My Lords, I am grateful for all the contributions to this relatively short debate. As I outlined in my opening remarks, the Government believe that these regulations are vital to ensure that there is sufficient cover to respond to fire and rescue-related emergencies on strike days. They will help protect the public and provide people who call 999 with reassurance that firefighters will be able to respond quickly to reduce the risk to life and property. Fires can spread quickly and present a serious threat to life and limb; it is vital that such services are available to the public during strike action. Demand for fire and rescue services fluctuates depending on the season, weather patterns and the time of day. As we saw in the tragic fire at Grenfell, without warning, fire can quickly spread, develop into a major incident and cause an unspeakable tragedy that will devastate a community.
I want to be clear that fire and rescue services perform a critical role in our society. It is only right that they respond to incidents that could pose an immediate risk to the public. I say to all noble Lords that we of course recognise the importance of the ability to strike, which is protected by law. We are striving to maintain a balance between the ability of workers to strike and the rights of the public to access the emergency services when they need them.
The noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Ponsonby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, emphasised that we are challenging the right to strike. I stress again that we are not banning the ability to strike. These regulations focus on maintaining fire and rescue services’ capacity to respond to emergency incidents that posed an immediate risk to the public. Fire and rescue services will be able temporarily to suspend more routine duties that they would normally carry out if such action were not taking place.
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The regulations require 73% of normal appliance cover to be provided; I will come back to the figure of 73% in a moment. It means that the staff not required to crew that proportion of appliances would be able to participate in strike action. We also anticipate that, in a number of services, the number of staff required to cover functions such as control rooms, national resilience and urgent fire safety issues is likely to be relatively small. It will be for individual employers to decide how many staff will be required to work in order to meet the minimum service level.
However, the primary legislation is clear that they must not include more workers than reasonably necessary to meet this level, and that they must consult with the striking union about the number of workers specified
and the work that they will be required to do. We cannot make apologies for setting the minimum service level for fire and rescue services at this threshold because, as I have said a number of times now, when a fire breaks out, it is important that the fire and rescue services attend the vast majority of incidents quickly as the risk of fire spreading and the risk to life cannot be assessed unless their skills are present.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, this does not diminish the pay bargaining process because minimum service levels have nothing to do with negotiations over pay and conditions. This is simply about public safety and ensuring that, when incidents occur on strike days, the public can be reassured that professional firefighters will be available to attend. There is a collective pay bargaining process led by the National Joint Council, which the Government do not participate in. The Government are not the employer and have no official role to play in pay negotiations. The Government are committed to ensuring that fire services have the resources that they need to keep the public safe.
It is important to talk about the role of the fire and rescue authority because it is down to local fire authorities to ensure that they can carry out their functions during a strike. In the past, the options for doing this have been limited—some have considered military support while others have recruited retired firefighters—but, now, authorities have the additional option of issuing work notices to staff who are planning to strike. At the heart of the primary legislation is the premise that the employer can choose not to issue work notices if they decide that services can be provided without doing so. We will be asking all fire and rescue authorities, along with their chief fire officers, to consider their business continuity plans for the future and encouraging them, in the strongest terms, to ensure that these plans give them the confidence to provide life-saving services.
What we are doing is not without precedent. Minimum service levels exist in a range of countries globally as a legitimate mechanism to balance the ability to strike with the needs of the public. The International Labour Organization, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, referred, recognises that this is justifiable for services where their interruption would endanger citizens’ lives, personal safety or health. We do not accept that these or other MSL regulations breach our international obligations. Disruption to fire and rescue services puts lives at immediate risk. We are not an international outlier; there is some international precedent for restricting firefighters’ ability to strike. For example, strike action by firefighters has been subject to restrictions in countries including Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Iceland and Portugal. Firefighters in the United States, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia are currently or have previously been prohibited from taking strike action.
