Press release

Office: 01634 243234

Janice Small 07889 927430

www.batleyandspenconservatives.com

Janice4Batley@aol.com

Janice Small for

Batley & Spen

West Yorkshire Fire Service under threat: 

New Euro rules will cut fire services and increase council tax bills – all this while assisting 38 obese people

Labour and Liberal Democrats vote for new red tape on local firefighters

“As the nation and the EU grows fatter, taxpayers will question our priorities leading up to the Euro elections” ……

Janice Small, Conservative Candidate for Batley and Spen, expressed concern today at new European Union regulations that could lead to cuts in Yorkshire’s fire services and force up council tax bills. The European Parliament, including local Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, Linda McAvan and Richard Corbett, have voted to impose new red tape through the EU Working Time Directive.

She has also revealed how West Yorkshire Fire services were called to assist with lifting 38 obese people at a cost of £87,000.

If the new EU rules go ahead, workers’ rights to opt-out from the working time rules will be abolished. Employers would have to ensure workers work no more than 48 hours a week. ‘On-call’ time in the workplace, even when inactive, would be counted as working time. This will have a devastating impact on retained (part-time, professional) fighters, who double up their fire work with other jobs. Many have pagers – on call in the event of emergencies.

This will cut the number of retained firefighters on active duty (especially in rural communities). There will be reduced local fire cover, response times will increase as firefighters have to come from further away, and more full-time firefighters will be needed – pushing up the fire levy on council tax bills. The Local Government Association and Chief Fire Officers’ Association have attacked the plans.

Currently, in West Yorkshire, there are 238 retained firefighter posts. Only 149 posts are filled, reflecting difficulties in recruiting them. Such shortages would worsen if Labour’s Euro-MPs get their way.

Janice said:

“Retained firefighters do a superb service to our community, helping tackle fires, floods and road accidents. I am very concerned at the effect of these new rules which would cut back workers’ rights to work when they choose.

“This red tape, backed by Labour MEPs, would cut local fire services, put lives at risk and force up council tax across Batley and Spen.  It is vital that the Government stands firm on this crucial issue. Labour MEPs need to be sent a message in the European elections that their failure to protect local fire services is not acceptable. Conservatives will stand up for Britain and our firefighters in the face of this new threat.

She added: “This is in addition to figures released this week that show firefighters in our area have been called out to assist in helping other services lift 38 obese people costing the taxpayer £87,000 (2004-2008).  As the nation and the EU grows fatter, taxpayers will question our priorities leading up to the Euro elections.”

Notes to Editors

EU THREAT TO LOCAL FIRE SERVICES

In 1993, the Conservative Government secured an opt-out from the Working Time Directive. Workers in the UK may currently derogate from the 48-hour limit on the working week.

A majority in the European Parliament has now voted to scrap this opt-out. They want any period of ‘on-call’ time, including ‘inactive’ time, to count as working time for the purposes of the directive. Compensatory rest would also have to be taken immediately.

Currently, retained firefighters’ ‘on-call’ periods are up to 120 hours a week, rostered over five days. A 48-hour maximum working week, including inactive time, would make it impossible for most retained firefighters to supplement their primary occupation in paid service to their communities.

The Local Government Association has warned: “The loss of the opt-out provision that currently exists would result in a reduction in the number of retained firefighters and would also see the need to increase the number of wholetime firefighters employed by FRAs [Fire and Rescue Authorities] to cover shifts.”

http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=1628758

The Chief Fire Officers’ Association have asserted that the Fire Service “could not function effectively” without retained firefighters.

http://www.hrfu.org.uk/pages/news/detail.asp?newsUID=100

LABOUR AND LIBERAL DEMOCRATS LET BRITAIN DOWN

In December 2008, a number of Labour and Liberal Democrat MEPs voted to scrap the ability to opt-out from the Directive. All Conservative Members of the European Parliament voted to maintain the UK’s opt-out.

Source: European Parliament Amendment 16 to the ‘common position’ agreed by the European Council on the working time directive, moved by the Socialist MEP, Alejandro Cercas, passed by 421 votes to 273; 17 December 2008.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2008-0615+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN

The following Labour MEPs voted to scrap the opt-out:

·              Richard Howitt – Eastern region

·              Glenis Willmott (then chief whip, now leader) - East Midlands

·              Mary Honeyball - London

·              Claude Moraes - London

·              Stephen Hughes - North East

·              Brian Simpson - North West

·              David Martin - Scotland

·              Catherine Stihler - Scotland

·              Peter Skinner - South East

·              Glyn Ford - South West

·              Eluned Morgan - Wales

·              Richard Corbett - Yorkshire

·              Linda McAvan - Yorkshire

One Labour MEP (Arlene McCArthy, North West) did not vote.

