Westminster Hall Debate - Retained Firefighters

Debate

11-Feb-2009

Mr. Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (LD): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and join him in his tribute to the retained fire service as well as to full-time fire and rescue servicemen and women. They are essential to all our communities.

In hundreds of square miles in south-east Scotland, only two stations have full-time crews, each of which is backed up by a retained service. The number of call-outs for the vastly different smaller stations can range from 40 to 200 in a single year. Does my hon. Friend agree that that hints that we need as much flexibility as possible, and that we need to get out from under the strictures that the directive would enforce?

Mr. Carmichael: I could not agree more. My hon. Friend is right to emphasise the importance of the retained service in working alongside the full-time service, which it does very effectively in the bulk of the areas of which we have experience. He also used the word “flexibility”. That is key. The retained duty system offers all of us, in communities urban and rural, an extra degree of flexibility. If we lose that, we will lose a lot.

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