Fire Services: North-east England

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered fire services in the North East.

I am very grateful to see this important debate so well attended; it could not be about a more deserving group of people. Like all our emergency services, our firefighters run towards danger while the rest of us run away. They have always kept doing their job, coming to our rescue and keeping our community safe. It is our job, as politicians, to ensure that they have the money and resources to do so.

Unfortunately, it has been hard to say that the Government have done that job properly for the last 12 years. I have been an MP for all those 12 years—for 17 years, actually—and I have spent a lot of time warning, throughout austerity and various debates, often in this very Chamber, about the impact that Government cuts would have on local fire services and their ability to maintain service levels and protect us.

In 2012, I spoke in a Westminster Hall debate about fire and rescue services. I warned that

“budget reductions will hit the poorest areas hardest… services will have to be cut. That, of course, is after preventive services have been cut to the bone.”—[Official Report, 5 September 2012; Vol. 549, c. 84WH.]

In 2018, I raised the issue again in another Westminster Hall debate, talking about how areas with high levels of deprivation, such as Washington and Sunderland West, had a higher risk of fire-related deaths, and needed a fair funding settlement. At the time, I spoke to Chris Lowther, our chief fire officer at Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service. I told Westminster Hall in that debate that

“He is doing everything within his power to manage the resources currently available, in a way that guarantees the safety of my constituents, and everyone across Tyne and Wear.”—[Official Report, 28 November 2018; Vol. 650, c. 132WH.]

Like many chief fire officers across the country, he did an impossible job, cutting back on everything he could in order to keep the service running safely. But he warned that if there were further cuts it would be difficult to say, hand on heart, that Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service would be able to provide a safe service.

I raised the issue successively at Prime Minister’s questions in the following two weeks, when the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was Prime Minister. I raised just how concerned our local fire and rescue services were about their very stretched funding.

That brings us to today. Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service has continued to make its service more efficient, but there is very little left to cut back on. If the current trajectory continues, it has nothing left to cut. I have already said that services have been cut to the bone. Having spoken this week to the chief fire officer, Chris Lowther, and the chair of the Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Authority, Councillor Phil Tye, I know how tough the situation is.

In 2010, before austerity, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service employed 880 full-time fire fighters, and over 1,000 full-time staff. In 2022, that has dropped to just 624 full-time firefighters, and just 860 staff employed full-time in total. Given the recruitment freeze between 2014 and 2019, as well as an ageing workforce coming to retirement, staff numbers are likely to fall again. In 2010, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service had £59.4 million to spend. To keep up with inflation, that should have risen to £84 million by 2022. But what has happened? Its budget has been cut down to just £54.8 million; that is much less than it was in cash terms in 2010, and a massive and unsustainable real-terms cut. It leaves us, frankly, unprepared for the next crisis we may face.

We can all appreciate that the fire service was put under a huge amount of pressure this summer, with the unprecedented heatwave leading to an increased number of fires across the country—we all saw them on our TV screens, if not more up close. They devasted lives and livelihoods alike.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I want to commend the firefighters working at Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, who have attended two major fires in my constituency: one at Shee Recycling in Birtley, where there are environmental hazards, and a second at the Ryrton Willows—one of those summer fires that my hon. Friend referred to. We have also seen the impact of those budget reductions, with the loss of one pump at Swalwell in my constituency.

[Liz Twist]

Thank you. There were also the proposed cuts to night cover in Birtley, which fortunately we were able to amend.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Coming back to the summer fires, that period included the busiest day for firefighters since world war two. That brings home the important role and work that firefighters do. How do the Government expect them to cope with future heatwaves without addressing the serious concerns this crisis raised about how stretched the workforce is?

In less foreseeable moments of crisis, fire services are the first responders there to protect the public. Following the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attacks, we were told that some fire and rescue services would be “unprepared” to respond effectively if a tragic event like that happened again. If such an event happened at one of the big arenas in our region—heaven forbid—how could we be assured that lives would be protected given this funding crisis?

