The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:Carswell,
Mr. Douglas (Harwich)
(Con) †
Clarke,
Mr. Tom (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
(Lab) †
Coaker,
Mr. Vernon (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's
Treasury)†
Coffey,
Ann (Stockport)
(Lab) Gauke,
Mr. David (South-West Hertfordshire)
(Con) †
Holloway,
Mr. Adam (Gravesham)
(Con) †
Irranca-Davies,
Huw (Ogmore) (Lab) †
Kemp,
Mr. Fraser (Houghton and Washington, East)
(Lab) Öpik,
Lembit (Montgomeryshire)
(LD) †
Purchase,
Mr. Ken (Wolverhampton, North-East)
(Lab/Co-op) †
Robertson,
Mr. Laurence (Tewkesbury)
(Con) †
Robinson,
Mr. Geoffrey (Coventry, North-West)
(Lab) †
Rosindell,
Andrew (Romford)
(Con) Simpson,
David (Upper Bann)
(DUP) †
Waltho,
Lynda (Stourbridge)
(Lab) †
Woodward,
Mr. Shaun (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland)†
Wright,
Mr. Iain (Hartlepool)
(Lab) Glen McKee, Committee
Clerk † attended the
Committee First
Standing Committee on Delegated
LegislationMonday 24
April
2006[Mr.
Eric Forth in the
Chair]Draft Fire and Rescue Services (Northern Ireland) Order 20064.30
pm The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Shaun
Woodward): I beg to move,
That the Committee has
considered the draft Fire and Rescue Services (Northern Ireland) Order
2006. I welcome you to
the Chair, Mr. Forth, and anticipate your expert guidance during our
deliberations this afternoon. A draft of the order was laid before the
House on 13 March. The draft order will introduce provisions broadly
reflecting the legislative changes being undertaken in England and
Wales through the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 and the Regulatory
Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and in Scotland through the Fire
(Scotland) Act 2005.
The order’s purpose is to
give the Northern Ireland fire and rescue service a clear set of
statutory responsibilities with a greater emphasis on fire prevention
and community safety, including revisions to fire safety legislation.
It will also introduce statutory protection against attacks on
firefighters carrying out their
duties. The
new legislation follows consideration of the responses to the policy
consultation held in 2004, which in turn was based on the findings of
the independent quinquennial review of the Fire Authority for Northern
Ireland and the report of the Bain review on the future of the United
Kingdom fire service. The draft order provides for the establishment of
a Northern Ireland fire and rescue service board and sets out the
board’s statutory duties in addition to those of its sponsor
Department, the Department of Health, Social Services and Public
Safety. Current
legislation requires the service to fight fires and protect property
from fire. The draft order will give a statutory basis for core duties
not previously given legal effect, such as promoting fire safety and
responding to road traffic accidents and other emergencies. Although
the service is actively involved in such activities at present, the
draft order will acknowledge that by providing a statutory basis for
the service’s excellent
work. Attacks on
firefighters and the activation of false alarms are reprehensible. We
are not prepared to tolerate such mindless actions, and we therefore
intend to ensure that people who think that it is acceptable to
endanger the lives of firefighters or the public are punished
appropriately. Firefighters work to protect the public, and we want to
ensure that they are given every protection while carrying out their
duties. The draft order will legislate against such actions and will
thus help to protect firefighters and those who assist them in carrying
out their duties. Importantly, the legislation
will bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the UK by
introducing new fire safety requirements, placing the onus for fire
safety on those who own or are responsible for commercial premises.
Responses to consultations on the policy and the draft order indicated
general acceptance of and support for the proposed legislation. All
agreed that it was an important and welcome piece of legislation for
both the service and the population of Northern Ireland.
During the consultation, some
concern was expressed about the reduced size and the composition of the
fire and rescue service board. An associated issue was raised regarding
democratic accountability. Those issues will be addressed in the review
of public administration and the Government’s decision,
announced in March, to transfer responsibility for the service to local
government as an operational service shared among the seven councils.
However, as the transfer to local government is not likely to take
place until 2009, we must proceed with the draft order to allow the
service to introduce essential reforms without delay. The future
composition of the board will be dealt with either by legislative
transfer of functions to local government or by separate amending
legislation. The
Government are committed to supporting the fire and rescue service in
Northern Ireland by introducing the legislation. Our aim is to provide
front-line firefighters with the legislation, policies and protection
they need to continue and develop their essential
work. 4.34
pm Mr.
Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con): I join the Minister
in welcoming you to the Committee,Mr. Forth. Despite the
enormous amount of Northern Ireland legislation, I suspect that this
sitting will unfortunately be quite brief. However, that is how
Committees sometimes tend to
go. I welcome the draft
order, and I shall make only one or two points. Some of the statistics
in the consultation paper issued in 2004 were quite worrying, although
I do not know how they compare with statistics in Great Britain. The
total number of calls in the most recent year for which figures were
available was 33,000. Of those, 12,000 were false alarms, of which
2,000 were malicious. That seems a high figure, which I am sure
represents an unfortunate wrong use of the fire service’s
resources. The paper
goes on: “Arson
is a major cause of fires and was apparently responsible for over 3,000
primary fires”. Given that
the incidence of that crime has been increasing, does the Minister
consider that the order will address the particular problem? The
consultation paper also
states: “The
careless use of smoking materials has been the main cause of fatal
fires in recent years and alcohol has been a contributory factor to 36
per cent. of recent fire
deaths”— problems
that are easily preventable. It notes that the majority of people who
died in house fires did not have an operating smoke alarm, a simple
device which costs about £5. It really is unfortunate that
people have lost
their lives through not having such a simple mechanism in their house.
Will the Minister say whether the order will help to deal with such
matters? 4.36
pm Mr.
Woodward: The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson)
referred to the consultation paper of 2004. There are indeed a number
of false alarm calls, but what most concerns us is the number of hoax
calls that are made for the purpose of bringing out fire officers so
that they can be attacked. One of the major contributions under the
measure is that new penalties can be imposed on people who deliberately
make a hoax call to get the fire service out with the purpose of
attacking the firefighters. We want to deal with that
problem.
In the past
year or so, there has been a decline in those offences, but nowhere
near enough. There are about three times the number of attacks on fire
officers in Northern Ireland as take place in Scotland. It is an
outrageous and disgusting crime and, under the order, the penalties are
being increased severely and new offences are being introduced to
ensure that those who may have escaped justice so far will be brought
to book.
As for the careless use of
materials and alcohol contributing to the number of deaths, the hon.
Gentleman is right. I am pleased to be able to say that the number of
deaths caused by fire is decreasing, although more work clearly needs
to be done. Finally,
the hon. Gentleman referred to smoke alarms and people dying
unnecessarily. The biggest problem that we face is caused not by people
not having a smoke alarm, but by people not putting batteries in the
alarm. Some people think that batteries do not need to be put into
smoke alarms. One of the campaigns carried out by the fire service,
which we shall continue, was to alert people to the obvious and simple
point that just having a smoke alarm is not enough: it needs to work
and it needs to be tested. Undoubtedly, smoke alarms and the high
number of them in people’s houses are the major
contributorto lives being saved. We have a duty to continue
prosecuting that policy so that people realise the importance of a
smoke alarm in saving
lives. Question put
and agreed
to. Committee
rose at twenty-two minutes to Five
o’clock.
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