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9.45 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Phil Hope): I shall endeavour to deal with the points raised in this important and good debate. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. Before responding to some of them, I will remind the House why a new approach to a modern fire and rescue service is required.
Despite the high standards of performance of our fire service and the dedication and bravery of our firefighters in responding to fires, too many lives are still being lost, especially among the most vulnerable in our society. Although raising awareness of fire safety has made a difference, 357 deaths and 11,000 injuries occurred in 2002 alone.
The independent review of the fire service led by Sir George Bain called for a new risk-based and preventive approach. We responded to that report with our White Paper "Our Fire and Rescue Service", which was published last summer and which set out our vision of a modern fire and rescue service—a service that will save more lives and create safer communities; that is proactive in preventing fires and other risks alongside performing its traditional firefighting role; that is committed to change and will adapt to changing circumstances, such as the new threat from terrorism; that is well managed and effective with institutions that support its role and purpose; and that supports the Government's wider social agenda.
The report of the Select Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett) broadly welcomed the Bill and its reforms. Despite some reservations, during today's debate a broad consensus supporting the thrust of the Bill has been expressed on both sides of the House. It is a shame that Opposition Members do not feel that they can vote for the Bill as well as speak in support of it in the Chamber.
One of the first and major accusations that the Opposition have levelled is that the Bill is too centralist. It will put our new national fire framework on to a statutory footing: that responds directly to Sir George Bain's observation that for too long successive Governments had not provided the service with the correct strategic direction. That is precisely the point that we have tried to address. The national framework represents a contract between the Government and the service, for the first time setting out our requirements, what authorities should do to meet those requirements and the support with which we shall provide them. At the start of the debate, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) asked when we would introduce the new discipline regulations—a small but crucial point. That was one of the undertakings in the national framework. We shall publish the regulations in early spring—on target.
The national framework focuses strongly on working in partnership. We are anxious to hear the views of all concerned on the draft framework as we proceed with the consultation process. Let me be clear: the framework is not about being prescriptive or dictating to authorities how they should run their service. It is neither centralist nor interventionist.
The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) complained about the powers that can be used to intervene if that is needed. My right hon. Friend the
Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire emphasised that those would be reserve powers, to be used as and when needed. It is important that public authorities meet the expectations set out in the framework, because failure to do so might have an impact on national strategies to deliver essential emergency response services. The Bill therefore rightly includes provisions that allow for such intervention where authorities are clearly failing, but I assure the House that those intervention powers are very much a last resort. We are working with local authorities to ensure that we can overcome any barriers to meeting the expectations, and of course we will have regard to the intervention protocol that we agreed with the Local Government Association when considering how best to address poor performance.A second theme embraced by Opposition Members is the fact that the Bill would lead to major regionalisation. That appears to be their new bête noire or paranoia. It used to be Europe—mention that and everyone would jump up like puppets on a string. Now the word "regionalisation" has exactly the same impact. I was pleased that my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Mr. Drew), for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for South Dorset (Jim Knight) supported an appropriate level of regionalisation for the fire services, as indeed did the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) in some of her remarks. Unfortunately, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), the hon. Members for East Devon (Mr. Swire) and for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham), as well as the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), were against the concept of regionalisation. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton sat on the fence—the Liberal Democrats are very much in favour of a regional approach to policy, but they decide not to support it when it matters.
To make it clear, we are not regionalising the service, except in areas where voters themselves choose to have an elected regional assembly. The Opposition oppose the referendums, and are no doubt campaigning against those regional bodies. We have spelt out very clearly—I refer Opposition Members to page 31 of the White Paper—that there are national, regional and local functions and responsibilities to be delivered by the fire services at different levels. The hon. Member for Cotswold said that regional management boards were a form of regionalisation. We said that they were not—they would be introduced in areas that do not have elected regional assemblies. He called that dissembling, but it is not, because in the national framework we spell out in words of one syllable the functions of regional management boards. My right hon. Friend intervened on him to make that point, yet still he said that there would be regionalisation in areas, even though that is clearly not the case.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: The hon. Gentleman sets great store by the regional management boards, but the Secretary of State has reserve power to elect 49 per cent. of the members of those boards. If the hon. Gentleman
genuinely wants those boards to work properly and democratically, why are they not properly elected full stop?
