may touch on the fact that the formula employed by the previous Government has been used, but changing the weighting of four crucial blocks caused significant disadvantage to areas such as mine with a reduced council tax base. The cuts have so far led to Tyne and Wear fire and rescue service losing 68 full-time firefighters, 31% of enforcement staff, 28% of support staff and one pump.

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[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.

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[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on securing this important and timely debate in Westminster Hall. It will help to underpin and underline the strong cross-party concern about the future funding of our fire services.

I pay tribute to the former Minister, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). He understood the fire services and had a long track record in local government. I hope that he may yet emerge from this reshuffle with another post. I also welcome the new Minister to his post and hope that he picks up the brief in the same way as his predecessor. May I say to him that we are here to help, as are his hon. Friends, the hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) and for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady)?

Essentially, we are all here to argue our case. Many of us representing parts of the six metropolitan areas of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the West Midlands feel that the year one and year two cuts in the fire and rescue services were unfair, unequal and hard to justify. Let me explain. The settlement for the first two years brought cuts to the budgets of most of the 31 fire and rescue services across the country. It brought especially deep cuts in the six metropolitan areas, but it also brought funding increases to six of those fire and rescue authorities. The hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), a member of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government—and the Minister’s hon. Friend—who represented one of the winning authorities in the first two years, described that situation as “ludicrous”.

The previous Minister said that he was surprised by that result. Some of those in fire and rescue authorities looking at grant increases over those two years were astonished, and many of us in the six metropolitan areas were angry. We heard and we took at face value what the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had said about all being in this together. We believed that the previous Minister misspoke in the Commons Chamber when he said that the poorest would have to bear the greatest burden in paying for the deficit. The situation that we faced in these first two years was indefensible. While six of those authorities were wondering how to spend the extra cash they had, the six metropolitan areas were working out how to cut 1,258 full-time firefighters, 69 retained firefighters and more than 550 other staff in this spending review period.

In South Yorkshire alone, we have to cut one in seven of our full-time firefighters. The fire chiefs have been reasonable and restrained in their response. They have accepted the year one and year two settlement. They have come together for the first time ever to make a joint case and they have produced strong evidence and strong reports. They have concentrated their concern on years three and four, on which the Minister will have to make decisions in the next month or so, and they have argued not that there should be no cuts but that there should be a flat-rate percentage cut for all 31 fire and rescue services across the country.

Many of us as Labour MPs in the six metropolitan areas believe that there is a case for reversing the pattern of cuts in years one and two in years three and four. We see the situation as iniquitous and inexplicable as well as indefensible. We are ready to back the fire chiefs and we have worked across area and across party to make that reasoned and restrained case to Government.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my right hon. Friend not think that that would entrench the unfairness in the formula funding, and certainly would not help County Durham and Darlington fire service?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend underlines the modest case that the fire chiefs have been making, which many Labour MPs have been prepared to back. Indeed my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South did so today. The scheme does entrench the unfair pattern that we have seen in years one and two, but, from the fire chiefs’ point of view, it recognises that the Fire Minister, unless he is going to renegotiate the settlement with the Treasury for years three and four, will have to find cuts worth more than £130 million in the next couple of years.

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[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on securing this debate, and I welcome the Minister to his post. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) for his work.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) said that there have to be cuts, and my my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (Mr John Healey) talked about the usual mantra that we are all in this together. Well, I am sorry, but we are not all in this together. The Government have constructed the funding of fire and rescue services in the same way as local government funding. They have rigged the formula to protect and help their own areas.

I accept what the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) has said, but people need to look at the figures. County Durham and Darlington, in 2011-12 and 2012-13, lost 11.7% of its grant, which resulted in the loss of 40 firefighters and 20 other staff. We can compare that with the figures for more deprived areas, such as the Royal Berkshire fire service and look at incidents per 1,000 of population, for example, and consider the funding per capita for 2012-13. Durham has 9.16 incidents per 1,000 of population, but its funding per capita has been cut by 49p. Deprived Royal Berkshire has nearly half the number of incidents, 5.6 per 1,000, but its grant has been increased by 21p per capita. That is also the case with regard to cuts. Royal Berkshire fire and rescue has had to cut only eight firefighters and five staff.

I am against embedding injustice in the system. The flatline system will not help County Durham. We need a root-and-branch look at how the funding is being skewed to help areas represented by Conservative Members—unsurprisingly, they are not here to protest. I also remind the Liberal Democrats on County Durham council that it is their Government who are taking money away from the fire and rescue service there.