Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She is absolutely right that it behoves the Government to take the situation extremely seriously.

The combined numbers for the loss of fire stations mean that we would be down from 26 to 18—a 31% cut. The numbers are shocking, and the scale of the cuts dramatic. Frankly, I find it unbelievable that it is possible to cut the number of firefighters by 41% with no increased risk of loss of life.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend paints a bleak picture of the impact of the cuts. In many ways, Merseyside fire and rescue service is a victim of its own success. It undertook to carry out preventive measures pre-2010, and that had a massive impact on the number of incidents to which it was called out. Last year, fire deaths on Merseyside doubled, but the low point in 2010 was because of those measures. Does my hon. Friend fear that the loss of 300 firefighter posts will have devastating consequences for firefighters’ ability to address the rising number of fire deaths on Merseyside?

[Margaret Greenwood]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s excellent point.

We have already mentioned the increased response times that are so critical when it comes to saving life. Independent consultants Greenstreet Berman suggest that by 2020, should the cuts go ahead, slower response times nationally will mean up to 41 additional deaths at dwelling fires, up to 91 additional deaths at road traffic collisions, up to 57 additional deaths at water incidents and 212 additional deaths at special service incidents. A significant increase in loss of life is predicted, so we must consider too what cuts in staffing on that scale will mean for those left working in the service. Anyone working in an environment that involves teamwork knows full well that the loss of 40% of staff would put pressure on those remaining.

As well as considering the impact on the service’s ability to respond to fires, we must also bear in mind the other essential work that the fire service carries out. In 2015, the Government published the latest edition of the national risk register of civil emergencies, which is the unclassified version of the national risk assessment. The register covers a range of civil emergencies that threaten serious damage to our welfare, the environment and security. A striking number of those threats are matters dealt with by the fire and rescue service, for example terrorist attacks, coastal and inland flooding, storms and gales, low temperatures and heavy snow, heatwaves and severe wild fires, pandemic influenza and other disease outbreaks, major industrial and transport accidents, and public disorder, such as during the civil disturbances of 2011. We must remember that a Government’s first duty is to protect its citizens, and the coalition failed in that duty in 2011, with the riots that took place in London. I happened to be in London at the time, and it was very frightening to be there.

Firefighters in Merseyside continually plan, prepare and train for those kinds of emergencies. Some of the risks posed by such events have increased in recent years, and with climate change many of the risks are likely to increase in the foreseeable future. The Government’s own analysis of flooding incidents responded to by fire and rescue services across England in 2014-15 shows a 15% decrease in the number of such incidents, but I think that we would all agree that this winter we have seen just how important fire and rescue services are in flood incidents, and we have all powerfully been made aware of how unpredictable extreme weather events can be. Merseyside fire and rescue service has supported every major flood event over the past 10 years.

We have to remember too the risk of terrorism. Terrorist incidents are, of course, by their nature unpredictable, but Merseyside fire and rescue must be able to respond to them. For example, it provided a terrorist firearms attack team for the NATO summit in Cardiff.

Other events are highly uncertain and difficult to quantify, and it is impossible to plan for multiple events. Everyone assumes that the fire and rescue service is prepared, equipped and staffed to meet every challenge. The Government’s planning for such risks assumes that sufficient firefighters are available to tackle the emergencies, and that the fire and rescue service in Merseyside is resilient in the face of such threats.

I want to talk a little about the drop in the number of fire incidents. Some have tried to argue that the drop justifies the reduced spending on fire and rescue services. That might have once been the case, but after receiving deep cuts in 2011, Merseyside fire and rescue service should not face any more. The latest round of cuts will adversely affect the service’s ability to carry out crucial fire prevention work in the community, which is particularly important when one considers the age profile of the local population, as in my constituency, for example. Older people suffering from memory loss, mobility issues, sight and hearing loss, and dementia increase the risk of domestic fires. The prevention work carried out by Merseyside fire and rescue service is as important today as it has ever been.

