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Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service

I am grateful, Mr. Pope, for the opportunity to bring this important matter to the House’s attention today. I am aware that the Minister recently met the head of Norfolk fire and rescue service and Norfolk county council cabinet members. Despite that meeting, several serious concerns affecting my constituency and others in Norfolk were raised during my recent visit to the service’s headquarters. I want to put on record the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) has indicated his support for my concerns, which also affect his constituents, but, alas, he cannot be here today. I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon), and I acknowledge the fact that the service’s headquarters is in his constituency. I pay tribute to the chief fire officer, Richard Elliott, and the county council cabinet member with responsibility for fire and community safety, Richard Rockcliffe, and thank them for their time in keeping me briefed. Many of the challenges facing Norfolk fire service have been brought to my attention, and relate specifically to the rural environment in which it operates. Of the 41 fire stations servicing the county, only two are staffed entirely by full-time firefighters, and a further four are staffed by a combination of full-time crew and retained firefighters. All the county’s remaining 35 stations are crewed entirely by retained firefighters. In all the county’s rural areas the service relies wholly on retained crews. As the Minister knows, retained duty firefighters respond to calls on a needs-only basis, and are often employed full-time in other occupations. They are trained to deal with the same range of incidents as their full-time counterparts. As the statistics show, Norfolk’s fire and rescue service would be nothing without them. The problem lies in recruitment and availability of retained firefighters. Provision of cover is proving a huge challenge, leaving some rural areas insufficiently covered. Outwell and Downham Market in my constituency are particularly badly affected. The chief fire officer told me that it is not unusual to have 10 fire engines unavailable during the working day due to crewing and availability problems. In Norfolk, difficulty in recruiting retained firefighters stems in part from the evolution of rural industries and agriculture. With mechanisation and modernisation, fewer people are employed on the land, and businesses have moved away or closed down, thus reducing the pool of suitable people whom the fire service can target for retained duty. Employers are increasingly disinclined to give employees the necessary time to carry out their duties, not least because of the cost and inconvenience of unplanned or lengthy absences by members of the work force. Does the Minister agree that it is time to provide employers with proper incentives to release staff to work as firefighters instead of continuing to rely on their good will? Few outside the fire service understand how important the retained duty system is for our safety. They do not appreciate that by signing up they could save the life of a family member, friend or neighbour. How does the Minister respond to calls from the fire service for a national campaign to raise awareness of the system and build better links with business? The service’s funding is important. Norfolk does not have a precepting fire authority and cannot raise money through council tax. The county council funds fire and community protection alongside other key services. It received an acceptable settlement this year, but the challenges of delivering adequate services across a vast rural area remain. The fire service is, of course, a priority, but so are adult social care, education, planning and transport infrastructure, to name but a few. Extra pressures on both the fire service and the council include a growing elderly population, and an increase in the financial burden of dealing with flooding and associated demands for water rescue. On the challenges of the increasingly elderly population, at a recent meeting the council’s fire and community protection review panel confirmed that fire deaths in Norfolk are almost entirely of elderly people or those living alone. That is a bleak statistic. Prevention is vastly more effective and less dangerous or costly than dealing with a fire. The service is doing what it can to educate and inform people of the risks of house fires. Building regulations require mains-operated smoke alarms to be fitted to all new dwellings or dwellings that are substantially altered, but there is no law to require people to fit smoke detectors in their homes in other circumstances. I welcome the television campaign to persuade the nation that smoke alarms should be fitted in every home and regularly maintained, and I have used my columns in constituency newspapers to press home that point. Does the Minister agree that it is a great pity that Norfolk fire service has a large stock of smoke alarms, which the Government have supplied, that it cannot afford to fit, because the cost of that work in a rural area is prohibitive? Will the Minister give careful consideration to funding a one-off campaign to fit those smoke alarms, rather than leaving them to collect dust in a warehouse? The assistance of Norfolk fire service in water rescue is increasingly demanded and expected, although it has no statutory duty or funding to carry out this work. Coastal and inland flooding is becoming frequent, and in my constituency flooding in the Norfolk fens shuts roads with worrying regularity. The service does not have specialist water rescue teams in place, but there is an urgent need for them. I understand that a national review of the possibility of establishing water rescue as a new statutory duty has been undertaken. If flood water rescue were a statutory duty, Norfolk county council would receive the investment that it desperately needs to provide extra resources to the fire service for water rescue equipment and training. The county council has provided some money from an already limited budget, but the fire service is looking for greater Government commitment of money and recognition that this is a serious issue that must be addressed. I hope that the Minister will give favourable consideration to that today because I am sure that he understands the problems facing us not just in Norfolk, but throughout the country. I come to the plans for regionalisation. The Government are planning to close the Hethersett centre in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk, and to move control to Cambridgeshire in a value-for-money exercise. Norfolk county council is concerned that the cost of that move is spiralling out of control. The cutting-edge technology used at Hethersett is the envy of firefighters throughout the country, and it seems crazy that the Government want to close the centre and to move control to Cambridgeshire. I cannot believe that that regionalisation is anything but a cost-saving measure, and I am extremely concerned that the high level of delivery that we currently receive in Norfolk could be jeopardised. Will the Minister assure us today that regionalised control will not lead to a decline in the efficiency and technological capabilities of the service? Will he also assure us that value-for-money measures will not be pursued at the expense of the quality of service provision? At the start of this year, for the third consecutive year the Audit Commission concluded that Norfolk county council continues to provide a ““good”” well-performing fire authority. However, inspectors also recognised that pressure on the county council’s budget was challenging an already low-spending service. Norfolk fire and rescue service has already met efficiency savings above national targets. I urge the Minister to assure the service that it will not be penalised for its own efficiency in terms of future funding. Finally, has the Minister had any discussions with ministerial colleagues from the Treasury or Department for Transport on the issue of rebated fuel for emergency service vehicles? A report published by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in December 2005 states:"““vehicles used by the emergency services, armed forces, and local authorities are not automatically entitled to use such rebated fuel””." Significant expenditure is committed to fuel costs for specialist vehicles, such as fire engines. With recent fuel price increases, that cost demands an ever growing proportion of the total budget. Yet, as with other emergency services, the fire service is prohibited from using so-called red diesel, on which there is a beneficial rate of duty. Does it make sense for taxpayers’ money to be given to the fire service to buy diesel for fire engines when tax and duty will then go back to the Treasury? Will the Government reconsider the case for specialist equipment, such as fire tenders, so that the tax saving can be committed to front-line emergency service cover—not only in Norfolk, but across the country? Norfolk fire and rescue service does an excellent job in difficult circumstances and I hope that the Minister will see it in his gift to ensure that that service continues in a more efficient way that suits the population better. Will the Minister give assurances to my constituents that performance will be maintained and that they will not be put at risk because they live in rural areas that are costly and more difficult to serve?