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8.24 pm
Lady Olga Maitland (Sutton and Cheam): I welcome the opportunity to praise my local fire service, which is based at St. Dunstan's hill. The fire station is a well-known landmark, and the firefighters are loved by all and appreciated for their bravery, professionalism and enormous skills. All of my constituents know where they are and know that they can be relied upon.
That public confidence is essential to the fire service, and I am worried that Members of Parliament are trying to undermine it, despite the fact that the Government are backing the fire service all the way, as they always have done. There is only one party in this House that is trying to suggest otherwise.
Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery):
The hon. Lady says that the Government are backing the fire service all the
Lady Olga Maitland:
This debate is about the fire service as a concept, and not about pensions as such. The hon. and learned Gentleman might like me to get on to the issue of marriage, but I shall not do that now.
I have been concerned by the scaremongering by the Labour party, which is suggesting that there have been cuts and crises. Labour has also suggested that resources are such that people are being left unprotected. That is extremely dangerous. Labour is turning the fire service into a political football, and that is downright irresponsible.
The London fire and civil defence authority is Labour-controlled and, my goodness, we all know about it. It has 32 members; 22 are Labour councillors, six are Conservatives, three are Liberals and one is independent. Responsibility therefore lies with those who are running the authority, and it is they who are trying to frighten people witless. It is disgraceful that people are being encouraged to write letters to Members of Parliament, suggesting that the Government are somehow leaving them unprotected. I have received a letter from a constituent in Worcester Park, who says:
This is a pro forma letter that has been sent out by activists who are trying to undermine a very valuable service.
The fire service is well supported financially and it is nonsense to suggest anything else. My local fire authority has £27 million in its reserves--a staggering sum. It has no moral right to suggest that it is being undermined. Indeed, the director of finance has said in a paper that the reserves need to be reduced. In January this year, it was forecast that the authority would underspend by£3.7 million. How can that possibly mean that the fire service is being under-supported?
Let us look at the matter in broader terms. Last year, the budget of the London fire and civil defence authority was £254 million, and there was £27 million in reserves. That is absurd, particularly when compared with the west midlands budget of £72 million and reserves of only£2 million. On that basis, the London authority should have reserves of only £8 million. How can the London authority have the audacity to suggest that it is short of money when it is sitting on a golden nest egg?
More than that, the authority has the cheek to overspend on administration--for every £4 that it spends on firemen, it spends £1 on administration. What about jobs for the boys? Members of the London fire authority have run riot and paid themselves handsomely. Their expenses have increased by £43,000 and their overseas travel allowances have increased by £5,800. Tell that to the people in the outside world and they can make their own judgment as to where the money ought to be spent.
We appreciate the fire service and we believe that firefighters should be paid appropriately. People should recognise that the pay of firefighters has increased by
34 per cent. in real terms since 1979. By contrast, average male earnings have increased by 25 per cent. in real terms over the same period. I believe that we should say thank you to our firefighters, as they have done a magnificent job for us in so many ways.
The professionalism of firefighters has meant that the number of fire deaths is decreasing. In 1993, the number of such deaths fell to 720, the lowest level since 1965. The number of fire deaths in homes fell to 536 in 1993, the lowest since 1962. These are examples of how the education campaigns of the fire service warn and protect people. The campaigns are working.
I welcome the fact that the Audit Commission has complimented the fire service on the fact that it reaches its national call-out attendances on 95 per cent. of occasions, a 1 per cent. increase on the previous year.
I believe that our fire authorities should have efficient managements and that they do not have the right to waste or to hoard. Like every public service, they should be asked to make efficiency savings so that the taxpayer gets the best value for money. That is important. There is no point hon. Members saying, "Spend more money." They should be asking, "Who will pay?" Every responsible Government have to ensure that we get value for money. The Audit Commission has said that there are local opportunities in the current framework to reduce spending. The locally achievable savings identified by its study total £67 million a year. I refer hon. Members to the Audit Commission's paper entitled "In the Line of Fire", which was published last year.
