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Plenary, 10 Sep 2009

10 Sep 2009 · S3 · Plenary

Item of business

Fire and Rescue Framework

Maxwell, Stewart SNP West of Scotland Watch on SPTV

I associate myself with the minister's remarks on the tragic death of Ewan Williamson. I know that the thoughts of all members go out to his friends, his family and, of course, his colleagues.

I welcome the minister's opening speech and, in particular, his announcement on the extremely difficult issue of pensions. It is a great credit to the Government that uncertainty about that has been removed, and I am sure that his announcement will be welcomed by members of the fire and rescue services across Scotland.

I also very much welcome the fact that the great uncertainty surrounding fire control rooms, which swirled around for years under the previous Executive, has been removed by this Government. As someone whose final two years of employment prior to entering Parliament were spent working for Strathclyde Fire Brigade at the Strathclyde fire control room in Johnstone, I am only too aware of the anxiety that that uncertainty caused the staff there.

I want to move on to some of the issues that concern me about the future of the fire service and where we will go on the critical issue of fire safety. I will raise a number of issues that I have questions about, and to which I hope the minister will be able to respond in his summing up.

The first is about common fire standards across Scotland, or the risk to which the public may be exposed as a result of our not having such standards. I understand the reasoning behind the removal of the national incident response standards and why it seems logical to have standards that fit local areas. I am not suggesting for one minute that the centre of Paisley is the same as the north-west Highlands, and I accept the argument about local flexibility, as long as local flexibility is not to the detriment of local people. However, I ask the minister to lay out how the new framework will deal with the potential loss of nationally comparable information, which allowed the public to be reassured that high standards were being maintained in their area. I also request that he pay close attention to other common standards that used to apply, such as those that covered operating procedures and risk assessments, so that he is certain that there is no diminution of the service that is provided to the public.

Another area that I have concerns about is inspection of the fire and rescue services, which Robert Brown mentioned. I seek assurances from the minister that regular inspections will be carried out and that rather than being a general audit, they will be conducted by experts and specialists. It is essential that there is robust scrutiny of critical emergency services.

As the number of live fires to which an individual firefighter is exposed goes down, for example, as a result of the success of fire safety work and improvements in fire-retardant materials in homes, the need for live fire training goes up. There can be no argument about that. In years gone by, firefighters could expect to gain enormous experience through on-the-job training, as they would be exposed to a large number and a large variety of fires. However, that is no longer the case, which is why we must ensure that today's firefighters are properly equipped, through first-class training and increased live fire training, to deal with any incident with which they are faced.

I turn to fire safety and the incidence of fires, fire injuries and fire fatalities in Scotland. Over the years, Scotland has had a rather unenviable reputation for fires and fire deaths. There is no doubt that a number of factors have contributed to that reputation: for example, the flammability of materials in homes, cooking styles, levels of alcohol abuse—unfortunately—and the high incidence of smoking in homes. I am glad that the number of fires caused by cooking is down and that the new fire-retardant materials that have been introduced in recent years have had a positive impact. Smoking rates are also lower and smoke detectors are now installed in many homes. However, despite lower smoking rates, smoking materials remain at the top of the list of causes of fires that result in deaths and injuries.

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Plenary, 10 Sep 2009

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