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Phil Hope: I understand the concerns that hon. Members have expressed, so I am pleased to say that I can clarify matters and give them the reassurances that they want to hear.
A pension account is simply an account held specifically for receiving pension contributions and making pension payments. A pension fund—that is what we are not talking about—is something in which pension contributions are invested to pay for future pension liabilities. Let me say a little more about this so that the House can be clear about the matter.
The firefighters' pension scheme is currently financed in the same way as police pensions—on a pay-as-you-go basis. There are no pension funds. Individual fire and rescue authorities administer the scheme locally, and they meet the cost of pension outgoings, such as pension awards, lump-sum payments and outgoing transfer values, from their revenue accounts.
There are two main problems with the current arrangements. First, volatility exists because of significant fluctuations in the number of firefighters retiring or transferring out of an authority's employment in any given year. Indeed, many fire and rescue authorities cited one-off pension payments as a major factor behind this year's high increases in council tax precepts. Secondly, there is a problem with transparency. The high proportion of expenditure by fire and rescue authorities on pension payments
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obscures the actual level of available resources for operational work. As pension costs increase over time, the proportion of an authority's expenditure on pension payments will also increase.
The option of allowing fire and rescue authorities to pay pensions from a separate pension account to which both employers and employees contribute, with a payment from central Government to balance the account at the end of the year, would alleviate those problems. However, it would be possible for an authority to end up with its pension account in surplus at the end of a particular year, so to protect the national taxpayer any such balance should be able to travel in the opposite direction.
Early indications from the Local Government Association and fire and rescue authorities show that they would welcome changing the financial arrangements. I make it clear that the Secretary of State would recoup only audited surpluses from fire and rescue authorities' pension accounts. That would happen after all pension payments and awards for a year had been made. I hope that my clarification of the technical points satisfies hon. Members.
Mr. Hammond: I am slightly confused, although perhaps there is just a linguistic problem. The Minister carefully set out the distinction between a pension fund and a pension account and said that payments will be made to the Secretary of State from a pension account. However, Lords amendment No. 10 refers to "a fund". Is he saying that the fund to which the amendment refers is not a fund, but an account?
Phil Hope: I think that I am. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that I asked similar questions during my discussions about the amendments, which is why I am able to give him such reassurances.
I was asked whether the consequential amendments were tabled due to an error. There was an oversight, so we are dealing with that now. Given my explanations and reassurances, I hope that hon. Members will agree to the amendment.
Lords amendment agreed to [Special Entry].
Clause 43
Lords amendment: No. 11.
Phil Hope: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 12.
Phil Hope:
Lords amendments Nos. 11 and 12 to clause 43 will extend the powers of a firefighter so that he or she can do anything that he or she reasonably believes to be necessary if he or she believes that a fire is about to break out for the purpose of preventing that fire. The question of whether to extend the powers of
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firefighters in such a way has been discussed in both Houses during the passage of the Bill—I remember our exchanges in Committee well.
Although in our view the likelihood of such an event occurring remains small, we believe that it would be prudent to take the opportunity offered by the Bill to give firefighters this modest, yet potentially important, extension of powers. I emphasise that the power could be exercised only if firefighters had a reasonable belief that a fire was about to break out, so they would thus have to account for and justify their actions.
Mr. Hammond: Once again, the amendments are technical and, once again, we asked for them in Committee. They address real issues raised by real firefighters who gave us real examples. I was disappointed to hear the Minister say again that he thought the powers were unlikely to be needed. We recited in Committee examples of firefighters facing the dilemma of seeing a dangerous situation developing that they could easily intervene to prevent, but could not do so legally. The perhaps slightly artificial example is the candle knocked over on the table when the gas jet on the cooker is turned on. Under the Bill as originally drafted, the firefighter would not have the power to break in to prevent that from happening. He would have to stand, looking in through the window, until the explosion occurred, whereupon he would be permitted legally to break into the premises and extinguish the fire, which two minutes earlier he could easily have prevented from happening.
We thought that that was absurd. The fire commissioner for London also thought that it was absurd. I am glad that the Government have finally decided to agree with us. It is not satisfactory for only a constable to be legally protected when breaking into premises in that situation. A constable may not be to hand. Goodness knows, the way things are going they might become rare commodities indeed.
Phil Hope: There are a lot more under Labour.
Mr. Hammond: There may well be, but they are all standing around Westminster and people in Surrey cannot find one when they need one. If the Minister doubts that, I invite him to come and have a look. I am very willing to take him on a tour of Guildford town centre on a Friday evening—[Interruption.] Yep, a night out with Hammond is on offer. He could reciprocate by inviting me to spend a Friday evening in Corby, but we will leave that on ice for the new Session.
There is no doubt that a firefighter presented with a fire that is about to break out would undoubtedly break in and do what needed to be done, but he would expose himself to a risk in doing so. If people act in good faith while serving the community, it is right that they enjoy the protection of the law. We are pleased that at the last knockings, as it were, of the Bill we have managed to persuade the Government that that should be the case.
Richard Younger-Ross:
The Government should be given slightly more credit. The Minister said in Committee that they were sympathetic to such an amendment. In his summation, he made sympathetic noises on extending the powers, so much so that the
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hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) withdrew his amendment. We can congratulate the Government wholeheartedly on saying that they would listen and then returning to the House with an amendment.
Phil Hope: It appears we have consensus. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding the House that we were sympathetic to such an amendment. We wanted more evidence and examples. Those were forthcoming and we have the evidence to agree to the amendment.
I do not get many offers of a good night out in Guildford, but if this amendment has achieved nothing else, it has provided the opportunity not only for that but for the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) to visit Corby, my constituency, which has the Rockingham motor speedway, one of the finest racing tracks in Europe.
Richard Younger-Ross: If the Minister wants the opportunity of visiting Guildford, he does not have to go to the house of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond). My mother lives in Weybridge and we would be quite happy to show him around.
Phil Hope: I am not going to visit anyone's house.
Lords amendment agreed to.
Lords amendments Nos. 12 to 17 agreed to.
Schedule 1
Lords amendment: No. 18.
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