Clause 19 - Charging
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
2:45 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
The Minister needs a fast forward button because the example that he has quoted is dealt with specifically by an Opposition amendment that we shall be discussing in a moment. That would explicitly exclude commercially provided arm's-length consultancy services specifically because the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority has raised with me the issue to which the Select Committee report refers.
I thought that the Minister would come back to the question of revenues that might be raised under charging for road traffic accidents, and I am happy to engage with him on consultancy charges when we come to that. I do not disagree with him at all. Where consultancy is provided on an arm's-length basis to commercial customers, there is no reason to limit charging to cost recovery as the Minister does in the Bill. In those cases, it would be perfectly sensible to allow a commercial rate of charging. Subsection (2) identifies extinguishing fires and protecting life and property in the event of fires as the only two ring-fenced areas in which the Secretary of State cannot authorise charging. The amendments would extend the exclusion.
Amendment No. 46 would extend the prohibition to all functions conferred by clause 8(1): rescuing people and protecting them from serious harm in road traffic accidents. Road traffic accident rescue work is to become a statutory duty and a core function of fire and rescue authorities. Apparently, it would have equal status and standing with the core firefighting duties in the 1947 Act. It would not be right to allow charging for one and not the other.
Maintaining the position of the 1947 Act requires treating road traffic accidents the same as fires—not, as Ministers continually assert, distinguishing them from fires. Of course, the 1947 Act prevents only charging for fires, but it effectively prevents charging for statutory duties. They are to be expanded, and it is sensible that the exclusion of charging should be extended to cover those areas that will become the core statutory functions of the fire and rescue services.
It is an inconvenient fact, but not material to the philosophical debate, that an insurer will usually be involved in a road traffic accident. I suggest to the
Minister that there is a piece of pure opportunism going on. The opportunity to charge a landlord for rescuing an elderly lady from a lift or an insurer for rescuing somebody from the wreckage of their car presents a superficially soft and attractive target for the Government. Those people paying the bill will not necessarily generate large amounts of sympathy compared with the person being rescued. It is a very dangerous route for the Government to take.