Draft Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Fire and Rescue Services) (England) Regulations 2024

Natalie Elphicke Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 General Committees

[Chris Philp]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that, in the past—about 10 years ago and, again, about 10 years before that—very considerable military assets were deployed in order to provide cover when there was a large-scale fire strike.

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

I will in just a moment. It is worth saying that the assets that are possessed by the military today are not the same; their number of firefighting appliances is lower than it was 10 or 20 years ago. So, whereas—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Elphicke]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on this important point. I would like to put on record my thanks, which I feel we all share, for the tremendous work done by the fire and rescue services. In relation to the specific point raised, it may be helpful to the Minister to note that actually three elderly people were reported to have died in the first national firefighters strike—the one that the Minister is referring to—and indeed, more recently, the failure to respond to a call-out in the middle of a strike led to a serious incident that very nearly led to loss of life in Essex. That might be helpful to the Minister, to expand on why it is so important that these measures are put in place to save lives, as well as to protect property, and how we have seen such instances.

[Chris Philp]

I thank my hon. Friend for a characteristically excellent intervention. First, I do, of course, echo and share the tribute that she paid to the brave firefighters up and down the country, who put themselves in the line of danger every day to keep the rest of us safe. I think the whole Committee, on both sides, would echo that sentiment.

The examples that my hon. Friend gave about loss of life during previous fire strikes eloquently and powerfully answer the intervention made by the right hon. Member for Warley. They illustrate that, even when we had far more extensive military firefighting assets available—which we do not any more—none the less, life was still lost. What we are talking about here is ensuring that life and property—because both are important—are protected, even when a strike takes place.

The Committee knows this, but, just for clarity, we are not proposing, of course, to ban strikes. That is not what is being proposed here. We are simply setting out, in this area, as in others, a minimum level of cover that must be provided, even during a strike, to make sure that the public are kept safe and to avoid the tragic fatalities that my hon. Friend the Member for Dover just set out to the Committee a moment ago.