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I apologise for being a couple of minutes late for her speech. Teesside is served by the Cleveland Fire Brigade. Teesside is one of Europe’s biggest fire risks, yet the formula that determines its income does not take any of that into consideration. Does she agree that risk should be examined as an important factor in determining funding?

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, which I will come on to. My chief fire officer told me that Cleveland is the worst in the country in terms of the fairness of that funding formula.

On a community level, these cuts will have consequences. Last Friday, I visited Barmston Village Primary School in my constituency. With no prompting from me whatsoever, two young boys told me separate stories of their family cars being damaged in an arson attack and one young girl told me about a time when she had to knock on a neighbour’s door to tell them that something was burning on their property. What is more, all the children were upset about the damage caused to the play equipment in the local park by the big kids—they mean teenagers—setting fire to it.

In previous years, fire services have come out to schools and done talks with the children, especially the older children—the big kids—in the secondary schools, explaining the danger of arson and what to do if they see a fire. However, with preventative measures being cut first, it is becoming even more difficult for fire and rescue services to provide that important community outreach. That will also have consequences.

The Government promised to level up areas like Sunderland, but I fail to see how those promises can continue to be made when basic public services are being starved of cash and millions of working people are facing the fastest fall in their pay in years. That is why the chief fire officer and Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service have called for the fire funding formula to be revised, so it once again takes into account deprivation as a risk factor, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) mentioned is so problematic in Cleveland. That was the case under the last Labour Government and it was changed after 2010 by the current Government.

The change would help local authorities like mine and all of ours that cannot raise huge amounts of funding through council tax to keep our services running. I do not want to go into all the reasons why, but that is a well-known fact. What is becoming ever more clear is that service bosses and frontline workers are on the same page: the service must protect the public, but it equally needs to protect its own staff.

The lack of funding has led to the Fire Brigades Union rejecting an unfunded 5% pay rise put forward by national employers. To be clear, that 5% is unfunded, meaning that fire and rescue services have to find an extra 5% from their existing budget to pay for it—I have already said how stretched their budgets currently are. It puts our chief fire officers across the north-east and across the country, who just want the very best for firefighters, in an incredibly difficult position. They do extremely important work. They just want the funds to properly reward their staff with fair pay for the very important work they do.

If industrial action does take place, there has been talk of the Home Office drafting in soldiers to replace striking staff and then asking these strapped-for-cash fire services to pay £4,000 per week per soldier to train and employ them. No one wants to see a strike. It is now up to the Government to get around the table with the FBU and resolve this dispute. The Government must now make sincere efforts to ensure that fire and rescue staff can continue to provide safe services, which means ensuring that fire services get the support they need and doing everything they can to ensure that fire services get a decent deal. It is clear for all to see how the Government have shamefully cut fire services for more than a decade and how the cuts now risk the safety of our communities in the north-east.

I hope that if I ever attend another Westminster Hall debate on fire services in the north-east, it is under a Labour Government and we are able to properly address some of these issues. How would we do that? We will have grown the economy, provided high-quality public services and ensured that workers have better pay and conditions. That day cannot come soon enough for our communities in the north-east.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Dines]

There is not a great deal of time left, so I will make some progress.

I would like to talk about live pay issues, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). On concerns about the threat of industrial action by the FBU, I note that it has rejected the significantly increased 5% pay offer made by employers and will now ballot members for their views on industrial action. Under the current system, the Home Office plays no direct role in negotiation or funding of firefighter and control staff pay, which is the responsibility of the National Joint Council. In the White Paper, we set out our intentions to conduct an independent review of the current pay system under the National Joint Council, which has been widely criticised. Of course, firefighters deserve to have a decent pay system instead of the current arrangement, which has been widely criticised. I hope that industrial action can be avoided through continued employer and employee negotiations.