The increase in the number of road traffic incidents, to which the fire service across England has had to respond, should also be borne in mind. The coalition’s cuts to Merseyside fire and rescue service have damaged the service’s ability to respond to fire and a range of other incidents, many of them life-threatening. The cuts announced before Christmas will make matters far worse. The loss of 41% of firefighters, 46% of support, prevention, protection and management staff, and 21% of control staff will put an inacceptable strain on the remaining staff and affect response times. Cuts on that scale could also lead to loss of life.

I have looked but have been unable to find mention in the Conservative party manifesto that the Government intended to make dramatic cuts to essential life-saving services. I welcome a correction from the Minister if I am wrong. I very much doubt that the public will support this level of cuts or that they would be forgiving of such detriment to the service over time.

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[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) for enabling us to have this important debate. She spoke passionately and outlined in some detail the severe difficulties facing Merseyside fire and rescue service and the fears that its staff, public representatives and the people of Merseyside have for its future. I agree with everything that she said, so I will restrict most of my brief remarks to the impact on my constituency.

Let me say at the outset that I deeply regret the situation that Merseyside fire and rescue service finds itself in as a result of the huge cuts to its budget, which have meant that it has had to reduce significantly the number of firefighters, appliances and stations across the region. I pay tribute to the fire authority and senior management in the service for how they have tried to mitigate the worst effects. I also commend the regional and national leadership of the Fire Brigades Union for how they have worked constructively to protect and defend their members, but also for how they have laid the blame where it truly lies, which is at the feet of this Conservative Government.

Following a consultation last year, it seems likely that St Helens fire station in my constituency will close. Eccleston station, in the constituency of St Helens South and Whiston, will suffer the same fate, with a new station being built to serve an area previously covered by two. This merger, as it has been called, is a bitter blow to those who work at the stations, and there are expected to be 22 job losses. It will also have a hugely negative impact on the local community, who value the station, their firefighters and the prevention and safety work done out of what is colloquially known as Parr station. More fundamentally, it raises questions about the impact on public safety, given the statistics that have already been quoted in this debate—notably the rise in response times and the increase in the number of fatalities across Merseyside, which is above the national average. It is currently proposed that the second fire engine at the new station will be crewed by whole-time retained firefighters, and there are concerns about the potential impact that will have on the already bad response times, especially at periods of high demand.

I am very fond of the Minister, but there is a pattern here. Over the past five years, £20 million has been taken from Merseyside fire and rescue authority, with a further £6.3 million to be found this financial year. My local council in St Helens will have had its budget halved by 2020. A planned new police station in Newton-le-Willows is now unlikely to be built, and St Helens courthouse is under threat of closure. The Tory Government call that savings. I call it theft. They are taking from the people of St Helens, Merseyside and the north-west of England what is rightfully theirs: their public services.

[Steve Rotheram]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point on the cumulative impact not just of the cuts to the Merseyside fire and rescue service, but of the cuts to local authorities in our area. Does he agree that it is a targeted ideology of the Government to hit the poorest areas hardest? Unfortunately, Liverpool City Council has had a 52% cut, which is disproportionate to the cuts in other areas, such as Witney in Oxfordshire, which is the Prime Minister’s seat.

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[The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)]

It is, as everyone has said, Mr Hollobone, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again.

I welcome the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), to her role. I thought we had got rid of each other after the psychoactive substances debate, but here we are again. I do not know which of us feels sorrier. This is the first time that she has attacked me, which is probably a sign of the future, but we can still be friends outside the Chamber.

Colleagues from Merseyside are present today and I understand what they have said, although I do not understand or recognise some of the figures that have been used. I will come to those in a moment.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on securing the debate and on making all these colleagues come out of the main Chamber for this debate, which is obviously important. I will answer as many of the points as possible. Naturally, if I cannot answer them all, I will write to colleagues. Actually, I want to write to colleagues from throughout the area—to colleagues who are not present as well—to clarify some of the figures, because I just do not recognise some of them. If I am wrong, I will obviously make that clear later and apologise, but let me give an example. The shadow Minister talked about core spending power between now and 2020, and a 41% cut was alluded to. Actually, it is 3.4% and a reduction of £2.1 million. There is obviously a discrepancy between the figures that my officials have produced for me and the figures that have been used in the debate.

