Untitled Document

Covering the Shire Counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, including Luton, Peterborough, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock.

ANDuff

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Andrew

FIGHTING FIRES

With many of Britain's public services in steep decline, the agendas of all the party conferences this year were filled with urgent resolutions to tackle the crisis. The Liberal Democrats have championed the cause of high quality public services for many years, arguing for more public funding to bring UK standards of fire service, police, transport, health and education up to those found in mainland Europe. We alone were bold enough to argue for tax increases during several election campaigns. Now Gordon Brown has adopted our approach, and public spending will be up by 3 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of this Parliament.

Now the firemen are going on strike. The country is facing a national emergency in the face of the government's refusal to concede the 40 per cent pay increase sought by the Fire Brigades Union. There is no doubt that our firefighters deserve a better deal. But the public will not support such a large pay rise, and the government can hardly afford to meet it. What is needed now is an independent review of the terms and conditions of firefighters' employment. This review should compare the situation in the UK with that of our EU partners. It would find on mainland Europe a much more decentralised system of fire service than we have in this country, with firefighters enjoying more generous basic conditions of work and pay.

Liberal Democrats would welcome more local decision making over fire services as with schools and hospitals, and a reverse of the centralising trend of Whitehall. In Britain some 78 per cent of taxation is raised centrally, compared with 44 per cent in France. Ministers talk a lot about decentralisation, but they mean decentralising management responsibility for endless targets decided by ministers. They have to be made to let go of the purse strings too.

It is true that local choices would mean differing standards above a nationally agreed minimum. But the present system produces wide and accidental variations in standards too. This is not surprising in a centrally planned and controlled NHS that employs nearly one million people, or even a centrally run fire services with over 50,000 state employees in one trade union.

In this context, the debate about whether services should be publicly or privately provided has become sterile. Government will have to rely on both. Reform of the British state must start with democratic decision-making on a human scale. We should be able to sack the politicians if they mismanage our local schools and hospitals - or let our homes burn down.

Andrew Duff is the Liberal Democrat MEP for the East of England. He can be contacted at Orwell House, Cowley Road, Cambridge CB4 0PP or at www.andrewduffmep.org.