Fire Services (Hertfordshire)

My officials are currently going through the report thoroughly, as am I. As soon as we are in a position to respond to it, we will. I have spoken to the general secretary of the FBU once, and will be speaking to him again this week. As soon as I make progress, I undertake to alert the usual channels and the hon. Gentleman about the time lines involved. It was worth the hon. Gentleman’s raising the matter, and I will not resist his chasing me up every few weeks to see what our response will be. That chivvying is right and proper, especially in discussing such matters. We have spent more than £7.5 million on work force development projects, to provide training programmes and e-learning facilities and to establish a centre for leadership for the fire and rescue service. I cannot end without mentioning FiReControl—I do not think that the hon. Member for Peterborough would forgive me. He is right that there is a £1 billion fire and resilience programme for England’s fire and rescue services, and I believe that the case for a new national network of control services to handle emergency fire calls is clear. Every area and every constituency in England will benefit from enhanced resilience. Under FiReControl, eight key capabilities will be provided to each and every fire and rescue service, ranging from automatic caller location from land lines and mobiles to real-time information on the location of the resources out on the road and in-cab computers for firefighters, loaded with vital safety information. The hon. Member for St. Albans claimed that no one in Hertfordshire wants that, but that is not the case. Only 10 of the current 46 control rooms have six or more of those eight capabilities, and only two have all eight. They will benefit from being part of a national network that, unlike the present system, can back them up and deploy the right response if they get extremely busy. Floods have been mentioned. During last year’s floods, we all saw the magnificent response of the professionals in the fire and rescue service and the other emergency services. We saw what a brilliant and professional job they did in tough circumstances. It brought home to me and to many others, including our independent adviser Sir Ken Knight in his report on the floods, the need for a national network able to respond to local, regional and national incidents. In short, the need to give the fire and rescue service the tools to face 21st-century challenges such as climate change and the treat of terrorism supports the need for FiReControl. The fire and rescue service has undergone a period of unprecedented modernisation and change since 2003. It has risen to the challenges admirably, and I believe that it will continue to do so. I welcome the opportunities of my new role as the fire service Minister, and I shall continue to work with the service. I once again congratulate the hon. Member for St. Albans and thank her for raising important issues. If there is any point to which she does not think I have done justice, I ask her to get in touch and I will respond by letter.