Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Fire and Rescue Services) (England) Regulations 2024

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Fire and Rescue Services) (England) Regulations 2024.

My Lords, these regulations were laid before Parliament on 8 February, following publication of the department’s response to its consultation on implementing minimum service levels for fire and rescue services. Before we get into the detail, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to all those who work in fire and rescue services: for all that they do, I am extremely grateful.

The services provided by fire and rescue authorities are critical to the safety of the public and the protection of property and the environment. It is therefore crucial that the public remain able to access fire and rescue services when they need them. The overarching aim of these regulations is to help ensure that this happens on strike days. Using powers introduced by the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023, the regulations will allow fire and rescue authorities to issue work notices to ensure that there is sufficient cover to answer all emergency calls and respond to fire-related emergencies as if strike action was not taking place.

The minimum service level for fire and rescue services includes three core aspects. These are control rooms, emergency incident response and fire safety services. Broadly speaking, the responses to the Government’s consultation, including those from the majority of fire and rescue services, were in favour of a nationally set minimum service level, but with a degree of local flexibility. This is reflected in the provisions set out in the regulations.

For control rooms, the minimum service level makes sure that emergency calls are answered and assessed, and resources dispatched to emergency incidents, as if it were a non-strike day. Decisions on the number of staff required to fulfil these functions will be for individual fire and rescue authorities to take.

For firefighters, we have set the minimum service level at 73% of the appliances—by which I mean fire engines and other fire and rescue service vehicles—that would be available if strike action were not taking place at that time. Individual fire and rescue authorities will be able to determine the number of staff required to safely crew and oversee these appliances.

The decision to set this aspect of the minimum service level at 73% is based on detailed modelling, summarised in our consultation response. The modelling calculates the proportion of days over the past five years on which demand exceeded the number of appliances required to meet a minimum service level set at different thresholds. The model identified 73% as the threshold at which every fire and rescue service would have enough appliances available to meet emergency demand on more than 97% of days. In the interests of public safety, we therefore consider 73% the most appropriate point at which to set this aspect of the minimum service level.

Many fire and rescue services also host national resilience assets, which would form an important part of any response to major and significant incidents, such as a major building collapse or a wildfire. It is of the utmost importance that fire and rescue services can maintain these capabilities and keep the public safe. This is why the minimum service level for national resilience assets is set so that they are capable of being deployed as if the strike were not taking place. Like other provisions in the regulations, fire and rescue authorities will consult trade unions and determine the number of staff required to meet this minimum service level.

My Lords, in the debate on the strikes/minimum service legislation and the regulations made under it, the rationale for the right to strike sometimes gets overlooked. I will cite for your Lordships three very short passages, not from Marx and Engels or Sidney and Beatrice Webb but from the highest courts in the United Kingdom and Canada.

First, I cite a case of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords from 1942, Crofter Hand Woven Harris Tweed v Veitch, in which Lord Wright said:

“Where the rights of labour are concerned the rights of the employer are conditioned by the rights of men to give or withhold their services. The right of workmen to strike is an essential element in the principle of collective bargaining”.

The second authority that I want to put before your Lordships is a case in the Supreme Court of Canada from 2015, Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v Saskatchewan. In it, the Chief Justice cited an earlier case in the Ontario High Court, with approval, in which it was said that

“freedom of association contains a sanction that can convince an employer to recognize the workers’ representatives and bargain effectively with them. That sanction is the freedom to strike. By the exercise of that freedom the workers, through their union, have the power to convince an employer to recognize the union and to bargain with it … If that sanction is removed the freedom is valueless because there is no effective means to force an employer to recognize the workers’ representatives and bargain with them. When that happens the raison d’être for workers to organize themselves into a union is gone. Thus I think that the removal of the freedom to strike renders the freedom to organize a hollow thing”.

Finally, in a later passage, the Chief Justice said:

“The right to strike is essential to realizing these values and objectives through a collective bargaining process because it permits workers to withdraw their labour in concert when collective bargaining reaches an impasse. Through a strike, workers come together to participate directly in the process of determining their wages, working conditions and the rules that will govern their working lives … The ability to strike thereby allows workers, through collective action, to refuse to work under imposed terms and conditions. This collective action at the moment of impasse is an affirmation of the dignity and autonomy of employees in their working lives”.

My Lords, I declare an interest as London’s deputy mayor for fire and resilience. However, I am speaking in my capacity as a Member of your Lordships’ House.

I have had the privilege and pleasure of over a decade’s involvement in the fire service. Until last summer, this has included being involved with the collective bargaining referred to by my noble friend Lord Hendy, as a member of the national pay negotiating body for fire, the National Joint Council—NJC—which is made up of employers and employees, including the FBU. The NJC is a negotiating body that successfully negotiated a two-year agreement on pay last year, in stark contrast to the Government’s many failures in negotiations in other parts of the public sector. The Government’s failure to negotiate successfully is not a good enough reason to introduce unreasonably restrictive legislation. On these Benches, we are committed to repealing these measures.

Over the past few years, we have had a number of Home Secretaries and Fire Ministers. We have had consultation on fire reform and assurance after assurance from Ministers that there was no intention to ban firefighters taking strike action. However, it is patently clear that this is fundamentally what this Government intend to do through this action.

