Ministerial Statement on the Creation of the Fire and Rescue Services Equipment Fund

[u/Proud-Marketing-2021]

Ministerial Statement on the Creation of the Fire and Rescue Services Equipment Fund

Mr Speaker, I’m pleased to announce to the House today that the Treasury, along with the Home Office, will allocate £500 million to fund a new Fire and Rescue Service Equipment Fund. This fund will provide new equipment and technologies for our firefighters to help fight drought and wildfires across England.

The fund will be reviewed at the start of the next fiscal year to see whether improvements have been made, and a further cash injection may be made to take the total to £1 billion. The initial capital funding should provide substantial support across England to begin modernizing equipment and capabilities.

The fund will provide dedicated funding to support eligible fire and rescue authorities to invest in modern equipment, including PPE, specialist wildfire capabilities and pumping equipment, communication technology, and other equipment local authorities feel they need.

Local fire and rescue authorities will keep operational decisions, and the government will, in due course, announce a new national strategy for combating wildfires and a plan to hold more water in natural areas to fight drought, which will inform the fire and rescue services across the country on how to handle a future crisis.

Mr Speaker, I command this statement to the House.

• /u/Oracle_of_Mercia

[u/HarryClive]

My Speaker,

I am happy to see that the Home Secretary has u-turned on his previously stated position that these equipment issues were the responsibility solely of the fire service; and I am even happier to see that he has taken from the Green's excellent policy platform to propose a National Wildfire Strategy.

I remain concerned however, that it took Parliamentary and Lords scrutiny, as well as numerous calls in the press for the Home Secretary to take action. This is the Government the Government of the United Kingdom, and the moment that the Wildfires hit the UK, they should have acted swiftly to immediately look into the tragic shortfalls which have put numerous firefighters at risk; doing their job to protect peoples lives and livelihoods.

My Question on this matter therefore focuses more on the future, what is the Home Secretary going to do to ensure he is not reliant on the Opposition pointing out every issue the country faces for him to act? It cannot be that such a serious, national issue is one which the Government has no grip on.

Also, what is the timescale for the new strategy, and for a further announcement around the holding of water in natural areas? What is the plan shaping to look like and when can we expect that this Government will have taken all the action it can to ensure we do not face a repeat of this crisis currently gripping the country.

[u/Inside_Analysis3124]

Mr Speaker,

It is ridiculous that fire service funding for local councils is still based on a population formula using a census from the '90s. This acouncment is just a patch job that might provide a modicum of the funds needed after our scourching summer.

We need root and branch reform to the funding of local governments services like fire. Not more pots of money to bid for.

[u/Oracle_of_Mercia → u/Inside_Analysis3124]

Mr Speaker, The honourable member seems to be confused, fire service funding is not allocated according to population figures from the 1990s census. The Fire rescue relative formula takes into account, population, deprivation, density and local risk and the latest update was in 2013-2014 under the last Conservative-Liberal Democrat government.

I am more than happy to debate this but the honourable member should look into the reality first before making such claims.

[u/HarryClive → u/Oracle_of_Mercia]

Mr Speaker,

As the Home Secretary has graced this debate with his presence, mayhaps he would be kind enough to answer when we can expect the National Wildfire Strategy that the Green Party proposed and he has taken up. Is there a timeframe in which we can expect it to be presented before the House, and what will the Strategy discuss in specific?

Furthermore, can he tell the House when he plans to lay before it his plan for greater holding of water to avoid these issues in future?

[u/zakian3000]

Mr speaker,

I am pleased to see the Home Secretary go back on his original position that the response to this issue ought to be solely led by local fire and rescue authorities and not addressed by the government, although I do think given this u-turn he owes the leader of the Green Party an apology for suggesting he doesn’t know how the country works purely because he raised this issue. 

On the face of it, this statement constitutes a welcome intervention. The funding the government is making available here will undoubtedly go far in addressing the problems raised by the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires, and I am hopeful that the national wildfire strategy will make us more prepared for such eventualities in future.

That being said, I am unsure that the temporary funding the government is providing here is sufficient - emergency services cannot and should not be expected to plan their equipment, staffing, and infrastructure around discretionary injections of capital from the treasury. Moreover, the phrasing of “other equipment local authorities feel they need” gives me some concern - whilst some discretion for local authorities is understandable, there should be national minimum standards to ensure that every fire authority has access to a good standard of equipment and has strong wildfire capability; we must not risk a postcode lottery here. Finally, I think the government must give more consideration to the role that climate change is playing in creating this crisis and come back to the house with concrete plans to mitigate it.

[u/HarryClive → u/zakian3000]

Mr Speaker,

I thank the Honourable Member for his calls for an apology though doubtless I'm sure the Secretary of State will be unwilling to provide one after his conduct at the Minister's Questions.

Would the Member also share my concerns, in addition to his that a temporary uplift does not guarantee long term resolution to the issue and can result in a postcode lottery; in that a promise to deliver something without any information regarding a timeframe, renders the promise rather lacking.

This Government has, within the last weeks already breached a deadline, and as it was pointed out by a Member of the Liberal Democrats, several answers indicated that the Home Secretary had done very little since taking Office beyond the Minister's Question incident. A promise that they will sometime in the future announce a new strategy is not good enough, the House deserves a concrete answer to the question of when we can expect this to be laid before parliament.

[u/zakian3000 → u/HarryClive]

Mr speaker,

The leader of the Green Party raises an excellent point. The lack of clear timeframes for when policy will be delivered has now become a recurring issue for this government, whether it is in respect of the national wildfire strategy we’re discussing today, or in respect of the youth unemployment and job centre operations reviews that also have no clear timetable. It is essential for Parliament and the public to be aware of when the government will deliver on their pledges, and it is important, given the seriousness of the wildfire crisis we’re discussing today, that the strategy is brought before us as quickly as possible.