There are now less than half as many fires as there were in 2005, and residential fires, which account for most fire deaths and injuries, are at or close to an all-time low. Whilst this has inevitably reduced the emergency response workload for firefighters in this respect, firefighters still need to be able to respond to any fire or other incident at any time, and a major emergency can still require all available resources across a wide area. So, while there have been some modest reductions in firefighter numbers over the past 10 to 15 years, they are nowhere near as great as the reduction in the number of fires. This, though, creates clear potential for the service to do more, and, in particular, to support our NHS.  Firefighters already have many of the skills and resources needed for this, and there is strong evidence that this would secure both improved health outcomes and significant savings. In Mid and West Wales, for instance, firefighters from over 20 stations routinely respond to medical incidents in support of the ambulance service. They have saved the lives of hundreds of patients and improved the outcomes for many more.  

The long-term aim has been and remains to realise this potential. In March 2021, I made a joint statement with the then Minister for Health and Social Services setting out this vision and describing a broader role for the fire and rescue services. It had three main elements: emergency medical response to cases where speed is critical to survival, such as cardiac arrest; responding to uninjured fallers, who are not a top priority for the ambulance service but whose condition can quickly deteriorate; and preventing falls and other accidents in the home.

To give me assurance that this could be safely realised, our chief fire and rescue adviser, Dan Stephens, undertook a review in late 2021 of the scope that the service has to take on a broader role. His review concluded that such capability existed, but that changes to working practices were needed to realise it safely. In particular, much of the capacity arose during the whole-time night shift, when firefighters are rarely involved in emergency response and are permitted to rest or sleep if they are not, whilst evidence shows that most medical emergencies occur during the day.

More immediately troubling was that, during this review, the chief fire and rescue adviser found evidence that changes were needed anyway, as firefighters were not spending enough time undertaking activities to reduce the likelihood of fire or in training to ensure their skills were fully maintained. Any shortcomings in training are particularly concerning. Firefighting is a highly complex profession, requiring mastery of a wide range of processes, tactics and equipment, and full understanding of the hazards present at a fire or other incident. If firefighters are not supported to be appropriately trained, they cannot work safely, which jeopardises their own safety and those they are called upon to protect. And as is the case that, naturally, skills will deteriorate if not used regularly, the decline in the incidence of fire reinforces the need for regular, high-quality training.

As a consequence, the chief fire and rescue adviser undertook a further detailed review of firefighter training, which was published last month. This found several potentially serious issues, such as a lack of access to realistic training facilities and undue reliance on low-ranking officers—through no fault of their own—who may have no background in training. Most concerning, the chief fire and rescue adviser made an interim recommendation last March that our three fire and rescue services should urgently establish how much training time is needed, yet none of them has made a serious attempt to do so. I therefore wrote to the chairs of the fire and rescue authorities on 6 October, urging them to accept and act on these recommendations without delay. I was pleased that the north Wales fire and rescue authority did so and set out in their detailed response a comprehensive programme to identify and address any shortcomings. I would urge this example to be followed by the others.

There are three basic reasons why action is needed. Firstly, firefighting has become much more complex in recent years due to advances in technology, expansions of the service's role—for instance, to include floods and road accidents—and changes to building materials and contents. Yet the service's working practices and available training time are largely unchanged since the 1970s. Secondly, there are particular concerns around retained or on-call firefighters, who make up most of the workforce and cover the great majority of Wales. They only have access to two or three hours training per week—a small fraction of their whole-time colleagues—yet they must maintain the same skills to the same level. That risks asking too much of these hugely dedicated crews. There are wider and long-term issues around the sustainability of the retained duty system, and we will work in partnership with employers and trade unions to address this. But the problems around training are an immediate concern.

Thirdly, and most importantly, these are not just technical or hypothetical risks; they place firefighters and the public in obvious danger. Training deficiencies have been implicated in almost all firefighter fatalities in the UK for the past 25 years, and in the tragic loss of life at Grenfell Tower and elsewhere. I am not prepared to wait for tragedy to trigger action here. Whilst we remain committed to a broader role for firefighters, we cannot ask firefighters to take on additional responsibilities while there are concerns about the safety of existing practices and training. We will return to that objective once we have full assurance around these issues. We now expect the employers to fully address these issues robustly and urgently, something that I am sure Members would agree with. To fail to do so would not be the actions of a responsible employer. The Welsh Government is clear that action is needed on firefighter training, and we will take appropriate action to ensure that happens.

Ensuring the safety of the workforce is among the most important duties of any employer, and a key component of social partnership. That is especially so for firefighting, which is inherently dangerous and which also involves direct protection of the public. Therefore, it is my intention to establish a social partnership forum for fire and rescue services, which will involve both employers and trade unions in tackling these and other issues collaboratively, and will meet for the first time early next year. In the shorter term, the very real concerns around training need to be addressed, but the forum will provide us with a platform in the longer term to work together to support and sustain our fire and rescue services and those who provide them.