Fire Service (Gosport) (Hansard, 24 April 1990)

§ Mr. Viggers

I note that this early start is appreciated by my right hon. Friend.

It is an entirely appropriate time because the main thrust of my speech concerns the manning of Gosport fire station on a 24-hour basis. Most of the good citizens of Gosport are safely asleep, knowing that the fire station has staff on 24-hour duty who will turn out to protect them from fire in the town.

My debate is about the guidelines for fire service cover. I am especially concerned about Gosport fire station, where 24-hour cover is under threat. The background is that local authorities—the fire authorities—have to provide cover under Home Office guidelines, and it is on that basis that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State is good enough to reply to the debate. The guidelines are revised from time to time, and in 1981 the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council for England and Wales set up a joint committee on standards of fire cover, which reported in May 1986.

Under those principles there are rules on standards of training and there are grading definitions of fire risk with time limits applicable in each case related to each type of fire risk. It may be helpful if I refer briefly to them. The categories are A, B, C and D. Category A, the highest risk, covers the largest cities and towns and include main shopping and business centres and concentrated areas of theatres, cinemas, clubs or high-risk industrial and commercial property. For areas in that category, the Home Office expects three pumps to attend a fire. The first pump must attend in five minutes, the second in a further five and the third in eight.

Category B, which is slightly lower, comprises built-up areas of large cities and towns not deemed to be in Category A … Other areas likely to be classified at Category B are large holiday resorts, industrial or training estates and concentrations of older multi-storey property. The Home Office guideline is that two pumps should attend in five and eight minutes respectively.

Category C applies to the suburbs of larger towns and built-up areas of smaller towns. The types of property usually included are residential areas and industrial or commercial areas where there are few higher-risk properties. The Home Office specifies one pump in 10 minutes.

Category D is principally rural, and the Home Office specifies one pump in 20 minutes. Those are the general gradings of fire risk categories.

Applying those definitions, Hampshire fire brigade carried out a manning review, which was published in 1988. The review recommended that Gosport fire station, currently manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week on a shift basis, could safely be downgraded to a day-manned station. That means that it would be manned from 9 am to 6 pm five days a week and on Saturday morning. Outside 307 those hours, fire cover would be provided by fire fighters on call from their homes, adding four or five minutes to every call out of the fire brigade.

The proposal was controversial and strongly opposed. In 1989 the matter went for adjudication before Sir Kenneth Holland, who agreed to the changes subject to certain conditions that have not yet been met. The county fire officer has always made it clear that he would require the upgrading of Fareham fire station before downgrading Gosport, so that the status quo with 24-hour cover at Gosport would continue for the time being.

My purpose this evening is to express my constituents' continuing concern because there are some features special to Gosport. Like many other parts of the country Gosport has its share of high-rise buildings. It has seven high-rise buildings, 24 nursing homes and 24 warden-assisted accommodation units. That is not especially unusual. I have already referred to the risk categories A, B. C and D, but there are some establishments within the constituency of Gosport which do not easily fit into those categories.

We have industrial premises, an airfield at HMS Daedalus, a submarine base at HMS Dolphin, a Royal Naval aircraft yard at Fleetlands, an oil fuel depot at Mumby road in Gosport with a substantial reservoir of oil for the Navy and an oil fuel jetty and Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers at the Royal Clarence yard in Weevil lane, Gosport. Most significant of all, we have the Royal Naval armaments depots at Bedenham, Frater and Elson with substantial armaments of all kinds used by the Royal Navy.

The Home Office takes account of such special risks and provides a special category entitled "Special risks". According to the guidelines, There are certain small areas, whether comprising single buildings or complexes, which need a first attendance over and above that appropriate to the risk which predominates in the surrounding area. But can one really refer to RNAD Bedenham as being a small area? It is some 555 acres, with a perimeter fence some nine miles long. Its safety record is outstandingly good, but the fire cover must be of the best.

What are the problems with which I am concerned? At present, the fire service can reach every part of Gosport in six minutes. The proposals of the county fire officer, however, add four to five minutes to every call out of duty hours. Those comprise some 66 per cent. or two thirds of all calls, making the maximum not six minutes but something like 10 minutes. I am taking here the figures from the fire cover review, section 3.9.3, which gives average speeds for fire appliances. It seems that a fire appliance would not be able to reach more than some two miles from the fire station in the limit of 10 or so minutes, so we should be very close to the limit in Gosport.

