FIRE SERVICES (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) BILL. (Hansard, 21 May 1941)

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE)
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. I hesitate to detain your Lordships at this relatively late hour, but it would hardly be consonant with the respect due to your Lordships' House if I asked you to give this Bill a Second Reading without at any rate some explanation of its provisions. Its purpose is to confer upon the Home Secretary, in the case of England and Wales, and on the Secretary of State for Scotland in Scotland, powers by regulation to bring the Fire Services in England and Wales and in Scotland respectively under unified control during the war. This reorganisation of the Fire Services is urgently necessary if the best and the fullest use is to be made of the very gallant men and women of those Services, regular and auxiliary, and of their equipment, and to combat what has so far proved to be by far the most dangerous and destructive feature of enemy air attack.
I am sure that your Lordships will agree that the Regular Fire Service and its auxiliaries have given magnificent service under very trying conditions, conditions not only of extreme bodily peril but of exposure to heat, dust, thirst and fatigue 279 to the very limit of human endurance. Generally speaking, local authorities deserve credit for the energy and enterprise which they have shown in dealing with entirely new conditions. Nevertheless, experience of the heavy attacks which we have undergone since last September has shown that the present organisation of the Fire Services involves serious disadvantages, mainly arising from the fact that there are upwards of 1,400 separate fire brigades under separate commands and controlled by different local authorities. During peace-time, far-reaching measures were taken to equip the peacetime fire-fighting organisation. Many of your Lordships may feel the same surprise that I felt on realising how extremely small the nucleus was. Before the war, the total number of whole-time professional firemen in the country was between 5,000 and 6,000. To-day, the whole-time auxiliary service consist of some 80,000, and the part-time of some 150,000.
There has also been a great increase in equipment, and elaborate schemes of mutual reinforcement were worked out; but, with the preservation of so many independent local authorities, the organisation still rested on very slender administrative foundations. Relatively simple operations have involved as many as twenty or thirty separate authorities and chief officers of fire brigades, and there arc, I need scarcely point out to your Lordships, enormous difficulties in the way of securing sufficient unity of plan for meeting major conflagrations and disposing of the available fire-fighting resources according to requirements reviewed as a whole. It is also almost impossible, under the present system of control, to secure the best use of officers, and especially of the still relatively limited number of officers who have first-hand personal experience of large-scale fire-fighting, since they are dispersed amongst numerous brigades and are the servants of different authorities.
Important changes have taken place since air attacks became really heavy last autumn, and much has been done to link the separate brigades together in action, but my right honourable friend is satisfied that the time has now come for much more radical changes. I do not want your Lordships to be under any misapprehension. The 1,400 fire brigades have under their present organisation done wonders. 280 They have collaborated magnificently; in no single case has an appeal for help from one authority to another been refused. But we are fighting a ruthless enemy under one implacable control, and to maintain 1,400 separate organisations cannot be the best means of combating so formidable a striking force. I have no doubt that the Bow Street Runners were a very admirable and efficient body of men, but they could not have coped with A1 Capone and his gangsters; and 1,400 separate brigades, some of them highly efficient, some of them adequate, and some of them, quite frankly, rather behind the times, cannot be the best way of dealing with gangsters far more formidably equipped.
The first part of Clause 1 of the Bill enables the Secretary of State to make Regulations providing for three purposes: the co-ordination of Fire Services provided by local authorities, unification in whole or in part of those services, and the improvement of the arrangements for fighting fires. The Bill thus provides for a unified central control of all the fire brigades, either throughout the country or in particular regions, and it also provides for measures of reorganisation and control which fall short of complete unification of the whole Services. Subject to a unified control, it is not my right honourable friend's intention to centralise the whole organisation of fire-fighting in Whitehall, or to establish one single Fire Brigade; his intention is to delegate as much power as possible to regional controls, and he intends by this process to reduce the present number of 1,400 fire brigades to something less than fifty. One of the effects of this change will be that local fire brigades will cease to exist as such, and that all firemen may be transferred to the service of the Crown and be under direct State control.
