Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will make an assessment of the (a) fairness and (b) viability of reforming the firefighters' pension scheme allow members to retire on the basis of length of service rather than age.

The Government is reforming all public service pension schemes to ensure that they remain fair to workers and sustainable for taxpayers. The transitional protection arrangements for the firefighters' pension schemes are set out in the Proposed Final Agreement which was published in May 2012. The transitional protections use age to calculate a member's entitlement to protection. More firefighters are protected from changes than any other large public service workforce.

There has been recent correspondence with the Fire Brigades Union on the scope and timing of discussions on this issue. Copies of this correspondence can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/firefighters-pension-scheme-reforms.