Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)]

The Payment Systems Regulator is working with the joint fraud taskforce and the National Crime Agency to invest in new technology to improve the speed of funds repatriation.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

T9. Since 2010, according to the Fire Brigades Union, Cheshire fire service has lost more than 170 firefighters, incident response times are up, the number of available appliances is down, and casualties are rising year on year. Will the Minister now accept that his Government’s cuts are having a detrimental effect on local services?

[Mr Hurd]

Funding for fire services is basically being held flat against a backdrop of a welcome decline in fire incidents. At the same time, the single fire authority system is sitting on hundreds of millions of pounds of public money in reserves, so we still believe that fire services are adequately resourced.