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Fire Safety (Schools)

The hon. Gentleman is right; indeed, Greater Manchester is a pioneering fire authority working with his authority. Most authorities in Britain have developed such models. Across the country, firefighters are giving their time, free of charge, on evenings and weekends, to establish relationships in the community—with community groups and organisations and children at risk, either from fire or of being involved in setting fires. Increasingly, fires are being set during school hours, with 25 per cent. actually starting in classrooms. Four out of 10 school fires are started deliberately in normal school hours. In Greater Manchester, six out of 10 school fires are started deliberately. In my own borough of Wigan we have more school fire incidents than any other part of the county and almost double the number in many other boroughs. Overwhelmingly, these fires are being ignited by naked flames such as matches and lighters. The average cost of a small school fire in Greater Manchester is about £50,000. In 2005—the last year for which I can get figures—school fires in Greater Manchester cost about £5 million a year. Quite frankly, our schools are under attack. It is no wonder that the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has been campaigning for the installation of sprinklers to be a legal requirement in all new build schools and college refurbishments. The NUT has also been campaigning for the installation of sprinklers and believes that the total cost of school fires is being seriously underestimated. It believes that the true cost is more than £100 million a year. The British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association, working with British fire services, says—this is astonishing—that a school has a one in eight chance of a fire, and every week, somewhere in the UK, a school is totally lost to fire.