Fire and Rescue Services: Floods

(asked on 19th December 2019) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of introducing a statutory duty for firefighters in England to respond to flooding on the ability of the fire service to tackle flooding.


Answered by
Kit Malthouse Portrait
Kit Malthouse
This question was answered on 7th January 2020

A statutory duty for firefighters to respond to flooding is unlikely to make a significant difference to the Fire and Rescue Services which already provide effective response to flooding incidents. This has been demonstrated through the fantastic response of Fire and Rescue Services to a range of incidents in 2019 including the Wainfleet and Yorkshire floods and the Toddbrook Reservoir incident.

Fire and Rescue Authorities already have the power to respond to all kinds of emergencies for which they do not have a specific statutory duty, including flooding, under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004.

Furthermore, the Government provides the Fire and Rescue Service with additional resource to tackle flooding via the provision of High-Volume Pumps and Water Rescue Assets.

Reticulating Splines