8. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Social Partnership: Fire Service training and capacity to broaden the role

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:58 pm on 22 November 2022.

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Photo of Hannah Blythyn Hannah Blythyn Labour 4:58, 22 November 2022

Llywydd, I'll do my best to unravel that contribution from Joel James there. First and foremost, I'm not implying anything; this was a report from our chief fire and rescue adviser, and I have a duty to then respond to it when it raises things around training and safety. And we're not implying anything about individual office firefighters or actual stations, just that, actually, we need that evidence and information and to work collaboratively with the fire and rescue services and the representatives of the workforce to actually address some of those issues in the short term.

And with regards to the longer term, actually, the best way we can actually look at some of those longer term challenges—and I raised, in the statement, concerns around that—I know it affects Members in most places in Wales—a lot of us are heavily reliant on the RDS, the retained duty service, and we've seen, over the years, that change, and people's lifestyle has changed, the reliance on that has changed as well, and I think there is a real big job of work to do on that. And the reason for having this forum is not just to bring people together for the sake of it, but to actually realise that we can pool that expertise, that experience, and bring that together and get it right as well.

And the Member conflates a number of issues in his contribution there—I hesitate to say potentially deliberately, but this is entirely separate from any issues around industrial action or pay and conditions. This is an issue of firefighter training and safety, and that's why I thought it was my duty to bring it to Members today, to raise that, but also to say, actually—. It's an incredible privilege to be in this position, and to go out and see first-hand some of the activities that our firefighters undertake in the services across Wales. The point of this is, actually, we want to work collaboratively, we want to work together, but we do need the fire and rescue services to fully respond to the most recent report, so that we can actually get a clearer picture of what the challenges are in different places and make sure that we address them in a way that not only works for our incredible fire and rescue firefighters, but also for communities across Wales.