Hemel Hempstead MP Mike Penning has condemned a European Parliament vote to abolish the ‘opt-out’ of the working time directive which could restrict our retained firefighters to a 48-hour week.

Speaking in a debate on Retained Firefighters, Mike paid tribute to the work of our retained firefighters – and firefighters in general – highlighting the outstanding dedication and professionalism demonstrated at the Buncefield fire back in 2005. He told MPs “I was there with the firefighters for four days, and I never knew who was a retained fireman or who was a whole-time retained or a regular full-time fireman.”

The proposals – which were supported by Labour MEPs – do not affect voluntary firefighters in other European countries as they are not classed as employed. However, in the UK retained firefighters are paid for the risks and service to the community they undertake.

Condemning the proposals Mike said:

adding:

After the debate, Mike, whose constituency has retained fire stations at Markyate and Kings Langley, said:

He added:

SPEECH IN FULL

Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con): Thank you, Mr. Williams. I thought I had been called to speak a few moments ago, and having listened to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), perhaps it would have been better if I had. This is a serious debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) on obtaining it.

We have just heard the hon. Member for Hendon demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what retained firefighters are about. I will quickly touch on the point that I made in my intervention on him. I did not say that he had retained firefighters in his constituency. I am sure that his constituents would like Hertfordshire firefighters to come over the border to help them in their hour of need, as happened at Buncefield when the London fire service came to us. The London fire service categorically will not allow retained firefighters across its borders to come on stand by in London; it will not allow that to happen. [Interruption.] Is the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) saying from a sedentary position that it is a safety issue?

David Taylor: The reason why retained firefighters are so successful and necessary in deeply rural areas is the relative sparsity of the population. In London, there must be thousands of people within five minutes—or whatever the time is—of a retained fire station. In rural areas, that is less often the case. That is the reason—it is a city.

Mike Penning: The hon. Gentleman simply does not understand what retained firefighters do. I slightly disagree with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland: this is not a rural-urban issue. I was a firefighter in urban Essex and every day of the week that I was on duty, I worked with retained firefighters.

Mr. Carmichael: If I gave the impression to the hon. Gentleman that I regard this as a rural-urban issue, I apologise. That was certainly not my intention. If he recalls the response that I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey—and God knows where else—(Danny Alexander), he will recall that I emphasised the ability of retained and full-time firefighters to work together in his area and the importance of that.

Mike Penning: I thank the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that point. It is crucial that people reading and listening to this debate understand that retained and whole-time firefighters work together daily in rural and urban areas. The point I was trying to make to the hon. Member for Hendon is that the London fire service does not understand that; it never has and never will. I have stood by at stations whose personnel have been pulled into London and, on the way in, driven past retained stations whose personnel could have gone into London to help stand by. Regularly in my constituency, when the two pumps at the Hemel station are called out and detained at an incident, it is the retained firefighters who come out and stand by to protect my largest town and community. Retained firefighters are a crucial part of community spirit, and that is proved every day.

I pay tribute to the Retained Firefighters Union and the Fire Brigades Union, and I declare an interest because I was a member of the FBU for many years. The fire service was a closed shop in those days. I had no choice but to join, but I made sure that I stopped the donation to the Labour party that came from my dues to the FBU as soon as possible. However, it is crucial that the two unions work together on this and do not bury their heads in the sand. I hope that that will happen. For many years, the FBU was anti-retained firefighters to the extent that when I served in Essex, they locked firefighters out of the station when they arrived for stand by. I have seen it and I know that it happens—in certain parts of the country, it still takes place today. The unions need to work together as one national fire service.

In certain parts of the country, the system has worked well. We have four types of firefighters in this country: whole time—the type that we have in London—whole-time retained, day manning, and retained. The system is different from that in any other part of the world. We pay retained firefighters for their dedication—we give them a pension, and payment for the time that they commit to their community—and that is why they fall inside the ludicrous rule on the 48-hour week. The rest of Europe is not affected in the same way. Local community firefighters in the rest of Europe are just as dedicated as ours: they want to serve their community and they regularly go out to protect their community. However, they are classed as volunteers and only get expenses. They are therefore not classed as employed and are exempt from the directive. Our firefighters are not. Will the Minister explain why we do not have an exemption because of the special circumstances we have in relation to the different types of firefighters?

Those of us who have lived on the continent will have seen that ours is a better system. People should not be asked to put their lives on the line and not be paid for it. We should not have an “us and them” situation where whole-time firemen are paid and retained firemen working next to them on jobs are not paid. That is wrong and is something that should be dealt with. I would have thought that that was something the Labour party would understand and fight the cause for.

John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the vital points about the retained system is the level of first-class training that is given to the retained firefighters, which I have seen in my constituency at Invergordon? It is appropriate that retained firefighters are properly paid, so that they are properly committed to that training and deliver the excellence and professionalism he describes.

Mike Penning: I could not agree more. When I first served, in the early 1980s, it was horrible because the retained did not train with the regulars and no whole-time fireman was allowed to be a retained firefighter. That seemed ludicrous to me. When I left the Army and joined the fire service, I was a skilled professional and a huge amount of taxpayers’ money was being dedicated to my training, but I was not allowed to go and serve my community on my day off, as retained firemen were allowed to do. Fortunately, that has changed and we have developed whole-time manning stations—there is an excellent day manning station in Woodham Ferrers in Essex, where I used to stand by when I served. In my county, we are carefully considering day manning stations because they provide a better way for the fire service to serve the community.

I pay tribute to the fire services around the country that came to my constituency on 11 December 2005, when the largest explosion in this country since the second world war, and subsequently the largest fire, took place at the Buncefield oil depot. I was there with the firefighters for four days, and I never knew who was a retained fireman or who was a whole-time retained or a regular full-time fireman. Actually, that is not true. I did know because the London fire service wear silly pink uniforms these days, and I knew that they were whole time. I do not know why on earth they wear pink, but that was how we knew that they were London firemen. However, in terms of the job that they did on the ground, we did not know whether the firefighters were whole time, regulars or what. They came from all over the country. At the time, my mayor paid tribute to every single fire service, and they were invited back to a dedication ceremony.

That tells us about the situation of retained firefighters. During the debate, we have heard about the cost and what would happen if the retained service is undermined by the directive. I do not agree about the cost. We know what would happen: the communities would do it—they would do it like they do it in Europe.

I am not an expert on Scotland but, in my part of the world, we recently lost retained fire stations when the Government reconfigured the response times. Scotland could not have whole-time firefighters. The position would be as it was all those years ago, when the fire service started, when people rose up and established fire stations to protect their community. They did it because of their love for and belief in their fellow residents, but it would not be right to have to do that now.
If something is not broken, we should not destroy it. The current system works fantastically well. I simply do not understand why we must kowtow to comments such as, “No one should be forced to do more than a 48-hour week.” No retained firefighter is forced to do it; they do it for the love of their community and to protect their community, and such comments undermine their dedication to their community. I never, ever met a retained firefighter who came on shift and said, “I hate being here; I don’t want to be here.” They love it, because they are serving their community. If we allow that to be undermined by the ludicrous idea of people being told that they cannot work for their community because they happen to have done another job during the course of the day, it will be a sad day for this country.

10.10 am

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