4. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services: Reform of Fire and Rescue Authorities' Governance and Finance Arrangements

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:37 pm on 13 November 2018.

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Photo of David Lloyd David Lloyd Plaid Cymru 3:37, 13 November 2018

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Before I start, actually, it's entirely right that you are in the chair for this statement, DPO, being as you are the inspiration behind the fire sprinklers legislation, and it is right that we acknowledge that once again.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary also for his statement and welcome the production of this White Paper? It is right that we pay tribute to firefighters—we are rightly proud of them and all their rescue services. They rightly, as is always said, put their bodies on the line. And as is mentioned, there are other growing challenges too—people are living longer, as the Cabinet Secretary mentioned. And, yes, certainly in the community and primary care, we are keeping people at home now who we didn't use to keep at home. Routinely, we have very frail 80 and 90-year-old people living alone, and that is a particular challenge, and it's a challenge that, from time to time, I'm in conversation with fire colleagues as to how to address those challenges. So, certainly, the field is changing, with more emphasis on prevention work, as the number of fires, as we've heard, reduce. In fact, that's become obvious when you look at the Welsh cartoon involving that scion of the firefighting community, Sam Tân—firefighter Sam. Obviously, I'm watching these videos now with my grandson and they are entirely different videos to the ones I was watching a generation ago with my children, involving that accident-prone community of Pontypandy—far more emphasis on prevention these days, and the expanded role of the fire services generally, which is to be welcomed, naturally.

Now, in 1999, only one of the 999 services was devolved to this Assembly. By 2005, the second 999 service was devolved, and that was the fire service. We still await further devolution of 999 services like the police. So, I welcome the Cabinet Secretary's comments about not devolving any control of the fire services to the police, certainly, who remain not devolved at the moment. So, I do welcome those comments. But, in terms of consistency, would the Cabinet Secretary agree with me in terms of—? I realise you've put your proposals, but you also said it's a White Paper, so you're entertaining other opinions. In terms of co-working between the different 999 services, how do you feel that consistency of boundaries and consistency of the means of funding the different 999 services would this help co-working and co-location of emergency responses to all of the 999 emergency services? 

Talking about your White Paper, on the second page, you've set out some proposals here. Have you got a preliminary idea of what the response of the fire and rescue authorities is to your proposed reforms? Plainly, we still remember that you had a little local difficulty recently, with regard to reforming local authorities. Have you had any indication of how fire and rescue authorities view these plans, because, obviously, we wouldn't want any danger of a rerun of that debacle, would we? Thank you.