Penny Mordaunt
Main Page: Penny Mordaunt (Conservative - Portsmouth North)
Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)
18. What progress his Department has made on resolving the dispute over firefighters’ pensions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Penny Mordaunt)
After extensive consultation and numerous changes, the Government laid the final regulations before Parliament on 28 October. They provide one of the best schemes in the public sector. I regularly meet firefighters and will continue to do so.
Pat Glass
We have just come through the longest firefighters’ strike in 38 years. When will the Government stop their politically motivated and disingenuous behaviour in this dispute and genuinely sit down with the Fire Brigades Union to settle this, as the Governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are doing?
Penny Mordaunt
There has been extensive debate and consultation on these matters. I have dealt with any outstanding issues in the past few months, including those of the transition of armed forces pension schemes into the firefighters’ pension scheme and fitness protections. The regulations have now been laid, and it is evident from the questions coming from the Opposition that they do not understand the scheme. It is an excellent scheme, and to say otherwise would be to do firefighters a disservice.
Alex Cunningham
In a letter to the shadow fire Minister on 5 September, the Minister stated:
“I am conscious that we will only have the ideas for the service to meet future challenges and aspirations if firefighters are engaged and feel an ownership for the service. Trust and good morale are key to this.”
How does refusing to change a single word of the regulation improve morale, and how does refusing to negotiate improve trust?
Penny Mordaunt
The irony of the hon. Gentleman’s question might be lost on him, but I am sure that it will not be lost on many Members of the House. There have been several changes to the scheme since it was originally published, including improvements on the 2006 scheme—introduced by Labour—which introduced retirement age at 60, disproportionately penalised firefighters who want to retire early and offered no protections on fitness. We have addressed those issues in the new scheme.
Mr Hanson
Will the Minister explain to me why my constituents who work for Welsh local authority fire services have reached agreement on a fitness test and a pension plan, through a negotiated settlement and at no extra cost to the taxpayer, yet my constituents who work for the Merseyside or Cheshire fire services, on the English side of the border, are faced with a strike because of an intransigent Minister?
Penny Mordaunt
What the right hon. Gentleman says is not correct; Wales and Northern Ireland have made no announcements on fitness. We are currently consulting on doing what Scotland has done through a regulation, which would offer firefighters those protections —we have to do that through a statutory instrument because we do not have one single fire authority for England. In addition, we are the only nation that has set up a working group on fitness to ensure good practice among all our fire authorities.
Mr Ronnie Campbell
I worked down the coal mine for 29 years, and I watched old men of 60 struggling at the coal face. What must it be like for firemen of 60 trying to save lives from fire and flood?
Penny Mordaunt
As I said earlier, it was Labour that introduced the retirement age at 60, but this is an issue that I—[Interruption.] I have to say that I take great offence, particularly at some of the paid-for advertising that has been run in local newspapers, which has been incredibly patronising towards older workers. We need older workers to stay in the fire service because they have great expertise. By offering protections on pensions and jobs for older workers and good practice for fire authorities to follow, we will ensure that in future they have the protections that Labour did not introduce.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
In her open letter of 24 October, the Minister thanks firefighters
“for your patience in letting me work through these issues”.
The regulations she has put forward were in place in June 2013, so what exactly have they been patient for, and why does not she treat them with the respect that they deserve?
Penny Mordaunt
As an incoming Minister, I could have immediately laid the regulations, but I chose not to do so because I felt there were some outstanding issues, one major recurring theme being the many firefighters who have previously been in the armed forces thinking that they have been disproportionately adversely affected by transferring in their pensions. That is one issue I looked at, among others. Most importantly, I also met a number of groups, including women’s groups, within the fire service. I have trained as a firefighter and I am a serving reservist, so I know the stresses that women go through in order to maintain strength, in particular, in their fitness tests. That formed the bulk of our negotiations with the FBU. I am very happy that on the day we laid the regulations we also started a six-week consultation on putting protections for firefighters on a statutory footing.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that no firefighter over the age of 55 faces the prospect of having no job and that they still have a good pension?
