Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of a statutory obligation requiring the fire and rescue service to respond to major flooding and other extreme weather events.

Please note that fire and rescue is a devolved issue in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The Home Office is only able to comment on fire and rescue services in England.

A statutory duty for firefighters to respond to flooding is unlikely to make a significant difference to the Fire and Rescue Services, which already provide effective response to flooding incidents. This has been consistently demonstrated through the excellent response of Fire and Rescue Services to a range of incidents including the flooding associated with recent Storm Babet (October 2023).

The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 makes provision for Fire and Rescue Services to respond to all kinds of emergencies, without providing specific duties for each type of incident.

Furthermore, the Government provides the Fire and Rescue Service with additional resource to tackle flooding via the provision of High-Volume Pumps and Water Rescue Assets. [Note: Water Rescue Assets are Defra Funded].