The Bill gives my right honourable friend power to arrange with local authorities to act as his agents in certain measures relating to fire brigades in their areas. They can, for instance, be responsible for the actual mechanical details of pay, for the repair of fire appliances, and so on; but, broadly speaking, the intention is that the State shall have under it all firemen, and shall secure the use of all fire stations and other premises belonging to the existing fire authorities, and shall have control of all the appliances 281 and equipment at present in the hands of these authorities. The cost of the unified Fire Service will be borne by the Exchequer, subject to the payment by the existing fire authorities of a contribution based on 75 per cent. of the cost of running their regular peace-time fire brigade in a standard year.
Whatever precise form the new organisation may take—and naturally there will be administrative details to be worked out and consultations with local authorities—the Bill will enable the Secretary of State to secure substantial and immediate improvements by way of directions given to existing local authorities and their officers. He will be able to place the most experienced and efficient officers where they are most wanted. He will be able to arrange for regional reserves which can be sent anywhere at a moment's notice. He will be able to arrange for the transfer of men from the front line to reserve and from reserve to the front line, give them a change of occupation and rest when rest is required and opportunities for combining training and wider experience.
Your Lordships will want to know a little about finance. The cost of the regular fire brigades is estimated at some £3,000,000 a year. Under the proposed unification this charge will be transferred to the Exchequer, subject to 75 per cent. of the cost in whatever year may be adopted as the standard year being recovered from local authorities. Thus, about £750,000 will be found by the Exchequer. In addition to this sum, the Exchequer will become responsible for the whole cost of the Emergency Fire Service, including that portion hitherto borne by the rates, which will be about £1,250,000 a year. It is almost certain that there will be some further charges on the Exchequer in the future—for example, for the provision of new equipment and for the paying of additional auxiliary firemen who may be enrolled under the National Service Act, 1941; but I am not in a position to give your Lordships any approximation to a close estimate of what this additional expenditure will amount to.
I deeply regret having to ask your Lordships to pass a measure of this importance and magnitude through all its stages in one day, but I hope your Lordships will agree that the Bill is both a sound one and one of extreme urgency, and the Government have felt no hesitation 282 in asking Parliament to pass it into law forthwith. Arrangements with which I have not troubled your Lordships have been made to secure the rights and the trade union position of members of the fire brigades, and I am glad to say that the measure has met with general approval and agreement from the people who are going to be taken into the service of the State. I believe the measure will make a body of men, who have already proved their great valour and very great worth to the nation, even more efficient than they have been in the past, and I have no hesitation in commending it to your Lordships. I beg to move.

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I should like to say that we on this side of the House welcome very warmly this important measure which represents, in fact, the nationalisation of one of the most important services which hitherto has been under the control of the local authorities. Our only regret is that, owing to the exigencies of the moment, it has not been possible for the matter to be discussed more fully and at greater length in your Lordships' House. We are confident that the noble Duke's assurance will be fulfilled that the Fire Service will be far more efficient under this central control, and that in fact the damage that will be done by air attack will be considerably lessened by the very much greater degree of efficiency that will be introduced. For these reasons we welcome the Bill and wish it every possible success.

THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE
My Lords, like the noble Duke, I am very-reluctant to keep your Lordships at what is called this late hour, but this is a subject in which I have taken a great deal of miscellaneous, though not official, interest for many years. I should like to draw attention to one or two points, not at all unfavourable to the Bill, and ask the noble Duke and those associated with him in the matter to keep them in mind as time goes on. The (Bill could be described in one sentence as a Bill to give the Secretary of State power to take over the fire brigades—that is to say, he has to make these Regulations; but I should like to know whether Parliament will get much opportunity of discussing these Regulations. I know the answer to me 283 is subsection (1) of Clause 2, but I do not believe the Parliamentary draftsman has ever drafted a clause which is more difficult for the layman to understand than that one. Legal members of your Lordships' House, like my noble friend the Lord Chancellor, of course understand it, but it is very difficult for the ordinary layman to fathom it. The point must not be forgotten that when the Government produce a scheme they are very much more unwilling to alter it than they were before.
