Clause 16 - Arrangements for discharge of functions by others
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
10:45 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for providing a classic demonstration of the kind of thinking that might be going on in the darkest recesses of some of our less forward-thinking fire authorities. The purpose of probing the Under-Secretary on these issues is precisely to discover how far the Government's thinking has gone down this route. Are there any lines in the sand? Are there any areas that they would regard as not appropriate for outsourcing—to use the term again? It could be outsourcing to another fire and rescue authority, and not necessarily to a commercial third party. We spent some time in the last debate trying to establish that an outsourcing arrangement could be made between fire authorities on what would effectively be a commercial basis, with one authority providing services for another.
I make no apology for saying that this is the model that I commend. The unit of democratic accountability needs to be small enough to be meaningful, but we must recognise that for many services, the operational unit will need to be larger. I see no contradiction between having a democratically accountable authority responsible for the discharge of a function and the recognition that that function can be economically discharged only on a larger scale, so the authority should seek to deliver it by contracting it to another provider or by collaborating with adjacent authorities. That is a flexible approach.
There is little risk in allowing fire authorities almost unlimited scope in discharging their functions, provided that they are held to account for their proper discharge and the authorities are based on units that allow proper democratic accountability and transparency. That is why we favour the smaller structure of local fire authorities rather than the mega-regional authorities that the Under-Secretary appears to favour. I hope that he will engage constructively in the issues raised by the new clause.
You said, Mr. O'Hara, that this debate was to incorporate the stand part debate. The term ''firefighter'' is used in clauses 15 and 16, but so far as I can see, it is not defined in the Bill. As a restriction is placed on the type of person who can be engaged in the arrangement under clause 15, will the Under-Secretary point to where we can find the definition of a firefighter? Clearly, if that is simply a person who goes out and fights fires, the definition is tautologous. Any person employed by someone contracted through an arrangement under clause 15 would be by definition a firefighter, so there must be some qualification of the term if the clause is to have any real meaning. I would be grateful if the Under-Secretary could explain where I might find that definition.