The Audit Commission has said that we should look at the level of sickness leave, which has been at an all-time high. If we looked at the sickness leave intelligently and seriously, we would begin to realise that it could be reduced and that that could save the fire service£17 million a year. We should also examine the amount of leave that is granted in the fire service--there should be more rigour in that direction. The Audit Commission believes that we could make savings of approximately£8 million a year.
Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery):
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) has shown, not for the first time, that her obsessions take precedence over reason in what she says in the House. During an intervention that I made in her speech, I asked her to confirm whether she believes that Sian Bailey--who lived with a now deceased firefighter for 17 years and who bore their children--should, in all justice, have the same pension rights as a widow who lived with a firefighter for 17 years. She refuses to answer that question and just utters the word "family". Earlier the hon. Lady said from a sedentary position that she should have married him--and she now nods from a sedentary position confirming
The hon. Lady chose to criticise the relatively small sum that firefighters within her region spent on travelling abroad. Does she really believe that British firefighters, with all their expertise, should not make their contribution to the world knowledge of firefighting techniques? Does she really wish to criticise them for taking their expertise and their skills abroad? Again, the hon. Lady nods from a sedentary position--she does wish to criticise them for that. That is another extraordinary proposition from the hon. Lady. The hon. Lady at least recognises that we have a fine firefighting service in this country.
I would like to make three points which, I hope, no hon. Member will question. The first is that we have brave and efficient firefighters in this country, including retained firemen. We have heard that two retained firemen from Gwent recently lost their lives and we send our sympathy to their families, including Sian Bailey, who has already been mentioned.
Retained firefighters do not work only in urban areas; they also work in rural areas, such as mid-Wales where I have my constituency. There we depend almost entirely on retained firefighters. I say to the Minister that reorganisation has led to great uncertainty among the rural retained firefighters of mid-Wales, who see the future of their reorganised service as being very distant from the community that they chose to serve when they were first retained.
Secondly, the fire service commands the support of the public for its efficiency, for its dedication and for the way in which it conducts itself not only at fires but at other terrible events--such as at car accidents and scenes of terrorist bombs, where firefighters are involved in the sometimes horrific mopping up operation.
Thirdly, there are critical financial problems facing the fire service. Despite the bland assurances that we heard from the Home Secretary earlier in the debate, almost no chief fire officer accepts what he says. The Home Secretary and the hon. Lady may tell them that everything in the garden is rosy, but I urge Ministers to ask them for evidence of what is really happening in fire services around this country.
Mr. Dennis Davis, the President of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association and the chief fire officer of Cheshire, has been mentioned. As it happens, I have known him for a number of years and I know that he is not an extremist in any sense. He has a reputation for being a sensible and moderate chief fire officer, and he has served his profession extremely well.
The House should listen to what Mr. Dennis Davis, with all his experience, has said. He said:
He continues:
The House, particularly the Home Office, should take notice when the man selected to represent all chief fire officers in this country is still of the view I have quoted,
despite extensive discussions with the Home Office, despite what we have heard from the Home Secretary, and despite numerous letters in his direction from Home Office Ministers, some of which I have seen.
When I last saw Mr. Davis he made a telling point. He said that such was the financial state of the fire service, not just in Cheshire, but in many parts of the country, that it was having to rely on increasingly old equipment. It is having to cut down on training, which of course affects the Fire Service College--we are talking about an economic issue, not a desire not to use the Fire Service College. Every day, the service faces real-terms cuts in what it is doing. Mr. Davis rolled up his point by saying that the national minimum standards were now becoming the national standards. The national minimum standards were never intended to be the national standards to operate throughout fire services in this country. But, according to chief fire officers, that is what is happening.
We heard a good deal from the Home Secretary about the National Audit Office report. The National Audit Office identified failures by the Government and highlighted two problems in particular. It described the first problem as follows:
It gave three causes, of which two were:
and
The second problem that the National Audit Office identified was that the service was facing growing financial problems, and it gave three reasons for that. The first reason was:
The second reason was the
The third reason was the
The cause of two of the three problems can be identified, at least in part, as the perverse standard spending assessment mechanism.
The figures show what has happened through that perverse mechanism. The Government may quote the figures and they may demand to know of the Opposition parties how much money is needed to tackle the problem, but criticism of the latter sort comes rich from this Government. The Government have cooked the books of local government finance for so long that the pan has almost caught fire and the fire service may be needed to put it out.
