Hansard

It is probably true to say that no one expects to need the emergency services—we all imagine that it is only others who will need them—but that we feel safer knowing that they are there and ready to bring their considerable expertise and skill to our aid if needed.

When something goes wrong, the police, ambulance service or fire and rescue services are our first port of call. My colleagues across the chamber have spoken about recent tragedies and disasters and the magnificent response of those services. In recent years we have, unfortunately, been only too aware of their worth and value to us.

I want to speak from my own experience of two events that demonstrate the expertise and commitment of the emergency services and explain why I hold them in such high regard.

The first event took place many years ago when I was a teenager, so I will not mention the year. I was awoken by my parents in the middle of the night. At the time, we lived on the 21st floor of a 30-storey block on the Red Road in Glasgow. Fire had broken out on the 23rd floor, two floors above us.

My family was physically unscathed, although we were never to return to live in that home; but, tragically, one 12-year-old boy lost his life. We and our neighbours did what one does in such an incident—we ran down the fire escape to make our way to safety, as smoke from the fire and water from the sprinkler system began to penetrate the building. It was quite a frightening situation.

I mention the event because it occurred to me then, and has stayed with me ever since, that as we were running down and out of the building, the firefighters were running in and up to the source of the fire. They did not know what to expect when they eventually got to the 23rd storey, but it was their job and they would deal with it.

In 2004, a major explosion at a factory in my Maryhill constituency demolished a building, killing nine people and injuring many more. My colleagues Hugh Henry and Hanzala Malik have referred to that Stockline incident.

The initial explosion took place on a Tuesday, but it took until the Friday of that week to recover the last body. With that, the last hope of finding anyone alive was extinguished. For four days and four nights, the fire and rescue services worked in quite dreadful conditions. It was an unseasonably hot May; there was dust and rubble everywhere; and the building was still unstable. I was on the site with the chief fire officer when the last body was found, and I remember well the feeling of what I can describe only as utter despair that hit everyone.

When, a little later that day, my Westminster colleague Ann McKechin and I returned to the site to thank the staff who had worked so tirelessly throughout the week, we were completely taken aback to find that a number of the firefighters who had been involved most closely in the search of the building were very anxious, upset and quite desperate—that is the only word to describe it—to know whether people understood that they had tried their very best. I have to say that no one had ever doubted that, not even for a minute, but the fact is that they are human beings and we must never forget that.

Around the city, hospitals and NHS staff treated the injured, and police officers comforted and supported the families involved. Help was offered and came from around the country; Royal Air Force helicopters ferried the most seriously injured to hospital, and fire and rescue forces from as far afield as Leicestershire brought sniffer dogs and equipment, as did mountain rescue teams from Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria and the Trossachs.

As I have indicated, our emergency services are second to none, but the way in which local people and passers-by rally around is also inspiring. During and indeed after the Stockline tragedy, the normally busy and bustling Maryhill Road was, for a time, completely silent. Local shops and supermarkets donated food and other items to the families who waited for news of their loved ones and to the rescue service personnel. As Hanzala Malik said, the local community hall remained open as a base for the families; indeed, some staff who turned up for work on Tuesday morning did not go home until late on the Friday night as they supported and cared for people who were going through what was the worst experience of their lives. It is therefore important that we remember those who step forward from their daily lives and return to them again with little or no recognition.

It is clear that across this chamber we have nothing but respect and admiration for those whose job often exposes them to danger or to experiences that must haunt them for years afterwards. However, it is not enough to respect and admire them; we must also support them and give them the resources that they need. That is why the Labour amendment calls for an inquiry into the resilience of the services. We need to hear at first hand their views and their ideas if we are to give them that support.

As Hugh Henry has pointed out, Stockline happened because of neglect and the failure to properly maintain one small pipe, but we found that out only at the outcome of the inquiry that was four years after the disaster. We owe bereaved families the opportunity to find out as quickly as is technically possible why such incidents happen and we owe it to the emergency services to understand those reasons, to take action to ensure that such incidents do not happen again and to ensure that we are not asking the people in those services to risk their lives anew. That is why I am pursuing a bill to reform the fatal accident inquiry in Scotland, and I hope that the Scottish Government and colleagues across the chamber will agree not only to the proposal in my bill but to the inquiry that Labour seeks.