There are three important points which I suggest the noble Duke should think over as time goes on. The first is that I notice the Bill is only valid for the period of the war. In another place the Secretary of State stressed that point. I should be very sorry if this Bill is really going to be, if I may use the phrase, "a flash in the war pan." I hope it will lead to something permanent after the war is over. We cannot contemplate going back to 1,400 fire authorities in the Kingdom. I quite appreciate that a permanent scheme could not be put through now, but I do hope the door has not been finally bolted and barred against the continuance of a national force after the war is over.
The second point I desire to stress is this. I am a little anxious as regards what is to be the governing body of this new force at headquarters. I quite understand that in the regions there will be commanders under the Regional Commissioners, but this force is going to be a very big thing. It will certainly contain over 200,000 men, and I cannot believe its administration at headquarters can be satisfactorily placed in the hands, however willing, of a Department at the Home Office. I recognise that the Secretary of State must be responsible for the force to Parliament, but I hope he will have a governing board of some kind associated with him at headquarters. I am one of the few remaining who had the privilege of serving at the War Office before we had an Army Council and after we had an Army Council. I was quite convinced then, as I am convinced now, that a Board, a real Board, a Board that meets—not a Board like the Board of Trade—is the proper governing body for a national force. If you do not have a body of that kind you are in 284 danger of having a hopeless clogging of the machine at the top.
The Army Council has been a success. It was originally based on the Board of Admiralty, it has continued for thirty-seven years, and its model has been followed by the Royal Air Force. I do not think, therefore, I am wrong in drawing attention to this fact because, unless you have some organisation of that kind, you will get delays in the administration of this new force. I quite appreciate that nobody feels more than the noble Duke that delay is the very last thing we want. I know about the Advisory Council that is going to meet, but I mean a Board of officers giving their full time to the work. An Advisory Council cannot possibly give its full time. They will only be able to meet occasionally, and probably only very occasionally, when one considers the discomforts of travelling at this time.
There is only one other point I want to ask the noble Duke and his colleagues to keep in mind. The noble Duke obviously knows that women are doing very useful work in the fire brigade as well as the men, not only as typists and telephonists but in other ways. They go out and look after the men. One has known cases—it is common knowledge—where men have been on duty for ten or twelve hours at a time, because they never stop, especially if they are London County Council firemen, and women have taken them out food and looked after them and have really helped in the efficiency of the force. I hope the women will not be forgotten when the war is over. I think we made a mistake in 1919. The Women's Auxiliaries for the Navy, Army and Air Force did splendid service in the last war, but they were abolished after the war was over, and I think we suffer from that now. The women have had to be re-enlisted. I think things would have been very much better some time ago—they may be all right now—if there had been a nucleus of women preserved through the years of peace so that senior and experienced officers might have been available for the services when the present war broke out. The same will apply to the fire brigade. You will find it useful to continue the services of the women. At present they are all auxiliaries, and, presumably, would cease to serve at the end of the war.
The noble Duke will realise that I do not offer these remarks as criticisms but as 285 suggestions, requesting that they should be considered while this matter is being worked out I do most warmly congratulate this Government on having introduced this Bill. I think their predecessors ought to have done it years ago; but never mind, I am very glad to see it brought in now, and I believe it is going to be a very important landmark in the fire brigade policy of this country.

§ THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE
My Lords, I can assure the noble Earl opposite that I will bring before my right honourable friend the points he has raised and that they will be carefully considered. I am not in a position to say whether the National Fire Brigade will be a permanent feature. That, I think, must be a question for Parliament to decide; but if the plan succeeds I have very little doubt indeed that my noble friend will see his ideal realised of a national fire organisation being made a permanent feature of our after-war life. With regard to Parliamentary control, the Regulations will be laid before Parliament for a period of twenty-eight days. That will give at least some opportunity for Parliament to have a say in the matter and to put forward its views. The other points to which my noble friend has referred will, I can assure him, be most carefully considered. I am glad he paid a tribute- to the work women have been doing. They have been exposed to great dangers while performing this important work of assisting our fire fighters. Fire is always a terrible thing, but when it is accompanied by bombing it is still more terrible for our fire brigades. It really is almost impossible for men, no matter how gallant and determined, to remain at work in such conditions as we have known without something to moisten their throats, and that something has been carried to them by women. The work of the women is beyond all praise, and I am glad it has received a meed of recognition from the noble Lord opposite.