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Emergency Services

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for initiating the debate, and to the Federation of British Fire Organisations for raising these extremely important issues with us through its briefing. It is some 10 years since I was a member of a fire authority and I certainly do not claim any special or particular knowledge of fire safety issues. However, I recognised many of the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, raised. I have some 15 years’ experience in local and regional government in the European Union and am therefore very familiar, not particularly with fire issues, but with other issues concerning the different structures and systems in member states, and the difficulties that that sometimes causes in achieving mutual understanding and reaching agreement on how best to approach these matters. I spent eight years, until last May, as a member of the Greater London Authority, of which the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority is a part. However, my role, for eight years, was that of chair of the finance committee of the Metropolitan Police Authority; therefore, I am very familiar with the sort of issues that we are discussing. My experience relates to the Metropolitan Police Service, although I think that it is relevant to the fire service as well. The Metropolitan Police Service has very good international links. It has many contacts worldwide, particularly in Europe. It generally has a good relationship with Europe, with which it generally works well on operational issues. However, I found that an organisation as large, well equipped and well organised as the Metropolitan Police Service still had remarkably little understanding of how the European Union works and of how to influence the decision-making process at the right stage, not when it is too late and something is being done to it. For an organisation with an annual budget of some £3 billion, it had little awareness of the opportunities—albeit now limited—for gaining funding from the European Union. We set up an EU oversight group, which I chaired, but whose membership otherwise comprised senior officers from the police service and the police authority, specifically to look—given that I chaired the finance committee—at opportunities to raise funding. However, another objective—this was probably more important—was to look at the policy developments that were coming through the processes of the European Union, whether through the Parliament or, more usually, the Commission, so that at an early stage we could recognise issues which were not necessarily about policing but might well be of concern to it. That must have exactly the same relevance to fire and rescue services. We should not assume, therefore, that simply because authorities have good contacts and good relations across Europe they necessarily know what is happening in the European Commission, the Parliament and the other organisations, still less that they are equipped and informed to intervene at an early stage when the policy is being formulated, not at the much later stage when, realistically, all that is happening are negotiations about the finer points to try to reach agreement. Therefore, my first question to the Minister—I am sure that she will address this—is what mechanisms there are within the Department for Communities and Local Government to look at fire and safety issues from an EU perspective. I am very aware from my 15 to 20 years’ experience of how her department deals with European issues generally—it generally does so very well—but here we are talking about fire and rescue services specifically. In addition, as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said, these are cross-departmental matters within the UK Government, much of the responsibility for which rests with the Cabinet Office rather than with CLG. My subsidiary question is: what are the mechanisms within the UK Government for effective co-ordination and liaison on these issues in the EU context, and how effective is that mechanism? I was concerned to read in the Federation of British Fire Organisations’ briefing: "““Fire and Rescue Authorities are rarely advised or able to influence EC developments affecting the Fire and Rescue Services””." That chimes exactly with what I was saying about my experience with the Metropolitan Police Service. I must ask CLG, which is responsible for fire authorities in this country, what steps it is taking, and will take, to ensure that fire and rescue services and fire authorities are advised and are able at an early stage to influence EC developments, probably through feedback to CLG or to the Cabinet Office through central government. Central government need that input, knowledge, experience and thought from the fire services. With regard to the Metropolitan Police Service, I cannot, unfortunately, remember the specific instance about which the commissioner spoke to me, but it had discovered a measure which was about to be agreed by the European Commission which would have a very substantial impact in operational and financial terms on the police service, but it was too late to do anything about it. That is the key question. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, laid out very well the difficulties involved here with different structures in the different member states and, indeed, with the range of responsibilities across various departments of the UK Government. This is a challenge, but I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us that the UK Government, perhaps led by her department, are able to meet and rise to that challenge. We live in an age where free movement throughout the European Union, whether for work or leisure, is a growing reality. I am the last person to call for greater regulation. Indeed, I spend much of my time calling for less regulation rather than more. I am a passionate believer in subsidiarity. Therefore, I do not call for the European Union to take over fire and rescue services—far from it. I welcome the cultural diversity that we have, but we need to be able to deal effectively with the results of that diversity and to recognise that people are moving around the European Union member states freely and that they deserve proper protection and effective liaison to bring that about. I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for raising these important issues and look forward to the reassurance from the Minister that, I am sure, we are about to get.