One thing that slightly surprised me was this. The local authority is concerned and obviously has lobbied extensively, yet my notes tell me that Merseyside had the opportunity formally to respond to the local government financial settlement if it was concerned about the funding cuts, but it did not do so, so it did not take part in the consultation. I might be wrong, but those are the notes I have. I would think that if there were concerns, they would have been expressed.

[Steve Rotheram]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

I will make a tiny bit of progress and then give way.

I am very conscious that a former Minister and a former chair of the Merseyside fire and rescue service are present. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), because he went through an enormously difficult time in reforming the Merseyside service. I know that that was not an easy thing for him to do, so I pay tribute to him for the work that he and his board did.

For a short period, I was a fireman in the fire and rescue service in Essex, and I was the branch representative of the Fire Brigades Union for a very short period—until we fell out—and so no one is more conscious than I am of the work that our firefighters do on a daily basis. A lot of it is not seen by the public, even though the public expect them to do it. I am very conscious, having been to Lancashire, of the work that is done through mutual aid agreements. I saw help come across those borders—there were no borders and no lines on maps; firefighters just went across to help in the way that they should have. Firefighters from my constituency in Hertfordshire were also in the north-west, assisting with high-velocity pumps. A lot needs to be learnt from the type of flooding and rescue work that was done. The Prime Minister has already announced a review of not only how we protect the public better from flooding, but how we respond and where the facilities should be.

It is also important that we acknowledge the changes that have taken place in the structure of the fire service, certainly since I joined in ’82, as well as what has happened over the past few years. I pay tribute to the Fire Brigades Union, which in my time, would never have agreed to some of the changes that have taken place, especially in the manning of stations. However, practicalities relating to the modernisation of the service meant that when I was in Lancashire only the other day, all the whole-time station staff I met were what I would call day-manning staff. Other crews come down at night and are on call. It seems to be working really well there. It was first piloted, I think, in Woodham Ferrers in Essex, back in the ’80s. When I was there, we went to day-manning stations. It is about a different sort of facility, looking at what the requirements are and when staff can come in.

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[Mike Penning]

I will give way in a second, but I want to make a tiny bit of progress.

The equipment has changed dramatically from when I was in the fire service. We need to look carefully at the equipment we have for the 21st century. For instance, when I was in Lancashire, six fire appliances were sadly damaged due to the flood. Their crews watched the Army vehicles go through. Squaddies will drive through anything, but their vehicles are adapted to go through it, whereas six of the fire appliances got trapped in the water, went off the road straight away and were quite seriously damaged. The engines were damaged as well. We need to look at the manufacturers to make sure we have the right equipment.

[Steve Rotheram]

In case there is any confusion, Merseyside fire and rescue service submitted a response to the consultation on behalf of and jointly with other metropolitan authorities; I want to clarify that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) may well be mistaken and myopic in his choice of football team, but he was absolutely right on the statistics we used, which were provided by Merseyside fire and rescue service itself. He was there, along with a number of other Merseyside MPs, when the Leader of the Opposition visited the joint control centre that the Government are pushing in Bootle. The chair of Merseyside fire and rescue service, Councillor Dave Hanratty, has asked me to extend the same invitation to the Minister. The chief gave out that information, and he is very careful about being absolutely non-political and impartial, so the Minister can come along and get the briefing for himself.

[Mike Penning]

I will come. I have been to Merseyside many times in my ministerial role, not least when I announced the decision to open the cruise terminal in Liverpool, which was opposed by many areas in the south of England. I know Merseyside very well, and I will come as soon as my diary allows.

I would never say that anybody has intentionally used a figure that is not correct. Of course, everybody thinks that the figures they use are correct. All I have said is that the information I have is slightly different. It may be a question of semantics—who knows? Let us get the facts right, and then we will know.

The biggest thing I want to make sure I get across to the House is that I am new and I have an open mind. The Prime Minister has put me here for a reason, and it is obviously a logical reason. The role of Fire Minister is back in the Home Office where it was when I was a firefighter in the ’80s, interestingly, and it is logical that the emergency services are together. I will look carefully at why Merseyside has seen this slight but significant increase in deaths. It is very important we look at that and find out what has been going on.