One Lib Dem MEP voted to scrap the opt-out: Elspeth Attwooll – Scotland.

LOCAL FIGURES

The table below shows how many retained firefighter posts there are currently, and the number of posts which are filled. Many fire services have difficulty recruiting retained firefighters – which will be even more acute under the new working time red tape.

Source: DCLG, Fire and Rescue Service: Operational Statistics Bulletin for England, December 2008.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/frsoperationalstats2007-08

* The Merseyside figures (with strength being larger than posts) are a reflection that retained fire fighters have only recently been introduced there.

Obese figures:

1.      Conservative Freedom of Information Act request

Conservatives asked all 44 fire authorities in England how many times in the past five years they were called out to assist other services in lifting obese patients and how many of these call outs were to assist the NHS.  Fire authorities were also asked whether they charge other services for assistance in lifting obese patients. 

We received responses from 37 fire authorities, a response rate of 84 per cent. 

2.      Fire authorities called in to assist with obese patients

Eight fire authorities either did not record this information or could not provide it within the cost limit for Freedom of Information Act request.  The table below shows the response for the years from 2004 to 2008 for those fire authorities that could provide data. 

The cost has been calculated using latest government figures for the average cost of fire and rescue service attendance at an incident: £2,289 (Hansard, 9 March 2009, Col.36WA). 

Most fire authorities did not charge other services for assistance with incidents.  However, there were some exceptions:

o        Lancashire fire authority charged £202.13 in 2008

o        South Yorkshire fire authority said charges were ‘discretionary’

o        Northumberland fire authority said: ‘NFRS have not charged for providing this assistance in the past; however there is now a facility under a newly introduced Bariatric Patient Policy to charge for non-emergency assistance and to refuse to attend if the Fire Service are not the best placed agency to deal with the request’.

o        London fire authority said: ‘Special service incidents are charged’.

o        Devon and Somerset fire authority said: ‘We do not currently charge for assisting with the moving of heavy people but if the incident is not of a life-threatening nature we do have the authority to make the incident a chargeable special service call (although we can not recall ever doing so).  The reason for this being that nursing homes or hospitals that make the request for our attendance should have adequate resources/procedures in place to deal with these situations without requesting the assistance of the FRS.’ 

o        Staffordshire fire authority said: ‘We have not yet instigated any charges for assistance to other emergency services including the NHS. Most of our requests come via the Ambulance Service. This decision is however under review since the ratio of requests for calls is increasing’.

o        Cleveland fire authority said: ‘We have only charged for 3 incidents and these were during 2005/06. Middlesbrough Borough Council (social services) were charged for two of them and Coast & Country Housing for the remaining one. They were all incidents within the person’s home address. The total collected in charges is £633.79’.

Many fire authorities provided examples of the type of incidents to which they were called:

