Police and Fire Shared Services

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, as I perform my first duty as a shadow Minister. I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) for securing this debate, and I think we all agree that it has been interesting. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) that there are areas where we can agree and areas where we will disagree. I was pleased to hear the comments made by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith). Hampshire has been mentioned several times during this debate as a shining example. I think that he said it was innovating its way out of financial problems. It was interesting to hear his view that mandatory mergers are unnecessary and that savings can be made by merging back offices and sharing functions with the council, the police force and the fire service.

I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss): we need to think about premises and not people when we talk about making savings. Also, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck that we need to thank people who work on the frontline. We have all paid tribute to our emergency services and the fantastic work that they do and the dedication that they show in keeping us safe and secure. We absolutely must pay heed to the workers and what they want from the services, not just what we might think is a good idea. We really need to consult those people and listen to them.

I want to keep my remarks brief because I want to give the Minister time to reply. I was quite entertained by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) who used the phrase “mandatory collaboration”. As oxymorons go, that wins this week’s prize. That emphasises how we are talking about a one-size-fits-all model across the whole country, and I do not think we can have such a model for providing emergency services. The Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill is being considered at the moment, which will give responsibility back to local areas, and we also have the localism agenda. To try to bring in mandatory legislation for every police and crime commissioner to have control over every fire service in the country goes against both the Bill and the localism agenda.

Several Members referred to the fire service working with the ambulance service—I think we can explore that route—and many fire services already do that. I am sorry to keep referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck, but he is a fount of wisdom—[Interruption.] In my opinion he is. He discussed the different ways the police, fire and ambulance services are perceived by the public. Firefighters have a real fear that if they come under the jurisdiction of the police, they will be perceived differently by the public. I have spoken to them, and they feel that their role is very much a humanitarian one. They can see themselves working with the ambulance service—in fact, there are many examples from up and down the country of firefighters collaborating with paramedics and ambulance services—but they feel that their role in outreach work, helping in the community, dealing with community issues and going into people’s houses would be changed, and that the trust in them would be eroded, were they to go into partnership with the police, even though it might work in some areas. That is why, with all due respect to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, I do not feel we should be going down the mandatory route. It should be for local areas to decide how best to run their emergency services.

I will move on to a few quick points that I wanted to address, and then I will give the Minister time to answer. I have just touched on the need for firefighters to be seen as neutral to gain access to people’s homes for prevention and rescue work. What assessment have the Government made of the effect on public perception of integrating front-line police and fire services? Several Members have discussed the fact that the police and fire services perform very different roles, so have very different command and control structures. I put it to the Minister that that might limit the opportunities for joint working. Significant concerns have been expressed about the role of the chief fire officer, who it appears would be subordinate to the police and crime commissioner under the new proposals. For such a partnership to be successful, it would have to be a partnership of equals, not a subordinate relationship.

An important point was made about fire and rescue services not serving the same geographical areas as police forces. That might make reorganisation in certain areas particularly challenging, with the possibility of further fragmentation to the service. The fire service currently lacks common guidance and a national procurement channel, so that is an opportunity we could explore that might provide some of the financial savings that are required. I am sure the Minister has a view on that and I would be interested to hear it.

I have already discussed how the fire and ambulance services work closely together, and there are several examples of that from England and Wales. The Government proposals seem to reflect a clear preference for collaboration between the police and fire services. Will the Minister consider revising the proposals? Given the common humanitarian remit of the fire and ambulance service, we should explore that option. There is also a general feeling in the Chamber that we could explore the possibility of integrating back-office services.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I welcome the shadow Minister to her post. One reason why collaboration works so well in the county where I am fortunate to represent a seat is that we have done it voluntarily through local partnerships. The PCC in Hampshire, Simon Hayes, is crucial to the work between the police and the fire service. Before the election, the Opposition’s policy was to abolish PCCs. Can the hon. Lady confirm that that has now changed?

[Liz McInnes]

It was our policy at the general election. It was in our manifesto that we would abolish PCCs and put the money back into front-line policing. I am not aware that Labour party policy on PCCs has changed, but we are where we are. Whether I like it or not, we are in opposition and have to work with PCCs. That is the situation. I obviously have to deal with reality and with the here and now.

As I have already said, I do not believe that the proposed new arrangements should be mandatory. I stress to the Minister that local areas should be able to make local decisions. Where a fire and rescue service identifies that it could benefit from collaboration with another service, such as the ambulance service, or even first responders, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies), it should be able to. Fire services should be free to consider other partnerships. They should not be tied to a single arrangement with the police.