I want to talk about the funding formula, which has been mentioned by various right hon. and hon. Members. Changes to the fire formula are being looked at. As Members may be aware, fire is part of the local government settlement, and any updates would need to be co-ordinated across local government. However, as Members are aware, the fire formula is mainly a population formula, and population will always be a significant driver in any new formula. The important thing is to provide the funding that fire and rescue services need. The local government settlement will be published next month, and it will set budgets for the year 2023-24.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I look forward to the publication of the new data, but will the Minister respond to the point about taking away the deprivation funding? I think all of us in this room were united in saying that that is a risk factor in a lot of the arson and fires that we see, and it really needs to be put back into the formula.

[Miss Dines]

I invite the hon. Lady to write to the Fire Minister to express in detail the particular characteristics of her area, which have also been mentioned by other speakers, to see what can be done in that regard.

In relation to capital funding, the Government are clear that fire and rescue services have the resources they need. Standalone fire and rescue authorities have received a 6.2% increase in core funding for the year 2022-23, compared with last year. What is important is that the quantum of funding is right, rather than having specific capital funding grants, which are less flexible for local authorities than funding from a standard local government grant or council tax.

A number of other issues were mentioned. Various hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), raised the issue of firefighter job cuts. Firefighters work very hard to protect our communities, but the nature of a firefighter’s work is changing. Fire incidents have fallen 32% in a decade, although I appreciate that there are regional variations and local issues, and I welcome correspondence about those issues following today’s debate. It is, however, the responsibility of fire and rescue services to ensure that they have the appropriate number of firefighters and control staff to deliver their core functions. The Home Office works closely with fire and rescue services to ensure they have the resources they need to do their work, and funding continues to increase. I want communities to receive the service they desire, which includes firefighters being fully supported to meet those communities’ concerns.

Regarding general funding concerns, when the last Labour Government left office, public services and the public finances were in a parlous state. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] It would have been irresponsible to continue spending at that rate, so it does not behove Members to moan and groan about the present situation. Where there are international and domestic crises, we need to work together to make the most of the money we have. I hope that Members will not fall into the trap of wanting to play party politics with people’s lives.

I pay tribute to everybody who has contributed to today’s debate. There are interesting regional variations that have to be considered, and where there are issues such as arson, fire, criminality and antisocial behaviour, I expect everyone to work together with their local police to assist in addressing them. That requires joint working, and greater training on how to deal with those social issues may need to take place. Just putting more money into something does not mean it will work—it needs careful thought, and we must all look after every penny and be careful in that regard.

I thank each and every hon. Member who has spoken for raising their individual issues, including flooding and other interesting issues in their constituencies—for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) talked about the dynamics in her constituency. I apologise to those I have not mentioned due to the time constraints, and I know that these issues mean a great deal to all of us in this Chamber.

In my last 30 seconds, I will repeat my thanks to all who have contributed today. This has been an insightful and interesting debate, but we must not allow it to be political. These discussions provide us with a useful reminder—not that we need one—of the extraordinary contribution that fire and rescue services make to our communities. It is in all our interests to ensure that fire and rescue services are adaptable, inclusive and efficient, and the Government will continue to work with them to deliver improvements and, where necessary, reforms.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I thank all MPs from across the north-east who have attended today’s important debate. I also thank the shadow Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones)—and the Minister, who is the one who made this debate political, rather than anyone else.

This afternoon, we have had almost complete agreement on the issues that all four of our fire services face, and we all agree that we need a much fairer fire funding formula—one that once again recognises levels of deprivation as a risk factor that leads, in particular, to more arson. I will take the Minister up on her suggestion and write to her with more details on that issue. We need formula reform so that we can fund this vital service properly but also pay our vital firefighters properly. The unfunded 5% pay offer is just not acceptable, and I put the Government on notice that we—particularly those of us in the Labour party, although I also look to Government Back Benchers—will not let this debate be the end of the matter. The Minister is new to her Department, so if she wants to make her mark, she can do so by getting this issue sorted out as soon as possible, and definitely before Christmas.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered fire services in the North East.