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Mr. Allen: The misuse of abandoned vehicles, especially their ultimate fate as fire bombs or incendiary devices that are rolled down hills, greatly worries me. I should like the Minister to refer to that in his remarks on the changes in targets.
I congratulate the Government on tackling the problem of abandoned vehicles. Their efforts in
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respect of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, licensing and the seven-day notice have had a fantastic impact in my constituency. The problem has been lessened, which may partly explain why targets have changed recently. If that benefit results from the success of another Government policy, it would make sense.
The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) alluded to fire reduction targets, which are aimed only at reducing deaths in accidental fires. It is possible for more people to die in fires than at present but for the target for brigades to be achieved. I am sure that the Minister does not intend that.
I do not approach regionalisation in the same slightly sneering spirit of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. I come at it from a position of great sadness, because I think that regionalism was the way forward. The Deputy Prime Minister could not have done more to press that agenda, both before he was in the Government and while in office. I am sorry that he was not successful, and I believe that the English regions will suffer most for that lack of success. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to redouble his efforts in this area. Perhaps with greater assistance from No. 10 Downing street, on our next attempt we might get where we want to go a little earlier than before.
Mr. Hammond: Listening to the hon. Gentleman, one would have no inkling that the Government had just been given a message loud and clear from the only people in England who were consulted that they do not want regional government. However, his agenda appears to be—
The Chairman: Order. I must ask the Committee to leave the issue of regional government alone.
Mr. Allen: You are absolutely right, Mr. Amess. Given the hon. Gentleman's experience, I am surprised that he strayed so wide of the mark. There are specific references to the regional management boards—I know you are concerned with that subject, Mr. Amess, as it is addressed in the order. The boards must be reviewed now; otherwise, post 4 November, we might still be seeking to develop regional management boards and at the same time making demands on local fire authorities and fire brigades.
That point applies equally to regional controls, which are being developed while local structures are being kept in place. That contradiction might have been evident in the recent outline business case for the fire control project, which identified certain areas of concern. It is estimated that it will cost about £75 million to replace existing arrangements, which are
''delivering a core service''
that is
''perceived to be excellent''.
The same source states that
''there is no precedent for a regional structure to deliver an operational function such as this''.
All I ask is that, in the light of what has occurred in the past year, we do not stay on autopilot, but that instead
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we stay on the balls of our feet and adjust to the new situation.
The other area of concern is IT projects. It is clear from the experiences of all Governments, going back to my first 18 months of being in Parliament and being on the Public Accounts Committee, that political affiliation is no inoculation against IT projects going drastically wrong. However, when an IT project goes drastically wrong in the fire service, the consequences can be lethal. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to take a cautious look at how we are proceeding on the IT and change projects. Have the Government conducted a full task and risk analysis of the control project? If they have, might that be made available to Committee members and be put in the Library?
The questions about Groundhog day make me wonder whether my next point is sustainable. I am not familiar with the history of this debate and whether it has fully taken place on the Floor of the House and in the other place. If it has not done so, it would be appropriate to find some way in which we could debate the matter more thoroughly and more widely on the Floor of the House. Again, the Minister will correct me if it has been widely discussed.
I have a structural question that the Minister might not wish to comment on in relation to an order such as this. Is the ODPM still the right Department of State to be covering the fire services or should it be the Home Office, as it has been in the past?
My final plea to the Minister, whom I have known many years and whose progress I have followed with great admiration, is to learn from circumstances as they change. All of us in this place made some impact, for example, on the question of student fees, because Ministers and others were prepared to listen and to take cognisance of changing circumstances. We ended up with a far better measure as a result.
I ask the Minister, whose character and personality will, I know, make him amenable to this, to listen, not least to colleagues on his own side. Rifts have developed between the firefighters, whom we all respect so much, and the Government, whom we support. We must ensure that there is a healing and a listening process so that firefighters know that our Government are on their side and that they, and our party, are prepared to listen to their justifiable concerns. I hope that the Minister can reply at least in part today. If he cannot fully reply, perhaps he will drop me a line.
3.42 pm
Richard Younger-Ross: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), not least because he is always fairly brief in his comments and succinct in the points that he makes.
