Clause 31 - Negotiating bodies
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State (Local and Regional Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
I start by saying that we understand the importance of local negotiations in the fire and rescue service. It was never our intention to make the outcome of local negotiations unenforceable. Hon. Members may well, therefore, reasonably inquire why the provisions that we propose to remove from the Bill were included. The original formulation was designed to avoid the effectiveness of any new negotiating machinery that is put in place being subverted by a deliberate ploy to negotiate at a local level, and thereby avoid the national machinery. That was the thinking that led us to the original formulation. Since
publication of the Bill, we have looked again at the draft, and we have tabled amendments Nos. 163, 164 and 165 to enable local negotiations on certain conditions of service to continue to be legally enforceable.
The hon. Gentleman asked me which conditions would be open to negotiation. I say to him that we would not see this as extending to pay, because that could subvert the national framework for agreement. In our recent debate, we talked about the benefit of a UK-wide national framework for negotiation on pay. Clearly, it would be inconsistent if we opened the door to local pay negotiations through these amendments.