Fire and Rescue Services Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:29 pm on 26 January 2004.

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Photo of John Gummer John Gummer Conservative, Suffolk Coastal 7:29, 26 January 2004

I always remember a Member of the House who complained that I described her views as in favour of "killing babies" when she was really in favour of "terminating pregnancies"; she thought that if one changed the words, everything was okay. The Minister is doing a similar thing. He thinks that because he is not saying at the moment that Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire shall have a regional system and no local fire services, he is not regionalising. That is disingenuous, because he is taking away from each area a series of their present powers and telling them that if he does not like the result, he can amalgamate services under the Bill. Is he taking the power to amalgamate because he has no intention of amalgamation, or because he has every intention of amalgamation? Is he doing that because he will amalgamate on a whim? The only factor for deciding whether an amalgamation will take place is whether he thinks that a service does not otherwise meet requirements. He, not the locality or the elected authority, will decide. What will matter is not what my constituents think, but what the Minister thinks.

The Minister is taking a series of powers that in any other circumstances would be considered to be draconian. If he does not intend to use any of those powers, why does he not say, "I'm not going to take them"? If he takes them he must intend to use them, so he must intend to say to local fire services, "You have significantly reduced powers under the Bill. What's more, if we don't like the way you use those powers, we can amalgamate you—and the only proof that we will have to show is the fact that we, as Ministers, think that you need to be amalgamated." Although that is not regionalisation at once, the regionalisation of many powers will issue a threat to local fire services that they will lose the rest of their powers unless they do what the Minister says. Therefore, the services would be regionalised in fact, because they would have to obey what the Minister said through the regional management structure.