The clauses and schedule to which I will speak enable police and crime commissioners take over the functions of the fire and rescue services for their area and enable their combined authority mayor to exercise functions that are conferred on the fire and rescue service or to arrange for a chief constable to exercise fire and rescue functions.
We do not believe that the Government have made a case for their proposal, including explaining what benefits a police and crime commissioner would bring to a fire and rescue service by taking it over, as provided for in the Bill—particularly bearing in mind the extent of existing collaboration between emergency services and the future statutory requirements to be placed on such collaboration, which we have just been discussing.
What skills and expertise do police and crime commissioners have that are not possessed by fire and rescue authorities, bearing in mind that police and crime commissioners have not been on the scene all that long? How will they help the fire and rescue service cope with the new challenges it faces—dealing with an increasing number of major incidents, involving flooding, for example? What indication is there that the governance of the fire and rescue service is substandard? If that were the case, how would being taken over by the police and crime commissioner improve the position? Does the Government’s proposal mean that they have decided against any further changes to the structure and governance of the police service? Does it mean that there will be no more changes to what will be covered by local police forces, what might be dealt with by the police on a regional basis and what would be regarded as matters requiring to be addressed by the police on a national basis?
We are now beginning to find out the extent of cybercrime, which does not recognise local police force boundaries. Neither do serious organised crime or the threat of terrorism. Are the Government now saying that the present structure of our police service and the number of separate forces and police and crime commissioners are here to stay, and that that structure is equally relevant and applicable to the organisation and governance of our fire and rescue service, both now and in the future? As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, has already said, the Dorset and Wiltshire fire and
rescue services have recently merged, but there are still separate Wiltshire and Dorset police forces, each with its own police and crime commissioner. That does not seem to fit very well with the direction in which the Government want to go.
The consultation exercise that preceded the Bill neither addressed nor answered the questions I am raising, any more than it sought to make the case for the changes in the Bill related to the role of police and crime commissioners in respect of the fire and rescue service. Neither did it show any apparent interest in the views of those with specialist knowledge and experience on the substance of the proposals. Instead, it set out a process by which a police and crime commissioner could take over responsibility for a fire and rescue service and then asked consultees what they thought of the process. It did not ask what consultees thought of the proposals themselves and whether, for example, they felt that they would enhance public safety or lead to better governance. It was an inadequate consultation, under which the Government did not make their case for the major change now being proposed or permit people to express their views, supportive or otherwise, of that case.
That was despite the then Home Secretary, in a speech in May of this year, extolling, quite rightly, the achievements of the fire and rescue service in recent years, and saying that,
“what is striking about those achievements is that they were achieved not by change imposed from above, but by reform driven from below”—
yet the Government are now seeking to impose change on the fire and rescue services from above through this Bill. The then Home Secretary went on to say that,
“unlike in policing, fire and rescue services seized the need for change at a local level and reformed themselves from the ground up”,
with,
“wholesale change in the culture and priorities of fire and rescue services, marshalled not by Whitehall but by chiefs and authorities themselves”.
Mrs May, since that is who it was, continued by saying that,
“working in partnership with other local services and using data more systematically, fire and rescue services have developed a deep understanding of the needs and the risks of the communities they serve … By understanding these risks, fire and rescue services have been able to better manage them—saving countless lives as a result”.
Now the Government, under Mrs May, want to put the fire and rescue service, whose virtues she was highlighting so recently, under police and crime commissioners, who have their hands full and could scarcely yet be said to be tried and tested, and also chief constables, whose knowledge and experience of managing fire and rescue services is hardly likely to be their key strength. The Knight review into the future of the fire service recommended that transferring control to the police and crime commissioner should be attempted only if a rigorous pilot could identify tangible benefits. That not unimportant recommendation appears to have been ignored by the Government.
The Government’s impact assessment accompanying the Bill is a threadbare affair at best. The only rationale offered for this transfer of control and responsibility
for the fire and rescue service to police and crime commissioners is the Government’s unsubstantiated belief that there needs to be greater collaboration between the emergency services—a collaboration that we have already discussed, which as I understand it the Government are saying would be on a voluntary basis. That does not seem to square with what is now being proposed in relation to the police and crime commissioners and fire and rescue services.
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I should think that few think otherwise than that increased collaboration is desirable, but the Government have not provided any reason why it is more likely to occur under police and crime commissioners than it is under existing collaboration agreements or future statutory requirements on collaboration in the Bill. Nor is there any analysis of any current barriers to collaboration or of the risks of the change proposed in the Bill. The most significant risk is that fire and rescue, with its much smaller budgets and media attention than policing, will become the service of secondary concern under its new police-oriented management and governance structure and suffer from what has been described as benign neglect.
Another risk is that since the fire and rescue service will be geared to the police force structure and the structure of police and crime commissioners, mergers between fire services will become more difficult. I have already mentioned the recent merger of the Wiltshire and Dorset fire services. The 2007 merger of Devon and Somerset fire services increased resilience and delivered savings. How many potential mergers between the fire services will not even be considered as a result of police and crime commissioners taking over responsibility for the service and the need for co-terminosity? Other potential risks have been highlighted, including the potential complexity of moving to the single employer model and the amount of time and potential cost of bringing together personnel with very different roles and conditions of employment.
The reality, too, is that fire and rescue services work more closely with the ambulance service, particularly in emergency situations, than they do with the police. The consultation made no attempt to address the potential impact on existing and potential future arrangements if fire and rescue services were in effect going to become a combined force with the police. Neither was any attempt made to assess the impact of being seen as combined with the police on the perception that the public have of the fire and rescue service as a humanitarian service as opposed to the police with their law enforcement role. Much of the work of the fire and rescue service is now preventive, which involves visiting buildings and talking to people, including in their homes. Will a close tie-up with the police and a possible view, rightly or wrongly, that there may be an increased exchange of information, make that role more difficult? These are potential risks that the Government did not want their consultation to include and, consequently, have never been addressed or answered properly by the Government, since they have never set out their case and the hard evidence to support it, to justify the need for the proposed change in responsibility
for the fire and rescue services, which would involve bringing them under the control of police and crime commissioners—almost certainly, in most cases, chief constables.
I hope that proposing that these clauses should not stand part will at least provoke and prompt some sort of debate this evening on what the justification is for the proposal that the Government have made in relation to police and crime commissioners and their future role in respect of fire and rescue services, and that we may begin to hear from the Government what their hard evidence is that it will lead to improvements in effectiveness or efficiency or improving public safety. Up to now, there has been something of a silence on that issue.
This is the opportunity for the Government to make their case. I am certainly more than willing to sit here this evening and listen to what that case is. Bearing in mind the priority that the Government—perhaps not incorrectly—wish to put on increasing collaboration between the emergency services, on which a number of Members of this House have already spoken quite glowingly, would it not be better, in fact, to see the extent to which the clauses in this Bill that seek to promote further collaboration actually work, before deciding to include an unproven measure in the Bill for which no case has been made, which goes contrary to the view that there should be greater collaboration and appears, on the face of it, to impose quite a lot of compulsion in relation to the future of our fire and rescue services?