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Essex Police Force (Mergers)
3.11 pm
Bob Spink: I have a second petition to present, although I shall be briefer this time as I have presented another petition in similar terms. The petition rails against the merger of police forces and relates in particular to Essex police force.
Declares that they wish to support option four of a stand alone strategic police force for Essex and they object to Government plans to merge police forces which would lead to unacceptable centralisation with the possibility of political control and higher costs, and with less local control and accountability of the police; and they welcome the cross-Party actions of Essex MPs to save Essex Police Force.
The Petitioners therefore request the House of Commons to call upon the Government to withdraw its dangerous and politically motivated policy of merging police forces and retain Essex Police Force in its current format.
To lie upon the Table.
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Fire Service (Northumberland)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Coaker.]
3.12 pm
Mr. Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab): I never thought that I would be staring at four hours of debate on fire services in south-east Northumberland. This is obviously a narrow subject, but I am sure that some Members will try to get in to speak in any case.
I have raised this issue before on the Floor of the House, in a debate on the fire and rescue service initiated by the Opposition. The question involves south-east Northumberland and the loss of four fire stations. I have a picture of them here, and some are fairly new. The one in Cramlington was built only nine years ago, while the one in Blyth was built just as I was elected, nearly 18 years ago. I remember it well. The other two are a bit older—25 and, I think, 26 years old.
These fire stations are in the townships of Morpeth, which has a population of 20,000; Ashington, which has a population of 30-odd thousand; Blyth, which has a population of 30,000; and Cramlington, which has a population of about 25,000. The Bain report on fire services says that the fire stations should remain at the crux of the townships, but in south-east Northumberland we have a chief fire officer who wants to change that all around. He wants to close these stations. I believe that he wants to demolish two of them, most probably to sell off the sites for housing. That will rake a bit of money in, I suppose.
The chief officer wants to build two new super-fire stations, as they are called, but at what cost? Who knows? It will be a private finance initiative project. The PFI does not affect anyone now, but it will affect a good many people in the future. Obviously someone will build the fire stations—most probably a firm called Jarvis, which I believe is building fire stations elsewhere. We do not know what the costs or the rents will be. The existing four fire stations are perfectly adequate. Even the Fire Brigades Union says that it is quite satisfied with their condition. Indeed, money has just been spent on them: I believe that about £70,000 was spent on new showers and lockers in two of them for the female fire brigade staff who are coming on board.
There is a lot of money at stake. We talk of value for money, but where is the value here? There are four perfectly good fire stations in the townships, with staff doing their job. They can go anywhere. They can deal with road accidents and fires. I shall say more about that later. Yet the council is taking the PFI route. I do not know how much it costs to build a fire station, or a super-fire station, as the new stations are called, but I know one thing: not one of the proposed new stations is to be built in any of the four townships in south-east Northumberland. They will all be on the outskirts. The one in my area will be on an industrial estate in East Hartford.
Why is this happening? I do not know, but I have tried to find out. It seems to be the brainchild of the chief officer, but I have talked to county councillors who will have to pass the proposal, and they seem to think it is a good idea. However, in Blyth, Ashington and other areas a petition has been circulating for several months,
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signed by some 25,000 people who do not want their local fire station to close. That is a large number of signatures—I may even present the petition here—but as the decision has not been made yet, I hope that the petition is gathering pace. There may eventually be 27,000 or 28,000 signatures.
The county council organised a survey. It sent a questionnaire to every house to ask for people's opinions. When the response arrived, lo and behold, it was against the council. Most people said that they wanted the fire stations to remain in the townships. The council got cracking: it moved one of the PFI fire stations and then launched another consultation. I think that it hoped it would receive the response that it wanted on this occasion. It is the same with referendums: those who keep organising referendums will win eventually. I think that that is what the county council is trying to do.
Members can imagine what my meeting with the county councillors was like. They appeared to favour the proposal, whereas I totally oppose it, as do other people whom I meet and talk to regularly in my town. I had the strong impression that the councillors were telling me, "We are not to blame. The Government are telling us to get rid of the existing fire stations, to go down the PFI road and to build these smart, brand-new stations." I asked "Has the Minister been on the phone to you? Has he talked to you about the plan?" They said "Not really, but we have been told to use resources more lucratively." That means closing the four fire stations and building two new ones through the PFI.
Northumberland county council has had to raise its council tax enormously over the past few years. It has not yet proved that the PFI route will save money, although I have asked the question. I should like to see proof. It has had those fire stations for years. I do not whether any of them are paid off. As I said, the Fire Brigades Union is satisfied with the facilities, so why go down the road of the PFI and cause more disruption in raising council tax in Northumberland? The Chancellor may want to look at that. He has gone mad to save money. He has to save it. He is looking at an empty box at the minute, so it would be interesting to know whether that was costed by the Minister. He may be able to tell me whether it has been costed and whether it is cheaper to demolish some pretty new fire stations and build two new PFI stations.
