Retained Firefighters

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I will try to be brief as we are short on time. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) on securing this important debate. The House should honour and value the role of retained firefighters, and I want to cite a specific and local example of the superb work that they do, which occurred in the Delamere road area in Bedworth in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

To set the scene, on a Saturday lunchtime in December 2008, a local community was engulfed in a severe flood within minutes. To their credit, the retained firefighters from Bedworth fire station, which I am glad is still very much in the thoughts of Warwickshire country council and Warwickshire fire service, reacted superbly. They attended within several minutes and carried out a diligent professional operation, which helped the residents of that area who were under pressure at that time, some of whose lives were at risk, not to mention the risk to property. They were helped through the first few hours of that crisis by Warwickshire fire service and the retained firefighters from Bedworth.

I mainly wanted to mention the dedication and service that our retained firefighters provide to our communities, in which the Government should support them, particularly with regard to training and ensuring that they have the right equipment, not only to keep the retained firefighters motivated, but to maintain public confidence in the excellent service that they provide.