The roads in Gosport do not allow rapid movement. We have a highly congested area with some 30,000-plus domestic establishments and more than 5,000 business establishments, all in a small area. In many cases the roads in the area are so narrow that fire engines find it difficult to manoeuvre when cars are heavily parked. If appliances are coming from Fareham, as they would have to if the proposals were carried through and extra appliances were needed from Fareham, they would need to come down the 308 heavily congested and seriously undergraded A32 main road, which is a cause of a great deal of local controversy and discontent.

During a recent eight-pump fire in Gosport, it took Fareham appliances 15 and 18 minutes respectively to reach the fire in Gosport from Fareham. Fortunately, on that occasion the men were on duty. If the call to take them out had come some 10 minutes later they would have been off duty, and the time taken to reach the fire would have been 20 and 23 minutes respectively.

There has been considerable concern in Gosport and there have been petitions. Gosport borough council has considered the situation and, on 19 October 1988, it resolved: That the Borough Council advises the Home Secretary that it is strenuously opposed to the current proposals by Hampshire County Council for the change in fire service cover in the Gosport constituency. That concern is shared by the firefighters themselves.

I wish to emphasise—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister agrees that I should—that I am not uttering one word in criticism of Hampshire county council, the chief fire officer or any of his officers. It is the level of cover and the standard that they provide which gives rise to the concern that that cover might be reduced. On the fire service and fire cover generally, the Audit Commission's occasional paper No. 1 of September 1986, dealing particularly with the financial implications and the financial considerations affecting the fire service rather than its efficiency, reported: One reason for the relatively modest value improvement potential identified by auditors is straightforward. In many respects, the fire service appears to be notably well managed. For example: Auditors and the Commission's senior officers have repeatedly been impressed at senior fire officers' combination of technical qualifications, leadership skills and general management ability. None of these are unusual in themselves, but the rather consistent combination of the three is perhaps not so common. Another unusual feature is the generally high level of morale and self-confidence that appears to pervade many of the brigades examined. Firemen seem proud of their work and confident that they do it well; and opinion research suggests that the public generally shares this opinion. Judging from all the conversations on the subject that I have had in my constituency, that is certainly Gosport's opinion. It is my constituents' high regard for those fire services that causes them to worry that they will be downgraded.

The county fire officer began his review not in Gosport but in Fareham. He was anxious to improve the service in Fareham and to provide new services there which he thought could also cover Gosport. In providing new services in Fareham, he thought that it would be safe to downgrade Gosport. Whereas from Hampshire's point of view the proposals are an adjustment, from Gosport's point of view they undoubtedly represent a downgrading, and would create many problems. There would be delays in reaching the location of a fire. I note, for instance, that the home for the blind in Lee-on-Solent is at the extremity of Gosport fire station cover. I note, too, that the main multi-storey blocks of flats in Gosport are at the extreme end of the Gosport peninsula—as far away as they could be from Fareham—as is Haslar hospital.

The preferred proposal to locate a new fire station in Fareham would involve a site at Oldbury way in Peak lane, Fareham, on a complex of four schools. They would all be 309 affected—especially St. Francis special school for the mentally and physically disabled. The proposal would create major inconvenience and would certainly cause distress to those pupils. The community association would lose its football pitch, and the proposal to take over part of the land for the new fire station would lower the quality of life for those using the schools' campus.

If Gosport fire station is to be downgraded to daytime cover only, night cover will need to be provided by firemen resident in the fire station's immediate locality. That would mean the fire service having to acquire houses for those firemen. The county fire officer's proposal is that five houses should be acquired at a cost of £50,000 each, but I believe that that is pitching the need rather low. There would be a need for more than five houses, and they would certainly cost more than £50,000 each.

I refer finally to what is the weakest argument in my case in firefighting terms but a powerful argument in Gosport. We take great pride in local services of all kinds—the ambulance service, the fire service, the magistrates court, the police, and so on. Gosport has a strong sense of community and we resent anything which downgrades Gosport and has the town served from outside. I submit that that is not necessary and I ask all concerned to recognise the value of Gosport's fire station and of continuing its 24-hour operation.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten)

We recognise that Gosport has a strong sense of community, place and identity—and the whole House acknowledges the lucid way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) has made the case for Gosport's special needs for fire cover. I shall lay before my noble Friend Lord Ferrers, who has ministerial responsibility in another place for Home Office issues, a copy of the report of this Adjournment debate, and I am sure that he will study it carefully. I am merely his representative on earth tonight in dealing with the important issue in question.

