Fire Service (Metropolitan Areas)

Debate between Paul Goggins and John Leech

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on securing this debate. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who has done so much to co-ordinate the concerns of Members of Parliament and fire and rescue authorities in metropolitan areas.

The truth is that in good times and bad, there will always be a row about grant redistribution. Leaving aside the political inclinations of any particular Government, there is a balance to be struck between the sparsity of rural areas and the disadvantages and high risks of urban areas. In more than 30 years’ involvement in council and parliamentary politics, I have never seen such a grotesque distortion of grant allocation to metropolitan areas.

The six metropolitan areas serve a quarter of the population of this country outside the capital. They carry the highest risks in terms of fires and other emergencies, and they make a major contribution to national resilience. Yet in the first two years of this spending period, they have been expected to make 62% of the overall cuts that are required. By any measure, that is grossly unfair. It cannot be repeated in years 3 and 4 of the spending period.

I want to pay tribute to the fire and rescue authorities in this country, particularly Greater Manchester fire authority, chaired by Councillor David Acton. The fire authority has made its concerns known to Government, but it has also got on with the practical and difficult task of making the required cuts, while doing everything that it can to protect the front line.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

Does my parliamentary neighbour accept that not only Councillor David Acton has been making that case? Before him, Councillor Paul Shannon, who led the fire authority for two or three years, made the exact same case to Ministers. He has described the unfairness of the grant allocation as scandalous and unjustifiable. He put the case very strongly to Government.

[Paul Goggins]

The hon. Gentleman has put his comments on the record. I stand by my remarks about Councillor David Acton. As the new chair of the authority, he has taken on the task with incredible strength, at a difficult time, when he faces so many difficult decisions in terms of the cuts that we face.

I also want to pay tribute to Gary Keary, a constituent of mine who chairs a branch of the Fire Brigades Union in Greater Manchester. He typifies the FBU’s approach in Greater Manchester. It has campaigned against the cuts and made the public aware of the implications of the cuts, but it has also been prepared to work constructively with the authority and with management to protect the public and minimise risk wherever possible. The cuts made in Greater Manchester have been largely back-office and management cuts, but they have also affected the front line, which I will come on to in a second.