Hansard

I will begin by paying tribute to Scotland's firefighters, who do a tremendous job on our behalf, often in difficult circumstances and at great personal risk. I am glad that the consultation document recognises explicitly that those who work in the fire service are central to the success of any move to modernise the service.

However, in any debate on the future of the fire service, it would be wrong not to mention the damage to morale and to the good relations between firefighters, their employers and the Government that was done by the recent, protracted pay dispute. It is incumbent on the Government to take the lead in repairing that damage by stating clearly that pay and conditions will continue to be a matter of negotiation, not of imposition, and by listening to and acting on what those at the front line have to say about the proposals in its consultation. I am happy to take the minister at her word when she says that she wants an open and meaningful dialogue. I hope that the minister will also give an unequivocal commitment that, through their trade union, firefighters will have a statutory right to representation on the new advisory group that is being proposed.

The general thrust of the consultation document is welcome and it should be supported. The job of a firefighter has changed dramatically during the past 50 years. The fire service is now in the front line in dealing not just with fires, but with road accidents, floods and a whole range of rescue efforts. As the tragic events of 9/11 demonstrated, it is to the fire service that we will look in what is, I hope, the remote possibility of a terrorist attack on this country.

It is right that all those duties are recognised and, for the first time, given clear statutory underpinning. It is appropriate, too, that the true nature of a firefighter's job is reflected in the change of name to fire and rescue service, although that is probably the most minor point in the whole consultation. It is important to stress that a name change will mean little if the substance of the proposals paves the way for cuts in front-line services, as many fear that it might.

It is also right that greater emphasis is placed on fire safety—on preventing fires occurring in the first place—rather than being placed solely on fighting fires when they occur. Of course, the fire service already engages in that work. It engages daily with communities in schools and workplaces to reduce the risk of fire. If more can be done in that area, it should be done, because the death rate from fires in Scotland is twice that in the rest of the UK. That appalling statistic should make us all stop and think; tackling it will mean focusing on prevention as much as on intervention.

Behind the statistics are real people and real lives. We should never forget that the fire service is fundamentally about saving lives, preferably by preventing fires in the first place, but also, ultimately, by responding quickly when fires start. After a fire has started, the window of opportunity for effective rescue is very small. That is why the speed of response of fire crews is so important. All the proposals in the consultation paper, from the most minor to the most substantial, should be judged against that standard of safety—the safety both of the public and of our firefighters.

Many proposals in the consultation paper are uncontroversial and nobody will have any difficulty in supporting them. A common services agency, the simplification of fire safety legislation and new training arrangements for those who work in the service are just a few of those proposals. However, other proposals will—rightly or wrongly—arouse suspicion and concern. The suspicion is that the real agenda is cost cutting, leading to cuts in services, fewer fire stations, fewer firefighters and fewer fire engines. The concern is that public safety will be compromised as a result.

Much of that fear stems from the Bain report, which was published at the end of last year. That report talked explicitly of

"fewer stations, lower staffing or shorter shifts".

Bain said that it was unsustainable to have the same level of fire cover 24 hours a day. As three quarters of all calls to the fire service are received during the day, he said that there should be reduced levels of cover at night. Of course, that totally ignores the fact that 75 per cent of fire deaths occur during the hours of darkness. The Bain approach, with its shift from the present approach based on planning for the worst case scenario, to one based on the assessed likelihood of fires occurring, seems to have infected some of the proposals in the consultation document.

Take risk management as an example. The idea is that fire cover in an area at any given time should be determined on the basis of assessed risk. There is nothing wrong with a risk management approach, either intrinsically or in principle, especially if it deals in an integrated way with reducing the risk of fire as well as ensuring that people are adequately prepared when fires occur. Nevertheless, there are real concerns about the consultation paper's proposal, not least because the integrated risk management approach has not yet been tested or evaluated. To some extent, it will be a leap in the dark. In those circumstances, some of the concerns are justified.

Such an approach would also remove the safety net of national standards of fire cover. As the minister outlined, the current national standard for attendance at fires lays down the number of appliances that should attend fires in different risk categories and the time within which they are expected to respond. Incidentally, the fire service performs very well against those standards. I agree that the current system probably needs to be reformed and that the minister was absolutely right to say that it is more concerned with property than with people. However, the fundamental point is that any system that replaces the current one must also operate in the context of basic national standards for fire cover. The fact that the likelihood of a fire occurring in an area at a particular time is low does not detract from the need for a speedy response to any fire that occurs in that area at that time. Every member of the public has a right to know how long they should expect to wait for a fire engine to turn up if they happen to be trapped in a burning building in any part of Scotland at any given time.

It is probably right to leave local brigades to determine, based on local circumstances, how they should best configure resources to meet those standards, but the standards themselves must be national. They must be consistent and well understood. I would genuinely appreciate it if the minister could, in summing up, provide us with more detail on the exact content of the national framework that is proposed in the consultation paper.

The proposed repeal of section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947 also gives rise to concern. That section gives ministers a role in decisions about staffing and the location of fire stations and equipment. The Executive should remember that the Parliament has already rejected that proposed repeal—although I accept that, for some of those who voted, the objection was about process rather than principle.

The argument for repeal is that decisions about fire cover are best taken locally and that it is not for ministers to interfere. I agree with that view in principle. However, section 19 of the 1947 act is not a licence to interfere and it has never been used in that way. It is a safeguard; an assurance that, in the unlikely event that a local fire authority proposes to make cuts in cover that would or could endanger public safety, there is some right of appeal and another stage in the process at which reason can prevail. Such safeguards exist in other areas. The minister drew an analogy with the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000, where school closures require that level of ministerial involvement. My argument is that if it is good enough for schools, it should be good enough for fire cover where public safety is so important.

Taken together, the move to risk management and the repeal of section 19 give rise to fears that cost saving will take precedence over public safety. The minister must listen to those concerns.

In the previous consultation document, the Executive committed itself to a distinctive fire service for Scotland, and that is something to which we can all sign up. However, much of the new document smacks of emulating the stance taken south of the border. One example is the proposal that there is to be a review of the decision to maintain eight brigades in Scotland. Why is that the case? It is not because it might be right for Scotland, but because there has been a reduction in England. I do not believe that that is a good enough reason.

We need a fire service that meets Scotland's needs and puts the safety of the public and the firefighters above absolutely everything else.