Clause 28 - Equipment, facilities, services and organisations

Part of Fire and Rescue Services Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:45 am on 26 February 2004.

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Photo of Phil Hope Phil Hope Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 10:45, 26 February 2004

The hon. Gentleman and I will have to agree to disagree on whether his amendment would bureaucratically clutter parliamentary time—were we foolishly to support it.

We have no intention of charging for any of the equipment that we have committed to providing for resilience purposes, as I think the hon. Gentleman has acknowledged. The Government are funding the procurement of the Firelink radio system and have no intention of charging the fire and rescue service for it. Similarly, we have funded the purchase of new dimension equipment to the tune of £188 million, and authorities will not be expected to bear the cost of its use for new dimension purposes. However, the Secretary of State may need to charge for new services that he provides in future, and the Bill obliges him to consult before doing so.

A number of examples have been raised in debate on this clause and previously. I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we do not intend to procure goods and services centrally for the fire and rescue service and then charge for them. He cited the example of fire engines. We have no intention of procuring fire engines for the service and then charging for them. Instead, we are working with the service to improve procurement of specialist equipment and to deliver better value for money and higher standards. We are working with the service, not in opposition to it.

I repeat that we do not have any plans to charge, but if assets that we made available for new dimension work were then used for other purposes, we might need to charge in the event of excessive wear and tear on the equipment.