Lord Paddick
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(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, over the past decade there has been an approximately 60% reduction in the number of fires and yet the Government apparently accept the fire service’s argument that it needs to retain resilience for the very rare occasions when a large number of appliances are required. Can the Minister tell the House, when deciding on police budget cuts, what account the Government take of the need to ensure police resilience to deal with Paris-like incidents and the riots that we have seen in 2015?
Lord Bates
The noble Lord makes a good point about the relationship between the fire service and the police. At the present time we have out to consultation a proposal for greater collaboration between all the emergency services, but particularly between fire and police. That consultation is being undertaken by the Department for Communities and Local Government and will report shortly. That will have a bearing on our future ability to respond to emergencies in a more connected way.