Clause 19 - Charging
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State (Local and Regional Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
Obviously, I accept that the cost involves the potential yield to NHS hospitals as well as to ambulance trusts. I was simply trying to illustrate the scale of the revenue involved, and to suggest that it is not something to treat lightly, which I believe that the Opposition have been doing.
Flooding is another issue. The fire and rescue service already deals with incidents of significant flooding and has the power to charge for action taken. That was one of the areas that I highlighted when listing the items for which authorities already make charges. Each authority must now determine whether it is appropriate in light of all relevant circumstances to impose a charge in such a situation. Authorities should continue to enjoy that right. Unfortunately, the amendment would strip them of it. That is another example of the highly restrictive centralising tendencies of the Opposition, despite their protestations that they are in favour of localism. The rhetoric that they employ to try to appeal to the motorist takes precedence over their localising instincts, which they have currently forgotten.
I can understand fears that every person who is unfortunate enough to suffer a tidal surge might find themselves with a bill for pumping out. That is not the case. However, it is appropriate in certain circumstances to charge for that. The amendment would delete subsection (3), but that could be used to allow authorities to recover from insurers the cost of responding to flooding incidents.
I should touch on automatic fire alarms, which we addressed in the previous debate. The hon. Member for Taunton raised the question of the Oxford initiative and Somerset fire authority's examination of that scheme. The Oxford protocol draws a distinction between residential and commercial premises. Where someone is in attendance, the brigade needs to confirm that there is a fire, but where no one is in attendance, there is no necessary presumption on the brigade attending. The reason for that is obvious: if the focus is on saving lives, empty premises are not necessarily the highest priority, particularly if there is a known history of malfunctioning fire alarms at them.
That is part of a risk-based assessment, and I am pleased to say that the evidence of the Oxford protocol is that attendance at false alarms has been reduced by 70 per cent. When a fire crew is still available to deal with real alarms rather than being deployed in responding to a false alarm, it is able to cope with genuine life-threatening incidents. Attending false alarms is a waste of public money and firefighters' time.