I know a little about Gosport, but a great deal about my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and his vigorous proselytising on behalf of his constituency. In trying to respond to my hon. Friend's points, it might be helpful if I review the statutory responsibilities in the matter. Indeed, I am sure that the comments made by my hon. Friend and the comments that I am about to make will provide a good description of the statutory responsibilities of the fire service.

Under the relevant legislation, the Fire Services Acts 1947 and 1959, it is the duty of the fire authority in an area and in this case Hampshire county council—my hon. Friend was generous in his even-handed treatment of that council—to secure the services of such a fire brigade and such equipment as may be necessary efficiently to meet all normal requirements. The fire authority determines the appropriate number of fire stations, fire appliances and fire fighters in the area. As my hon. Friend said, that is known as fire cover and he referred to the four categories of fire cover—A, B, C and D. It would be otiose to repeat that accurate description.

In determining the fire cover for the area, the county council will always have to have regard to the nationally recommended minimum standards of fire cover that have existed since 1936. They contain recommendations about 310 the number of fire appliances that should be sent to fires in particular areas and how quickly those appliances should arrive. Hence the quadripartite categorisation A to D to which my hon. Friend referred. Those are the four main categories of risk.

Those four categories were reviewed quite recently by a joint committee on standards of fire cover established under the auspices of the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council for England and Wales and the council for Scotland. That committee included representatives from the Home Office, the local authority associations, the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association, the National Association of Fire Officers and the Fire Brigades Union as well as other interested parties.

The committee recommended that fire authorities should review the fire risk categorisation in their areas, having regard to nationally recommended standards of fire cover. The general drift was that fire risk categorisation should not be regarded as set in stone for all time. As my hon. Friend said in the description of his area, an urban area changes and sometimes greater risks occur because of a concentration of new buildings, including high-rise buildings, or more homes for the elderly appearing in areas which did not have such homes 20 years ago. All those points must be considered by the thoroughly modern fire service to ensure that the categorisation is right.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary accepted the committee's recommendations and its proposals on appropriate standards of fire cover. In a circular to fire authorities issued in May 1985, the Home Office asked fire authorities to put in hand reviews of fire risk categorisations in their areas.

The chief fire officer of Hampshire subsequently carried out a comprehensive review in his area and in July 1988 the fire authority sought the approval of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary under section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947 for certain reductions in the brigade's establishment. Among those was the proposal to which my hon. Friend, on behalf of his constituents, has taken considerable exception.

That proposal was that the fire station at Gosport should reduce its establishment of fire fighters and move from a shift-manning system to what is known in the trade as a day-manning system. Under the former system, fire fighters operate from a station on a 24-hour basis. Under the latter, they operate from the station during the daytime and respond to calls from their homes nearby in the evenings and at night in the way in which my hon. Friend described accurately to the House.

In giving his approval to the application in July 1989, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary had regard to the considerable local consultation to which the fire authority's proposals had been subject. He also had particular regard to the professional advice that he had received, especially the professional advice from Her Majesty's inspector of fire services, which confirmed that, if the changes were to be put into effect, the fire authority would continue to meet the appropriate national standards.

In approving the change, it was made clear that it was subject to the uprating of cover from day-manning to shift-manning at Fareham fire station in exactly the same way that my hon. Friend has described. The fire authority has proposed the construction of a new fire station there. The proposed changes to fire cover in Hampshire are interrelated in the way that my hon. Friend has described.

311 Although I can readily understand my hon. Friend's concern about proposals to change fire cover in Gosport in his constituency, I must reassure him—and through him, his constituents—that the proposals were subject to a rigourous examination before approval. Indeed, they underwent an additional examination by an outside adjudicator appointed by the National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Fire Brigades, which is responsible for conditions of service in our fire brigades. That adjudicator, who was able to second-guess what had gone on before in deciding the right form of fire cover, found that it would be appropriate to introduce the day-manning system at Gosport.

312 I want to assure my hon. Friend that the Government are committed to maintaining the nationally recommended minimum standards of fire cover in Gosport, as elsewhere in the country, and to the maintenance of an effective fire service in Gosport, as elsewhere in the country. I will draw my hon. Friend's strongly and clearly expressed views to the attention of my right hon. and noble Friend the Earl Ferrers, who has ministerial responsibility in this respect, so that he can take into account what my hon. Friend had said in this Adjournment debate, on which I congratulate him.