1.      Labour’s failure on obesity

• Obesity Rising.  A quarter of adults and a sixth of children are now obese.  This is up from one in seven adults and one in ten children in 1993 (NHS Information Centre, 25 February 2009).  The UK now has more obese people than anywhere in the OECD except Mexico and the US (OECD Health Data 2008). 
• Labour’s missed targets on obesity.  In 1999, the Government abandoned the target set by the last Conservative Government in 1992 to reduce obesity to 6 per cent for men and 8 per cent for women. After two scathing reports – one by the Chief Medical Officer in May 2003 and another by the Health Committee in May 2004 – the Government set a new target in July 2004 to, ‘halt the year-on-year rise in obesity among children under 11 by 2010’.  In the Comprehensive Spending Review last year, the Government abandoned its 2004 target and published a new target on childhood obesity to reduce the proportion of overweight and obese children to 2000 levels by 2020. This target is incredibly ambitious given the Government has not yet managed to stall, let alone reverse, obesity levels to date.
• Government dithering on food labelling.  The Government’s strategy still fails to make a clear commitment on food labelling.  Since 2004, Conservatives have been calling for one system of food labelling: compulsory labels on the front of all packaged food showing what percentage of our recommended daily amount of calories, fats, sugar and salt a product contains, combined with ‘traffic lights’ for each of these items.   The European Commission is now also calling for this approach to be taken.  The Government’s strategy still only calls for a voluntary code of practice based on the ‘traffic light’ system.  On its own, this is flawed because it only assesses whether an item of food is good or bad food, when what matters is whether a diet is good or bad. 
• Britain could be a ‘mainly obese society’ by 2050.  The Foresight reported also predicted: ‘The prevalence of obesity has more than doubled in the last 25 years in the UK. In England, nearly a quarter of adults and about 10% of children are now obese, with a further 20–25% of children overweight (see Section 2). Foresight’s extrapolations suggest that we can anticipate some 40% of Britons being obese by 2025. By 2050, Britain could be a mainly obese society’ (Ibid).
• Over 1 million prescriptions of obesity drugs.  In 2007, 1.23 million prescription items were dispensed for the treatment of obesity compared to 0.13 million items in 1999. Between 2006 and 2007, the number of items dispensed for the treatment of obesity increased by 16 per cent.  Last year prescriptions of obesity drugs hit 1.2 million, up from just 39,000 in 1998).  2,724 people were given surgery for obesity in 2007-08, up from 140 in 1997-98 ((NHS Information Centre, 25 February 2009; Hansard, 26 November 2008, Col.2112WA). 
• NHS spending on equipment to treat obese patients.   NHS trusts have spent £44.8 million on specialist equipment for obese people in recent years.  This includes £7.4 million spent on specialist ambulances to transport obese patients, £21.4 million spent on reinforced beds for obese patients and £11 million on specialist operating tables for obese patients (Conservative Party Freedom of Information Act request, November 2008). 

2.      Labour’s failure to prioritise public health

• Public Health Given Low Priority.  Sir Derek Wanless’s 2007 NHS Review found that it is ‘indicative of the relatively low priority given to public health that, while non-public health medical staff numbers have increased by nearly 60 per cent since 1997, the number of public health consultants and registrars has gone down overall’ (The King’s Fund, Our Future Health Secured?, September 2007).
• Raiding of public health budgets under Gordon Brown ‘unacceptable’.  The Health Select Committee said in the conclusions of its inquiry into NHS Deficits: ‘Soft targets such as mental health and public health services have also suffered as has funding for voluntary organisations. We believe this to be unacceptable’ (NHS Deficits, 13 December 2006).

3.      Conservative approach to public health

On 16 March 2007, we announced the legislative side of our public health strategy to make prevention a priority:

·                     A strengthened Chief Medical Officer’s department, made more independent of ministers. The Department would advise the Secretary of State for Health, who would be responsible (rather than a junior minister, as now) for public health, on the steps he or she would need to take to tackle today’s epidemics of obesity, alcohol abuse and sexually-transmitted disease.

·                     A robust public health infrastructure, which would see local Directors of Public Health – jointly appointed by PCTs and local authorities – determine how funding for public health services would be spent. These Directors of Public Health would be better placed to make effective interventions across the health, local government, education and social housing sectors.

·                     Independent public health budgets. At present, budgets for public health interventions are largely channelled through PCTs. With PCTs either in deficit or being asked to support hospitals in deficit, most of these budgets have been raided. Over time, these budgets should be taken from PCTs and spent through our new public health structure, rather than through traditional NHS bodies whose focus is on acute and community services.

Responsibility deal with business

Earlier this year, the Conservative Party set out the concept of a ‘Responsibility Deal’ – of how, instead of the constant and escalating resort to legislation and regulation and public sector intervention, we should instead enter into a non-bureaucratic partnership with the business community, together to tackle key challenges in society.

On Wednesday 27 August, Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley launched the Conservative Party’s plans for a responsibility deal with business on public health.  He invited Dave Lewis, Chairman of Unilever UK, to chair a working group of business representatives, voluntary groups and experts. Our proposals for the responsibility deal include: supporting EU proposals for a mandatory GDA-based front of pack food labelling; Industry-led reformulation initiatives and reduction of portion sizes; proportionate regulation on advertising and positive campaigns from the industry and government to promote better diets; a responsible drinking campaign matched by community action projects to address drug abuse, STIs and alcohol abuse, using a proportion of drinks industry advertising budgets and supported by the Government; and incentives and a local structure, through business organisations, for SMEs to improve the health of their employees, working with business organisations, “NHS Plus” and the Fitness Industry Association.