Obviously, fire and rescue staff who work on strike days will be paid as normal. More broadly, any restriction on the ability of fire staff to strike is adequately counterbalanced by provisions in the existing national collective bargaining negotiating mechanisms for fire and rescue services. These mechanisms provide for mandatory and binding arbitration, which would usually follow conciliation, where either the employers or employees request it.
The regulations apply to firefighters so, as the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, noted, they can respond to emergency incidents as if it were a non-strike day. This level has been set following extensive deliberations and is intended to ensure that we can be as confident as possible in achieving our core aim: to deliver an improved life safety position by putting fire employers in a better position during strike action. It will apply to any fire and rescue services if its fire and rescue authority decides to issue work notices.
We held a public consultation, which ran for 13 weeks from February to May 2023. We invited views from operational and political leaders working in fire and rescue authorities, unions, staff groups, employees and people working within fire and rescue services, as well as the wider fire safety, public safety and protection sectors.
It may make sense to go into more detail on how the 73% modelling works. It is based on two data sources: fire and rescue service incident data covering the period between April 2018 and March 2023, and data on the average, daily business-as-usual availability of pumping appliances in the 12 months up to January 2023. The model calculates the proportion of days on which each fire and rescue service had more pumping appliances simultaneously mobilised than would be available under a minimum service level set at different percentages. This allows us to set the minimum service level at a threshold which would ensure that no single fire and rescue service is likely to be overwhelmed by anticipated demand on a strike day.
However, that does not mean that 73% of all firefighters will have to work on strike days. If a fire and rescue authority issues a work notice, the relevant fire and rescue service must be able to safely crew 73% of the appliances that would be available if no strike action were taking place. It would be for the individual employer to determine how many staff will be required to crew these appliances. The number of staff required will vary between fire and rescue services in light of local circumstances, risk profiles and approaches to the crewing of fire appliances. The primary legislation is clear that, when determining how many staff to include on a work notice, the employer must not include more staff than reasonably necessary for the purpose of providing the minimum service level.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked how the minimum service level will work in fire and rescue authority areas that have large numbers of on-call firefighters. Employers in those areas will have the flexibility to include on-call firefighters on work notices. Each fire and rescue authority will be able to determine the most appropriate mix of whole-time and on-call firefighters to include on each work notice in light of the workforce composition of their specific fire and rescue service and the availability of their on-call staff members.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, asked me about the application to control rooms. Control room staff are vital members of the fire and rescue service. They do not just answer emergency calls and mobilise fire appliances; they play a vital part in bringing incidents to successful conclusions through the use of their specialised call-handling techniques. This responsibility
makes it a highly skilled role. Without them, life-threatening 999 calls would be unanswered or delayed; callers in the most terrifying moments of their lives would not receive the life-saving advice that they need to stay alive; and fire appliances would not be dispatched.
The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, challenged me on fire safety. The Government have delivered a range of legislation that covers fire and building safety, including the Fire Safety Act, the Building Safety Act and various supporting regulations. This Government remain committed to measures that contrive to improve fire and building safety. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, that fire and rescue services have the resources that they need to do their important work. Fire and rescue authorities will receive around £2.6 billion in 2023-24, and stand-alone fire and rescue authorities will see an increase in their core spending power of £95.4 million 2024-25, which is an increase of 5.6% in cash terms compared to 2023-24. Decisions on how many firefighters are required and how their resources are best deployed to meet their core functions are a matter for each fire and rescue authority.
The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, asked about unions. Of course, we acknowledge that unions play an important role in the process, as is set out in the guidance of the Department for Business and Trade, published on 16 November 2023. We have invited the unions to be engaged in the production of further guidance that sets out how the policy can be operationalised, and the more detailed guidance is being developed in partnership with key stakeholders and will be available in due course.
In conclusion, we believe that these regulations are a positive and proportionate step to ensure that any strike action by the fire and rescue services does not put public safety at risk. For that reason, I commend them to the Committee.