Phil Hope: The hon. Gentleman appears to be saying that if they were directly elected he would support them, which sounds like a bid for an elected regional assembly in the south-west. If he wishes to campaign on those grounds, I urge him to travel to Newcastle, Manchester and Yorkshire to press his case.
Mr. Hammond: The Minister has carefully ignored the principal point made by most Members who spoke about regional management boards. It is simply not appropriate for the boundaries governing the organisation of the fire and rescue services to be the same as the boundaries of the Government offices for the regions. He has not addressed that point at all.
Phil Hope: I was going to come to that. I find it entertaining that Opposition Members, who have lost the argument about whether we should have a regional structure and what should happen afterwards, should divert the argument into a big debate about boundaries. The Liberal Democrats usually pursue such causes. If in doubt, we have been told, we should have a review and kick the problem into the long grass. On the one hand, we are told to get on with the job, but on the other to hold a review to stop that. We simply will not accept such advice.The Bill also makes provision, as the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) pointed out, for the devolution of fire services to the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh Executive, which is an important step in the right direction. The hon. Gentleman is right that fire services in Wales will be much better off as a result of devolution to the Welsh authorities.
The unacceptability of regional control rooms was a subsection of the Opposition's argument on regionalisation. Those control rooms were introduced as a result of the Bain review, which was followed up by the Mott MacDonald review. They made it quite clear that the cost of regional control rooms and their efficiency and effectiveness far outweighed the drawbacks that Opposition Members talked about. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud made an important point about shared and tri-service control rooms, particularly in his constituency and region. I accept those difficulties, but the concept of national resilience against the threat of global terrorism, which the hon. Member for East Devon discussed, was not identified as a priority when the proposal for shared control rooms was introduced. We need to make sure that we get benefits from regional control rooms, and we want to incorporate best practice.
Again, I refer to the draft fire and rescue national framework, in which we say:
- "The Government accepts the conclusions of the research done by Mott MacDonald that improvements in control room efficiency should be achieved by amalgamating fire control rooms".
- "seek to build on the lessons of the three existing shared control rooms and integrate them as far as possible into the new system."
The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal and the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk claimed that local knowledge is an important feature of their local control rooms, but we expect global positioning systems and other uses of new technology to deal directly with the problems that they have identified.
Resilience is a key function of regional work for the fire service. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington raised the question of when we might intervene if the quality of service were not sufficient. It would not be practical to put a definitive list of emergencies in the Bill, and if we were to do so we could run the risk of not covering all possible threats. By taking a power to create new duties by order, we retain the ability to respond to changing events. On that issue, the hon. Member for Upminster made a point about cost. I assure her that the Government are meeting in full the cost of equipment for the new dimension of fighting terrorism and that every firefighter will receive basic training to operate that equipment. We are investing some £188 million over the next two years to achieve that outcome.
Prevention was the issue that caused hon. Members most concern, and I am pleased to say that every hon. Member spoke in favour of the measures to promote fire safety. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset and the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who gave some good examples of the tragedies that can occur when we fail to prevent fires, emphasised that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud mentioned the importance of education in schools and work with young people. Those hon. Members were right to make these points.
Some hon. Members raised particular issues about sprinklers. We recognise that sprinklers have a part to play in fire safety, but we have undertaken extensive research on the effectiveness of residential sprinklers, which indicates that sprinklers are not cost-effective for universal installation in residential dwellings. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset said that that would not be the right direction to move in, but that we might want to target the use of sprinklers where people are most vulnerable, such as homes for children and for the elderly. Houses in multiple occupation, which carry a high risk, were also mentioned.
I regret that, in the time available, I cannot cover all the points about pensions, although I must say to the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire that pensions are a reserved matter. The Welsh Assembly will be able to make regulations, but it will not be able to influence primary legislation.
In conclusion, a year ago the independent review of the fire service set out a challenging agenda to create a modern fire and rescue service, and the White Paper "Our Fire and Rescue Service" responded to that
challenge. It sets out the Government's vision for a service that is better able to meet the challenges of the 21st century and recognises the service's current role in dealing with incidents such as road traffic accidents alongside its traditional firefighting role.The Bill will ensure that the service plays an effective part in national and regional resilience to terrorism and other serious emergencies, and it will put fire prevention and safety at the heart of the fire and rescue service. The Bill will create a service that helps to save more lives by protecting the public and creating safer communities. That is why it should get a Second Reading, and I commend it to the House.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 164, Noes 344.
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