Defence Safety Fire Authority: Fire Safety Review

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, to take the noble Lord’s last point first, I would observe that this is an internal report so there is not an obligation to publish, but it is important that it is in the public domain. I have already reassured your Lordships that, following the report being made available to the MoD, immediate steps were taken to progress recommendations, and that has been done to very good effect. On the specific issue that the noble Lord raises about single-living accommodation, I entirely support his desire to have a well-structured Royal Navy, which I believe we have, but I want it to be attending to front-line activity, not being a B&B facility. I say to him with reference to single-living accommodation that, in the last decade, 50,000 bed spaces have been delivered through a modernisation programme. He will possibly be aware that, in the financial year 2018-19, £4 million was programmed on SLA fire safety works, and in addition £9 million has been programmed on SLA refurbishment works that include fire safety upgrades.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, we can be grateful that changes have been made, but how was it that the circumstances were allowed to arise in which the committee said there had been a lack of priority afforded to fire safety, major weaknesses and an unacceptable degradation of barracks? We ask our young men and women to risk life and limb in action. Surely we can go out of our way to ensure that they are safe in their own barracks.

[Baroness Goldie]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord. The issues were identified in the AAR of 2016-17, when it was realised that steps had to be taken. Since then there has been a systematic review and efforts have been made, culminating in the excellent report that we have just been discussing, to provide the necessary safety and the improvements that we all want to see.