Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with the Fire Brigades Union on firefighters' pensions.

After extensive consultation, and numerous changes, the Government laid the regulations to implement the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme 2015 before Parliament on 28 October. This provides one of the best schemes in the public sector, with a firefighter who earns £29,000 and retires after a full career receiving a £19,000 a year pension at age 60. The reforms ensure that a greater proportion of firefighters are protected from the changes than any other large public service workforce.

The Department continues to discuss the remaining detail of the pension reforms, including the transitional arrangements and new governance arrangements to apply from April 2015, with the Fire Brigades Union, other workforce representative bodies and the employers. Furthermore, these bodies are part of the joint fitness group facilitated by the Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser, Peter Holland. This group complements the consultation we published to put the key fitness principles onto a statutory footing through the Fire National Framework. We would encourage the Fire Brigades Union and all other representative bodies to respond to that consultation, which closes on 9 December. The consultation can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/firefighter-fitness-standards-and-assessment.