Penny Mordaunt
As I said in previous answers, we are consulting on putting those protections on a statutory footing in the national framework. That will, through a single regulation, have the same effect as what Scotland has done.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
Given that the Minister has recognised that there remain severe reservations about the fitness test for firefighters, is she saying that she will pass regulations that will ensure that firefighters who fail the fitness test will not lose their jobs, because there are insufficient numbers of back-office jobs in the fire service to accommodate them?
Penny Mordaunt
Yes. In addition to the protections that we are consulting on, we are the only nation that has set up a working group to ensure that there is best practice for fire authorities to follow so that their firefighters can maintain fitness.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
In negotiations with the FBU, the hon. Lady said that some firefighters might not be able to maintain operational fitness standards until the age of 60. She promised regulations to protect those firefighters, she promised to address the specific concerns of women firefighters, and she asked the FBU for detailed proposals. Now, she has torn up every promise, stopped negotiations, imposed her own regulations, and plunged the fire service into the longest and most avoidable strike in 36 years. Firefighters risk their lives on a daily basis. Do they not deserve better?
Penny Mordaunt
I have outlined in several previous answers the reason that we cannot use the regulation: we have more than one fire authority in England—we have 46. We must go through the national framework, but it will be on a statutory footing. I caution the hon. Lady on this: we want older firefighters and women to stay in the fire service, and she is not helping by spreading myths about the existing scheme.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
3. What assessment he has made of the level of the take-up of neighbourhood planning and community rights.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
T6. Stevenage borough council has taken more than £3.5 million in car parking charges, preventing the regeneration of Stevenage town centre. Thousands of local people have joined my campaign for three hours free parking. Will the Minister agree to support my campaign and send a strong message to Stevenage borough council to stop ripping off local people?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Penny Mordaunt)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his campaign. He is quite right that this is an issue that restricts growth locally. We recognise that and have introduced restricting the use of CCTV to enforce parking, grace periods for on-street parking, and have made it possible for local people to require their local councils to review parking. I draw his attention to the Great British High Street portal, which demonstrates that if local authorities reduce their parking rates they receive greater revenue.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
T2. Responding to a Centrepoint report quoted in The Independent last week, the homelessness Minister said that the number of people sleeping rough was falling dramatically and claimed that it was a result of the Government’s action. Given that his Department’s own figures show that the level of rough sleeping has risen every year under this Government and is up 37% since 2010, will he repeat his claim to the House and take responsibility for this dramatic change in levels of rough sleeping?
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
T7. It is a disgrace that the Secretary of State has personally allowed the dispute over fire service pensions to drag on for three years. The Government’s own expert report says that two thirds of firefighters will not pass the current fitness standard at the age of 60, meaning they will be faced with no job and no pension after years of good service. Why has he turned his back on firefigters and now dragged his new junior Minister away from the negotiating table?
Penny Mordaunt
As I have stated before, we have introduced protections for firefighters on a statutory footing and set up a working group to ensure best practice to enable people to maintain their fitness. We have gone further still, however, and are looking at the future shape of the work force to ensure that people who want to stay operational but cannot maintain those fitness standards have jobs to go to.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend consider strengthening guidelines to prevent a council from unilaterally removing heritage assets, including a presumption of like-for-like replacement if assets need renewal? In particular, I am thinking about popular items of street furniture.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
The continuing firefighters’ dispute in England is both damaging and avoidable. Will the Minister look at what has happened in Northern Ireland, where the Northern Ireland Executive have come to an agreement with the firefighters that is neither costly nor damaging? Will he adopt the same common-sense approach here as has been adopted in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales?
Penny Mordaunt
In summary, all the schemes except that of Northern Ireland have a retirement age of 60, while England and Scotland have the same faster accrual rate and England, Wales and Northern Ireland have the same transitional protections. Wales and Northern Ireland have not yet made any announcements on fitness. The scheme in England is marginally different from that of the other nations and, in many respects, it is better. The regulations have been laid. We must get the message across to firefighters to remain part of that scheme.