I come to where the fire stations are situated. A tragedy happened a few weeks ago in Blyth town centre, not far from where I live. We have a lot of terraced houses in Blyth. One caught fire. Three people were in the fire. At the time, the two fire appliances at Blyth were on another call at a fire at a factory, so the fire appliance from Cramlington had to come down and cover for Blyth. That was well planned. The bell went. The message was sent that there was a big fire in a house in the centre of Blyth. The Cramlington appliance, which was situated at Blyth station, was there within three minutes.
Firemen pulled three people from the top part of the smoke-filled house. They brought them out. One was unconscious, another was semi-conscious. Unfortunately, the other, an older man, died on the way to hospital of a heart attack. Under fire brigade and Government
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statistics, he is not a casualty because you have to be burnt to death, or in hospital more than 24 hours, to be classed as a casualty.
Mr. Denis Murphy (Wansbeck) (Lab): My hon. Friend gave an excellent example of how it is vital to have fire stations close to the centres of population. Does he agree that that was no ordinary house? It was a series of flats that had recently been inspected. It had fire doors and hard-wired smoke alarms. Everything that could have been fitted was fitted. The firemen who attended the fire said that, if they had arrived two minutes later, there would have been three fatalities. Does he agree that it is important to retain fire stations close to the centres of population?
Mr. Campbell: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Obviously he, too, has been briefed by firemen in my area, as I was going to come to that point. There was all that fire apparatus in that house. I thank him for making that point for me. There could have been more deaths. That is the sad fact.
We have the figure that 80 per cent. of people who are in fires are dead before the appliance gets there. That magic figures has come from somewhere. Whether it has come from the Minister, I do not know, but 80 per cent. are dead before the appliance gets there. What about the other 20 per cent?
What are people saying? Are they writing 20 per cent. off? That is basically what they are saying. The Minister should take a cool look at the idea that we are getting into our head: people are dead, so why bother? Why bother about house fires? We are more interested in someone stuck on the motorway or jammed in a car following a car accident than we are in fires. I know that fires have decreased and we should do a lot more but, as my hon. Friend said, that house had been inspected and had all the gear: fire alarms, smoke alarms and everything were fitted. It still did not stop that fire or those people being trapped in it.
Another fire occurred a week later, just up the road from the first, on an estate called North Farm. A lady was trapped in her house, but because the fire station is at the bottom of the road, a fire engine was there in less than a minute. She was unconscious and had to be taken to hospital to be revived. Fires remain a danger, yet fire appliances are being taken away from the townships where they are needed—appliances that were put there to deal with such fires. Of course, if the Minister intends to stick to the principle behind the 80 per cent. figure, we will be writing off the other 20 per cent. If the fire engine that dealt with the fires in Bondicar terrace and North Farm had had to come from the posh new PFI fire station, it would have taken eight to nine minutes to get there.
That is the situation in a nutshell: people will die. This is a matter of life and death, yet Northumberland county council is running headlong into this issue. The fire chief says that the engines will get to the fires, but they will have to use rocket fuel. These days, getting through Blyth is very difficult. The roads are clogged—in fact, it is pandemonium. There are only two entrances into Blyth and at certain times of day, it is impossible to
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get through. That is a big worry. If the rail link that we have been arguing for for many years is established, problems will arise when the train barriers come down on the two roads.
We can do something to deal with these problems—there can be a plan. We can retain the existing four fire stations in the townships, which is what the people want. Of course, we can never be sure whether new Labour will go along with the people. It sometimes ignores them, but it does so at its peril. I am not ignoring my people—I am listening to them very carefully. A lot of council tax payers' money has been spent on modernising the four existing stations, which are in good shape. We could build a new station at the big training facility, and we could get PFI funding. As the fire union said to me, Blyth could transfer one of its appliances to the new fire station. We have two appliances but we only really need one—Cramlington could cover us and we could cover them. So far as I am concerned, the new station can be located anywhere in south-east Northumberland, and it can have the desired modern facilities. But we could also retain our existing township stations, which are important to the people who live in the area.
I realise that the Minister cannot tell the county council what to do—no one can—but I ask him to examine the feasibility of retaining the four existing fire stations alongside the big, PFI-financed station. I should also point out that a local business man is prepared to provide financial backing for the new fire station. That might be worth exploring, because after all, that is all PFI is: someone lending money to help build something. Of course, it is then their project, and they can do what they like with it. This man, whom I know very well—he lives in Blyth, so he must have a lot of money—is prepared to back the scheme. I hope that the Minister will consider that idea, because it is no good talking to the fire chief. His head is buried in the sand: he wants two super-fire stations, by hook or by crook. He is making a bad mistake. This is a matter of life and death for the people of Blyth Valley.
3.30 pm
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