Defence Safety Fire Authority: Fire Safety Review

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

The report made a swathe of recommendations, leading to a total review of governance and governance structures. The committee to which I referred in my first Answer, the fire safety management committee, is new, and I can reassure my noble friend that it meets quarterly to review progress by recommendation owners. If progress is unsatisfactory, the chief fire officer will raise concerns directly with front-line commands or other top-line budget holders. There is a process in train to ensure that progress is monitored and that any tardiness or deficiencies in meeting recommendations will be identified and addressed.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lee, is right that this is a damning indictment of the situation in single-living accommodation. There is no doubt that a lot of the single-living accommodation onshore for the military is not really up to standard, and we have to put a major effort into this. I have to say that, in the naval sense, the best place for single-living accommodation is at sea, but sadly we have too few ships to have many of them there. I am sure the Minister would agree that more ships would be a good idea. The report really is a damning indictment, though, and is it not true that it was rather sneaked out? If the noble Lord had not brought this to my attention, for example, I would have been completely unaware that such an appalling report had been produced.

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, to take the noble Lord’s last point first, I would observe that this is an internal report so there is not an obligation to publish, but it is important that it is in the public domain. I have already reassured your Lordships that, following the report being made available to the MoD, immediate steps were taken to progress recommendations, and that has been done to very good effect. On the specific issue that the noble Lord raises about single-living accommodation, I entirely support his desire to have a well-structured Royal Navy, which I believe we have, but I want it to be attending to front-line activity, not being a B&B facility. I say to him with reference to single-living accommodation that, in the last decade, 50,000 bed spaces have been delivered through a modernisation programme. He will possibly be aware that, in the financial year 2018-19, £4 million was programmed on SLA fire safety works, and in addition £9 million has been programmed on SLA refurbishment works that include fire safety upgrades.