The standard spending assessment for the fire service increased this year by 1.5 per cent.--or £17 million--to £1.185 billion. But one has to set that figure against the fact that pay rose by 3.5 per cent. One also has to bear in mind that pay in the fire service, which is extremely labour intensive, represents about 80 per cent. of budgets and that the evidence is that almost all the other expenditure experienced by the fire services rose in line with inflation.
The result is a widening gap. We do not need an economist, the Home Secretary or the Financial Secretary--all we need is Mr. Micawber to tell us that that position is unacceptable. That point was raised byMr. Dennis Davis in correspondence--a copy of which I
have seen--that passed to the Home Secretary via the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth), who represents the area in which the Cheshire fire service headquarters are situated. Was there an adequate response? There was no response to what the National Audit Office termed an inadequate standard spending assessment mechanism, with "perverse" incentives.
When the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Bolton, West(Mr. Sackville), replies to the debate I should like to hear how the Government propose to remove the perversity that is affecting the fire service throughout this country. How do the Government propose to make the SSA mechanism adequate to meet the criticism levelled by the National Audit Office?
When the Minister replies I should also like him to deal with the way in which the formula is calculated, particularly in London. There is clear evidence that, in London, the formula used to assess the SSA for the fire service values damage to property higher than damage to people. It is weighted in favour of areas where there are expensively built office blocks, which should be subject to adequate insurance in any event. When it constructs buildings, the private sector is under a duty to ensure that adequate fire precautions are included. It is wrong that people living in densely populated blocks of flats and terraced streets in London should find that the formula is weighted against them and in favour of office blocks along the embankment or in Canary wharf. But evidence to show that that is happening has been produced by the London fire and civil defence authority.
When the Minister replies will he come clean about the pensions problem? The history of public service pensions, particularly as it affects the police and the fire service, is unsatisfactory. But the Government have had stewardship of those important public services for the past 17 years. The Home Secretary reminded us, rightly and responsibly, that we are the trustees of public money. But I remind the Minister, rightly and responsibly, that we are also the trustees of the public service. Why is it that over the past 17 years the public service has been so let down that we all talk--on both sides of the House--about the pensions time bomb facing the fire service? It has become the term of art to describe the problem. The National Audit Office urged the Government to respond quickly. I asked a written question on the subject, and I was assured that the matter was being addressed. Why not answer in this debate? Why do not the Government take the opportunity to explain how fire services are to survive the pensions time bomb and avoid paying 25 per cent. of their revenue in pensions--which plainly cannot be permitted. The Government have had plenty of time to ponder. Perhaps they will now answer.
I urge the Minister to acknowledge that proactive fire safety campaigning needs more money when calculating the standard spending assessment. It is self-evident that such campaigns are cost-effective--they are an investment. One brigade invested approximately£1 million a year in proactive fire safety campaigning. The result was a 70 per cent. reduction in fire injuries and fatalities over four years. That is money well spent. There ought to be a statutory requirement to undertake proactive fire campaigning and more specific funding than acknowledged in the most recent SSA, which for the first time identified PFC as a specific funding area. The Government have no strategy for dealing with investment
in years of fire safety campaigning, to influence the attitude of the public to their personal safety and the safety of their premises.
"I am personally very concerned to hear about the proposal to reduce the level of public protection in London. Please inform where you stand on this issue as it will influence the way I will vote in the next election."
"The fire service is facing a serious financial situation which needs to be remedied if it is not to create major operational difficulties. This is not just a case of special pleading but one where the current financial arrangements help hide a significant problem. It is therefore not a new problem . . . It is however one which is reaching critical condition."
"The UK fire service reputation as a world leader in innovation, practice, equipment, vehicles and thinking, is in serious jeopardy as are those who trade world-wide in our fire related industries."
"Ineffective national response to the growing problem of fire".
"Perverse incentives in SSA mechanism"
"Lack of a concerted multi-agency effort to tackle the problem."
"Pervasive and inflexible conditions of service".
"Burgeoning pensions bill".
"Inadequate SSA mechanism".
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