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Mr. Gummer: I have tried to concentrate on a fundamental fact that the Government should be proving to us, rather than our proving it to them—that these regions in these forms represent a sensible solution. I do not think that the Government have even tried to do that. They have simply assumed first that regionalisation will save money—and, as I have pointed out, they will not tell me what money and from whom—and secondly that it will be more efficient. They assume that the regions are the right regions, but they have not been able to argue that case either.
I have a positive dislike of the regional system, for a series of practical reasons. First, regions are bound to be dominated by their urban centres. There will be less concern about rural areas. Secondly, there will be no democratic control over the regions and they will, by their nature, set priorities. If they do not get together to set them properly, the Government will come along and say "Do it". Of course they will then set the priorities, which will be seen through the same urban eyes that enable the Minister to believe that Rickmansworth has anything in common with King's Lynn. It is that urban view that is such a mark of this Government, and so offensive to those of us who live in the countryside.
There is also a small practical matter. We assume that all this will work well, because we will all use modern technology.
I heard somebody suggest to the Minister that the system would work beautifully because it would be clear where people were ringing from as the number of their mobile or local telephone would be shown on the system. I hope that that will work, because the system will not have a fail-safe mechanism. At present, if the machine does not show up the number, our local control centre knows that there are two Tuddenhams, two Harlestons, two Cloptons, an Aldborough and an Alborough in pretty close proximity.
The Minister thinks that technology is perfect and that everything always goes absolutely right, so there will be no difficulties at all. I just wonder about that, as do my constituents—that is the important thing. We need to have confidence in, and connection with, the system. The Minister has not given us confidence because he has given us neither the relevant figures nor an argument for the structure that he proposes.
Andrew Bennett: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
The Minister is not giving us a connection with the system because he tells the people of Suffolk that if they do not vote for a regionally elected authority—they do not even have the chance to do that at the moment, because he knows that they would not vote for it—they must understand that the regional management organisation will tie their local fire authority hand and foot. If it does not, the Minister will come along and tell it to do so, because that is the purpose of the proposal. He will not allow an authority to do anything that it wants to do if that does not fit in with his scheme for the region; he has told us that, and he will take powers to achieve it. I believe that he is being honest when he says that he wants to make the system efficient—but he, and not Suffolk, will make the decisions.
Mr. Raynsford: I have listened patiently to the right hon. Gentleman for a long time. He is usually a thoughtful contributor to debates, so it is unusual that he is building a completely preposterous case on the basis of his total failure to analyse the Government's proposals. For the record, there is no proposal whatever to regionalise the fire and rescue service in the eastern
region. There is a proposal to establish a regional management board to deal with the elements of the fire service that are best handled on a regional basis. He knows that there are detailed figures on control rooms in the Mott MacDonald report. He accepted that there was some sense in the anti-terrorist provisions, but he may not have accepted that we have strong evidence showing that there will be real benefits if we
- "integrate common and specialist services",
- "introduce regional personnel and human resource functions . . . develop a regional approach to training"
Mr. Gummer: But the Minister gives himself away. First he says to Suffolk, "Training will be regional, because we do it better that way." Secondly he says, "Personnel will be regional, because we do it better that way." Thirdly he says, "The way you operate together won't be a choice you make; it'll be decided by us, and it will be done regionally." Each of those aspects develops a robust arrangement of regional management. It is not truthful—if I may put it as bluntly as that—for the Minister to say that he is not regionalising the fire and rescue service, yet then to list a series of aspects of the service that he is regionalising. He can say that he is not regionalising all the service or taking everything away, but he is still removing from localities a series of important decisions that until now, they have made. The case for that removal has not been proven. The fact is that the Minister will be able to interfere every time that he decides that something should be added to the regional list. That is why the proposal is wrong.
Mr. Edward Davey: I wish that the situation were as good as the right hon. Gentleman suggests—I am afraid that it is even worse. As I said before, the draft national framework says:
- "If insufficient progress has been made, the Government will consider the use of its statutory powers to combine Fire and Rescue Authorities".
