Meeting of the Parliament 15 January 2015
At the time when this debate was scheduled, none of us could have foreseen the dreadful events that were to unfold in Paris at the end of last week. They demonstrated the extreme dangers that the public can face and the burden placed on those public servants whose job is to keep the public safe and whose responsibilities can cost them their lives—a price that tragically was paid by Parisian police officers Ahmed Merabet, Franck Brinsolaro and Clarissa Jean-Philippe last week.
Those who perform the front-line duties of the emergency services such as Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service routinely put themselves at risk as they seek to minimise damage to life and property. The Glasgow School of Art, for example, would have suffered considerably worse damage had it not been for the heroic efforts of the 120 firefighters who fought the blaze for more than seven hours on 23 May last year.
Of course, we are all relieved to learn that the life of heroic nurse Pauline Cafferkey is now out of danger, though her recovery process will take some time. Not only did Pauline risk her life to help Ebola victims in west Africa, but by joining the effort to control the disease there she was also protecting us here. As President Obama said back in October, the best way to tackle Ebola and prevent it from spreading across the world is to contain it and focus efforts, through aid and the provision of health workers, on combating it in the west African countries that are affected.
In this season of poor weather, we should pay tribute to the workers who battle to keep our roads and railways functioning and those who work in horrendous conditions to try to restore power supplies to homes without power, which are often in remote areas. There are many others who risk their safety to protect and rescue others, often as volunteers. Mention has been made of the mountain rescue service. In my constituency, the Moffat mountain rescue service performs an invaluable service, and only last week the Galloway mountain rescue service rescued a walker on the Merrick who got into difficulty. Often those volunteers are called on to risk their lives in challenging and hostile environments to save climbers and walkers who have not taken the correct precautions or equipment. Nevertheless, they continue to make themselves available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to take those risks, in their own time, to serve others.
Members have mentioned the coastguards and the men and women of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, whose courage and dedication have since the early 19th century helped seafarers in trouble. Nith Inshore Rescue, which is based in Glencaple in my constituency, provides a voluntary search and rescue service covering the Nith estuary and the rivers and lochs in the area. The crew are all unpaid volunteers, like their mountain rescue counterparts, and they are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In 2010 they were worthy recipients of the Queen’s award for voluntary service. They play a role when we have incidents of flooding, which is well known in our area. I should also acknowledge the SEPA floodline service, despite the fact that it called me at 3 am and 6 am this morning to advise me that my office could be flooded again—fortunately it was not.
While acknowledging and celebrating the bravery of both front-line emergency workers and volunteers who risk injury, disease and death in the course of their duties, we must also remember the contribution of those who support them and who take calls from members of the public in distress: the staff who work in the control rooms of the emergency services. Unfortunately, those staff have been at the sharp end of service cuts recently. The number of civilian police staff posts fell by 2,056 between March 2010 and June 2014. Police and fire and rescue service control rooms in Dumfries have recently closed. The police control room closed in May and its last message was a very moving message about how its staff had enjoyed protecting its front-line workers over the period of its work. The fire and rescue control room closed in November. Unfortunately we lost staff with many years’ experience of keeping us and front-line emergency services workers safe.
We need to celebrate and recognise the contribution of our control staff, the majority of whom are women. The SFRS is in the process of merging the eight fire control rooms into three. The best way of demonstrating our gratitude and making our recognition meaningful is by ensuring that the new control rooms continue to deliver the level of service that our communities have enjoyed, because they are staffed to a level that delivers safety. I ask the Scottish Government to confirm that staffing levels will be sufficient, with the appropriate balance of supervision, and to agree initial staffing levels with the Fire Brigades Union Scotland.
On a positive note, a national centre for resilience for Scotland is to be established in Dumfries at the Crichton campus, to improve the response to issues such as flooding and to co-ordinate preparation for the increase in severe weather that is anticipated as one of the consequences of climate change. As ministers know, I look forward to learning more about how the centre will operate and which organisations will be involved in it.
As Hugh Henry said, Labour’s amendment makes reference to the resources that are required to maintain resilience. Resources can be called on suddenly and without warning. We ask the Parliament to take responsibility for supporting the people who keep us safe, by ensuring that the necessary resources are available and by asking the statutory and voluntary organisations who provide services what they need and how the vital tasks that they undertake might be made easier.
By all means let us record our gratitude to emergency workers throughout Scotland and beyond, but our actions in their support are even more important. We should demonstrate our commitment by providing the support that they need.