Before I pose some questions, I shall try to help the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. He was concerned about timetabling and what constituted late spring and early spring. Spring officially runs from the equinox through to the summer solstice. It starts in
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mid-March and finishes on 21 June. That creates a slight anomaly because people will know that if the first day of summer is 21 June and Midsummer's night is 24 June, summer is only ever officially six days long.
The Chairman: Order. Absolutely fascinating though that might be, I ask the hon. Gentleman to address his remarks precisely to the order.
Richard Younger-Ross: Thank you, Mr. Amess.
I want to follow on from some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North on targets. There is real concern across the House about what appears to be slippage in the targets. That is partly understandable, as there has been some success in the past and death rates have come down. Having said that, there are a number of instances where the number of fires has gone up. We were debating that last week and the number of instances in some areas, particularly of arson, has risen quite dramatically.
In 1988, the community fire safety task force set targets. It wanted the number of accidental fires to be reduced by a third over a five-year period and the number of deaths by 40 per cent., which is more than one third. It wanted a 5 per cent. year-on-year reduction in the number of non-fatal casualties. However, as has been pointed out, there has been a 20 per cent. change in the target for the number of deliberate fires. We are looking at the number of fire-related deaths and at a reduction of 20 per cent. averaged over the 11-year period to 31 March 2010.
That target is not really hard enough. We ought to be more ambitious and include death by arson. The explanation for not having targets for arson was the number of car fires, but the number of car fires is not, generally, a cause of death. Deaths from arson tend to occur in buildings. By the time we debate this subject again in a year's time, I hope that the Government will have hardened the targets so that they are more testing than at present.
Mr. Hammond: The hon. Gentleman is making some interesting points, but these are PSA targets agreed in the spending review. The ones agreed in the last spending review were much tougher than the ones agreed in this spending review. There is not a flying pig's chance in hell that the targets will be changed before the next national framework. They are three-year targets linked to the spending review.
Richard Younger-Ross: That is an interesting choice of words.
I take the general point. The Government have slipped, but I make the generalised point that the targets ought to be more testing. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern that we have had slippage, which is disappointing. I was trying not to repeat exactly what others have said but to put things slightly differently.
There is a section at the back of the document about how the Audit Commission will look at integrated risk management plans and use comprehensive performance assessment to see whether regional fire boards are up to scratch. The document is rather vague about exactly how the Audit Commission will measure that performance.
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I do not expect the Minister to respond in detail now, but it would help the Committee, which regularly debates such matters, if he advised us on the Audit Commission's progress in looking at the plans. What benchmarks are being used? More information might lead to a more informed debate and allow us to have a more detailed look at the plans in our area. It is important that all Members know how their brigade is performing.
The hon. Member for Nottingham, North asked whether the ODPM is the right Department to be responsible for the fire service. Given the ODPM's relationship with local government, I think that it is the right Department, but arson task forces must work with the police to ensure that arson targets are achieved.
Plans must set targets for the police to work with fire authorities. The police, the fire authority and other authorities in Devon have successfully worked together to reduce arson. Such good practice should be spread across the country, and it should not be subject to a time-limited grant. Arson task forces clearly work, so we should build them into the long-term work of all fire authorities to ensure that arson is reduced. I hope that the Minister will explain what funding is being made available and whether he would countenance building it permanently into the grant for fire authorities.
Last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) successfully took through Parliament a private Member's Bill that became the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act 2004. Much of the Act aimed to make buildings safe from crime, and it is argued that we need similar legislation to improve fire safety in buildings, although that is going beyond what has already been suggested on building regulations, with which I will deal shortly.
We debated regional management boards at some length in the Chamber during consideration of the Fire and Rescue Services Bill. My party tabled an amendment to provide that in areas with a directly elected regional assembly the regional management boards should have the same powers in respect of fire as were being devolved to Wales and Scotland. If regional management boards are to be effective, they must have a democratic element, rather than have democracy at one remove, because the boards are elected on one level and appointed on another, with some people in the fire authority meeting regularly to oversee the management boards. That is the present structure as I understand it.
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