Mr. Gummer: I always remember a Member of the House who complained that I described her views as in favour of "killing babies" when she was really in favour of "terminating pregnancies"; she thought that if one changed the words, everything was okay. The Minister is doing a similar thing. He thinks that because he is not saying at the moment that Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire shall have a regional system and no local fire services, he is not
regionalising. That is disingenuous, because he is taking away from each area a series of their present powers and telling them that if he does not like the result, he can amalgamate services under the Bill. Is he taking the power to amalgamate because he has no intention of amalgamation, or because he has every intention of amalgamation? Is he doing that because he will amalgamate on a whim? The only factor for deciding whether an amalgamation will take place is whether he thinks that a service does not otherwise meet requirements. He, not the locality or the elected authority, will decide. What will matter is not what my constituents think, but what the Minister thinks.The Minister is taking a series of powers that in any other circumstances would be considered to be draconian. If he does not intend to use any of those powers, why does he not say, "I'm not going to take them"? If he takes them he must intend to use them, so he must intend to say to local fire services, "You have significantly reduced powers under the Bill. What's more, if we don't like the way you use those powers, we can amalgamate you—and the only proof that we will have to show is the fact that we, as Ministers, think that you need to be amalgamated." Although that is not regionalisation at once, the regionalisation of many powers will issue a threat to local fire services that they will lose the rest of their powers unless they do what the Minister says. Therefore, the services would be regionalised in fact, because they would have to obey what the Minister said through the regional management structure.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: When the Minister intervened on my right hon. Friend to say that there would not be an East Anglia regional fire authority, he was careful to say that there would be a regional management board. It is inconceivable that the board will not threaten to use the powers that the Secretary of State will have. Clause 22(2) says:
- "For the purpose of securing that the authority acts in accordance with the Framework the Secretary of State may by order require the authority . . . to do something; . . . to stop doing something"
- "not do something."
Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend has got it absolutely right. The truth is that the Minister would have been more helpful to the House if he had said, "We're going to have this regionalisation, and we're not going to fiddle about," and then told us what he was going to do. Instead, he is creating circumstances in which he may set up regionalisation, and half doing that, then making sure that everyone knows that he will wholly do it if they do not do precisely what he says. That is the same thing as doing it. This is a serious matter. The Bill will remove another level of local competence and decision making, and take away the local connection between paying the rates and running the services.
I shall finish with three short points. [Interruption.] The Minister does not like hearing this, because Conservative Members have shown that he has failed to explain the basis on which his whole policy stands to the
satisfaction of any sane and reasonable person. First, I return to his explanation of an aspect of the Bill that reveals his problem. He explained that he had been unable to meet his target on fires because of the large increase in the number of burnt-out motor cars, which was caused by the large increase in abandoned vehicles.Rather than do something about that increase in abandoned vehicles, however, he decides to change the target—[Interruption.] There is a perfectly simple way to do something about the increase. It was suggested by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish, who made it clear that there are ways to tackle the problem.
Once again, the Government, faced with the realities of their policies, will not put into operation the mechanisms by which those policies will be achieved. Last year we failed to meet the European targets for the packaging directive. The Government could have done that, but they failed to do so because they would not take action. This year, we yet again face a failure to meet a large number of our environmental targets because the Government will not take the necessary measures. In the case of abandoned vehicles, the Minister excuses his failure not by saying that he was unable to convince his colleagues in the Government that they should have done what other Governments in Europe did, but by saying that although it is terribly sad that there are many more abandoned vehicles, it has nothing to do with them.
What has changed? People have discovered that they are responsible for getting rid of their old vehicles and that the Government caved in to the pressures of the motor industry by failing to do one of the two things open to them to do. First, they could have told the polluter to pay by insisting that the industry paid the cost of the final resting place of the vehicles it produced. Secondly, if the industry could not afford to do that, the Government could have paid the cost themselves. Instead, they landed the cost on the poorest in the country by telling those who have a clapped-out motor car, which they need in the countryside to get to work, and can afford nothing else, that they should pay for getting rid of the vehicle. Then the Government are surprised when the vehicle is burnt out and abandoned, so pushing up the cost of the fire service.
Instead of solving the problem, the Government put off the target. They cannot meet the target, but instead of going solving the problem, they change the target. That is a universal element of this Government. They put the targets up and, when they do not meet them, they change the targets rather than their policy.
My second point is about retained firefighters. As I understand it, the Minister has not talked to any local retained fire service in the country about the subject. That is not true just in the east of England, but in the rest of the country as well. Yet we in the countryside rely on those people for our fire protection. It is a disgrace that he spoke so little about the retained fire service and that he has done so little to negotiate and discuss with it about how it sees the fire service continuing. The Minister has a 20 per cent. shortfall. It will be more than that if he continues to ignore the retained fire service as he has done during the changeover.
Thirdly, the measure is another example of the attack on the county councils. It is yet another way of removing from them democratic control over their policies and programmes. It is building up to the moment, which will
come, when the Government say, "We don't need the county councils any longer because they don't deal with planning." They tried to stop their planning role in the House of Lords by getting rid of the county councils' consultative role in such matters. They had to give way on that, but they are slowly, in every single Act, trying to get rid of county councils.
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