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Orders of the Day
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
Lords amendments considered.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): I inform the House that privilege is involved in Lords amendments No. 10. If the House agrees to the amendment, I will arrange for the necessary entry to be made in the Journal.
Clause 2
6.29 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Phil Hope): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 4 and 13.
Phil Hope: Before I come to the amendments, the House will be aware of yesterday's tragic events, which resulted in the death of two London firefighters, Bill Faust and Adam Meere, who were both from Whitechapel fire station. In paying tribute to them today, the Prime Minister recognised the debt that we owe firefighters and the risks that they run to protect people at home and at work. I echo those sentiments and express my personal sadness at those tragic events. My thoughts, and I am sure those of the whole House, are with the families, friends and colleagues of Bill Faust and Adam Meere, to whom I extend my heartfelt sympathy.
6.30 pm
Mr. Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con): May I associate everyone on this side of the House with the Minister's remarks and the message of sympathy that he sent to the bereaved families and colleagues of Bill Faust and Adam Meere? No one in this House needs reminding of the risks that firefighters take day in, day out in their duty to protect the public, and no one needs reminding of the vital service that our fire and rescue services deliver to the community.
Phil Hope:
I shall deal first with Lords amendment No. 1, which was tabled in response to arguments put forward by Members of both Houses. As originally drafted, clause 2 generated a good deal of concern. It was seen—we remember the debates in Committee—as giving the Secretary of State carte blanche to create regional fire and rescue authorities, whether or not a referendum was being held on the creation of a regional assembly. Because it left the matter of holding an inquiry to the Secretary of State's discretion, some also felt that it allowed the Government to ride roughshod over local objections.
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We have not, of course, always accepted those interpretations, and we made it clear throughout the Bill's passage that we have no plans to regionalise the fire and rescue service outside those parts of England in which an elected regional assembly is supported in a referendum. Assurances have been given in both Houses that the only circumstances in which we envisage using the original power in clause 2(2)(b) involve urgent public safety—in particular, if authorities fail to co-operate on a key resilience requirement such as the creation of a regional control centre.
In the light of the Opposition's continued attempts to present that power as a licence to regionalise by stealth, however, we decided to make our intentions clear in the Bill. Hon. Members may recall that we responded to an Opposition amendment in Standing Committee by agreeing that an inquiry into a combination scheme will be mandatory apart from in a very limited number of circumstances—for example, if the authorities themselves suggest the scheme or where urgent public safety needs cannot tolerate any delay. In our view, clause 2 now addresses all the legitimate concerns raised by Members in both Houses.
Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 4 also respond to arguments put forward in both Houses. There has been considerable debate about whether local authorities, as well as fire and rescue authorities, should be included in the list of those consulted on the making, variation or revocation of combination schemes. To allay the concerns expressed, we have stated and restated our aim to allow for the widest possible involvement of all affected stakeholders, including, of course, local authorities. We did not wish, however, to list in the legislation every category of organisation that should be consulted on a scheme, on the basis that such a list could never be exhaustive.
That said, we accept the argument that local authorities are in a unique position and that the Bill should reflect that. Local authorities are the democratically elected bodies representing the people of the areas involved in any proposed combination scheme, and they are also, of course, the bodies from which the existing fire and rescue authorities are themselves constituted. Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 4 therefore add an explicit requirement for the Secretary of State to consult local authorities on the making, variation or revocation of combination schemes, where all or part of their area forms part of the area which would be, or is, covered by the scheme. I hope that hon. Members recognise that that demonstrates our commitment to an inclusive approach and the Bill's non-partisan nature.
Lords amendment No. 13 is consequential and simply adds a new clause in order to define the term "local authority" for the purposes of the Bill—specifically, the amendments relating to consultation.
Mr. Hammond : I am sorry the Minister feels that he must refer to the Opposition parties' attempt to paint this as some sort of covert regionalisation. Perhaps during the next few minutes we shall discover just how far the Government have backed away from that covert regionalisation—or not, as the case may be.
As the Minister said, clause 2(2)(a) of the original Bill allowed the Secretary of State to create a combined fire and rescue authority where that was
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"in the interests of greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness".
I do not think anyone has ever argued that the Secretary of State should not have that power. The original Bill, however, went on to create a second ground, quite independent of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. It would have allowed the Secretary of State to create a combined fire and rescue authority simply on the ground that the area he proposed to be the area of the combined fire and rescue authority was that of a regional development agency—in other words, one of the Government's nine English regions.
The Government have made no secret of their proposal, in the event of elected regional assemblies being established in any of the English regions—perhaps I should say "the increasingly unlikely event"—to create a regional fire and rescue service covering an entire region. Be it the north-west region with its 6 million population, stretching from the Scottish border to Crewe, or the rather smaller north-east region with its population of 3 million, the Government in their wisdom have decided that it would be appropriate to have a single fire and rescue authority there.
Many Conservative Members, as well as Liberal Democrat Members—not noted for their hostility to the Government's broader regional agenda—and indeed Labour Members, have expressed serious doubts about the appropriateness of that proposal. We could argue until late into the night about whether regions are appropriate for other purposes, but they were clearly not designed for the purpose of operational effectiveness of fire and rescue services. I am sure that others will cite instances in which regionally organised fire and rescue services might not be the best idea.
I think there was a broad feeling that if the Secretary of State wanted to proceed with combined fire and rescue authorities based on the nine English regions—or the eight outside London—he should justify that by demonstrating, as he would in the case of any combined fire authority whose boundaries were not coterminous with an RDA region, that it was in the interests of greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the service. He should not be able to get around that test.
When we introduced amendments to that effect in the Commons, the Government rejected them. They were introduced again by my noble Friend Lord Hanningfield, and again were not accepted. A little later the Government presented their own proposal to amend clause 2, broadening the definition of economy, efficiency and effectiveness to include public safety. That was curious, as we had been told in Committee that the term "public safety" was not required because "economy, efficiency and effectiveness" embraced the concept of enhancing public safety. The Government obviously decided that they had been ill-advised in that regard. They also eliminated clause 2(2)(b) altogether. Under the current Bill, the Secretary of State no longer has powers to create a combined fire and rescue authority simply because it is coterminous with an English regional boundary. That does not mean that he could not create such a combined fire authority. He would have to demonstrate merely that it was in the interests of the efficiency, effectiveness and economy of the service and in the interests of public safety to do so.
We have no problem with that. If the optimum structure of fire and rescue services to deliver the best service to the community happens to be coterminous
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with an RDA region—I would be very surprised but if it happens to be thus—so be it. That must be the sole criterion against which these things are measured.
Since I do not imagine that the Government have abandoned their plan to create regional fire and rescue authorities, should elected regional assemblies be created, regardless of whether they are in the interests of the service in terms of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, and regardless of whether they are in the interests of greater public safety, we now need to understand how the Government will create such fire and rescue authorities. The Minister did not utter a word about that, presumably because the power to do so, overriding the criteria in this Bill, will be provided in the, shall we say, elusive draft regional assemblies powers Bill.
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