Saddleworth Moor and Tameside: Ongoing Fire Debate

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Department: Home Office

Saddleworth Moor and Tameside: Ongoing Fire

Ruth George Excerpts
Monday 2nd July 2018

(6 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Nick Hurd Portrait Mr Hurd
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I defer to my right hon. Friend’s personal knowledge and his experience as a highly distinguished DEFRA Minister. I am certainly no expert in moorland management and I think we should listen to the experts on this. That comes back to the point I was making earlier about the need to learn lessons from incidents such as this.

Ruth George Portrait Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
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My constituency is immediately adjacent to the fires on Saddleworth moor, and I wish to extend my thanks to Derbyshire fire service, the police, the Army, national park rangers, countryside rangers, Glossop mountain rescue, gamekeepers and farmers, who are all helping to tackle this fire. Will the Minister please assure me that the non-full-time firefighting staff involved in tackling the fire have been given the proper protective equipment, as we have seen disturbing pictures on social media of Army staff without protective fire equipment being drafted in to put out the fires?