The recent correspondence to employers from the Home Office, in effect, sets the bar at 73%—so high that it renders strike action virtually impossible. The Minister quoted the Home Office view that provision on strike days should be as if it were not a strike day. This is an Alice in Wonderland use of language as it is, in effect, a ban on strikes. In some cases, it probably sets the level of service higher than some fire and rescue services, particularly those reliant on retained or on-call firefighters, have on a normal working day.

Can the Minister say how the Government arrived at the figures sent out to fire and rescue services? What soundings were taken from the National Fire Chiefs Council and from the main fire union—the FBU—other fire unions and employers’ representatives, through the Local Government Association or the NJC? Have the Government tested the level set against service levels on any other day of the year? How is the Home Office going to manage a situation in which on-call firefighters have no legal requirement to work, but the minimum service level legislation suggests that they might have to in a strike situation? Given that there is already a crisis in recruiting and retaining on-call firefighters, what impact assessment has the Home Office undertaken to ensure that this does not exacerbate it?

The Government clearly believe that the solution to their failure to negotiate, and their apparent deep hatred and misunderstanding of the trade union movement, is restrictive, regressive legislation. In the case of fire, there has not been a national strike over pay for more than 20 years and the pension strike, in the last decade, was triggered by the Government’s own heavy-handedness.

During the pension dispute, I had the opportunity to speak to firefighters on the picket line. No firefighter or trade union official I spoke to at that time took the decision to strike lightly. No firefighter actually wants to go on strike; no union wants its members to lose pay. Firefighters do their job because of their sense of public duty. Part of the contingency arrangements in London, as in other parts of the country, is a recall agreement in the event of major incidents of the type that the Minister described. The picket lines outside fire stations, and an understanding that firefighters will leave picket lines in extreme circumstances, are central to this. This is similar to the derogation arrangements for the ambulance services last winter, which, in London, included having union officials in the London Ambulance Service control centre to ensure transparency and ease of discussion over decision-making in relation to major incidents.

These arrangements are born of good industrial relations and of respect. The Government’s lack of understanding of the value of good industrial relations has led them to introduce the anti-strike legislation we are discussing today. This is Victorian legislation from another era, out of touch with public opinion. It would damage rather than enhance public safety, by setting employers against employees. I am not naive enough to believe that the Minister will do anything other than defend the Government’s position, but I ask that he answers the questions put during this debate.

My Lords, I speak on this minimum service level agreement from a unique position: I spent 25 years working for British Gas and was a GMB union negotiator for 35,000 gas workers. Roll on to when I was in local government; I was on the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service for 15 years and on the NJC that dealt with the FBU on national pay negotiations. In both those exercises, as poacher and gamekeeper, even in the bitterest disputes, one thing was certain: public safety was the primary concern of the gas industry and the Fire Brigades Union.

Introducing minimum strike levels is a sign of desperation from the Government. I have seen minimum strike levels—I think they are in the railways now, are they not? The difference between railwaymen and fire- fighters is that firefighters, as has been said, are vocational; they do this from the heart, as well as doing it as a job. I have been at Euston station, where there are supposed to be minimum service levels for trains and train drivers, and seen hundreds of people trying to get home to Cardiff, Manchester and Glasgow while there are picket lines outside. With the FBU, whenever there is a fire, the fire brigade turns out and puts it out whether it be Grenfell, the Woolworth fire or Kings Cross.

As a party, the Liberal Democrats take the view that fire safety is extremely serious. We continually emphasise the ongoing importance of the victims of disasters and want to ensure the safety of the public against the risk of fire. However, the main threat to the fire and rescue service comes not from this agreement but from central government’s cuts to the fire service. It is being expected to do more and more with less and less. Having had 20% cuts in real terms since 2013 means that all fire authorities are struggling to meet their budgets. If you talk to people from Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Tyneside, Yorkshire and the West Midlands, along with London, Cleveland and Humberside, they will all say that they will receive slightly more this year but that inflation has removed all the benefits. So fire brigades are trying to do more with less, and the Government want more from that.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument and join him in paying tribute to all those who work in this area.

As the Minister said, on 8 February this year, the Government published their minimum service levels for fire and rescue services in England. These new laws will restrict the ability of firefighters and emergency control staff to take lawful strike action. We believe that the new laws are unnecessary. The FBU has always negotiated a major incidents agreement with fire employers before national strikes. Last year, collective bargaining between the FBU and fire employers meant that there were no fire strikes. An acceptable pay agreement was reached and endorsed by the firefighters.

The minimum service level regulations state that fire and rescue control rooms must function during industrial action as if it were a non-strike day. All calls have to be answered, assessed and a response mobilised. Requiring the same standards as a non-strike day is in effect a ban on control staff taking industrial action, despite repeated assurances that it is not a strike ban.

The regulations for minimum service levels of firefighting functions dictate that 73% of appliances usually deployable on a non-strike day must be deployable on days when industrial action is taking place. My noble friend Lord Hendy gave the example of his local fire station, which has three appliances, so it is in effect a strike ban on that station. How many firefighters will be forced to work if a work notice is issued? What is to stop chief fire officers abusing the work notice and forcing all firefighters to work? Ministers have failed to explain how work notices will affect retained firefighters since retained firefighters cannot be compelled to work on strike days; I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that.

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.

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.