Meeting of the Parliament 15 January 2026
I will come on to the service delivery review in a moment, but it is important that we recognise and acknowledge that the staff who work for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service are there for us when it matters most. I have outlined their work when family homes are on fire and in response to the climate emergency, as Rachael Hamilton highlighted, but, as is often forgotten, it is also about someone being on the phone, hoping for rescue, even when the service just cannot get to them in time.
Firefighters are not just emergency responders; they are a national strategic asset. Yet, for more than a decade, it sometimes seems as though we have treated them as if they were expendable. Since 2013, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service resource budget has been cut by £58 million a year in real terms and 1,239 firefighter posts have been lost. Appliances sit uncrewed and response times have lengthened year on year.
Now, through the service delivery review, communities are being asked to contemplate the loss of stations and appliances that they know, in their bones, keep them safe.
Let us be honest. This is not modernisation driven by vision; this is change driven by austerity.
I will speak directly about the north-east region and, in particular, about Balmossie community fire and ambulance station. The message from the responses to the consultation on the service delivery review could not be clearer. Communities, workers, unions and local representatives all said the same thing—Balmossie must stay open, with no loss of appliances. This is not special pleading; it is common sense. Balmossie serves a growing population in an area where there are complex industrial risks, major transport routes and communities that already feel stretched. Closing or downgrading the station would increase response times and put lives at risk. I pay special tribute to Alan Park at Balmossie for his tireless activism—raising awareness, supporting people to understand how the consultation worked and so much more. Thank you, Alan.
Of course, similar concerns are being expressed elsewhere, such as in Lochgelly in Fife. I know that my colleague Mark Ruskell would be here if he could, representing the workers and constituents who worry about the proposed changes there. If we ignore these warnings, we will not be able to say that we did not know.
Firefighters are being asked to do more with less in conditions that are increasingly intolerable. That is why the work of the Fire Brigades Union matters so profoundly. I thank the FBU for its tireless campaigning and its 2023 report, “Firestorm”, which set out not just a critique but a credible vision for the future of our fire service.