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Phil Hope: That is entirely the purpose of the clause: to ensure that the current pension arrangements provided by the Fireman's Pensions Scheme Order 1992, which was made under section 26 of the 1947 Act, can continue in operation despite the repeal of the Act.
Mr. Hammond: Surely the point is that an order under the Bill cannot be made until the Bill is enacted. Does that not mean that the 1947 Act will have ceased to have effect?
Phil Hope: The commencement of the Act is also by order and that includes the repeal of the 1947 Act, so both measures would happen simultaneously.
Mr. Hammond: The Under-Secretary must not get exasperated if we pursue the matter by question and answer. Is he saying that the provisions for commencement allow clause 35 to come into force before the clause that causes the 1947 Act to cease to have effect? That may be the solution: clause 35 comes into effect first and an order under it is made; and later, separately, the clause that causes the 1947 Act to cease to have effect comes into effect. Is that what the Under-Secretary is telling us?
Phil Hope: I refer the hon. Gentleman to clause 58, which makes it clear that parts 1 to 6 come into force in accordance with provision made by the Secretary of State by order. That clause allows us to introduce both measures in a way that does not risk a lacuna, as he describes it.
The clause would allow the pension scheme to be modified, if we so wished; I have described the arrangements for public consultation. It would also allow for the name of the scheme to be altered. Although it is normally called ''the firefighters pension
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scheme'', the terms of the 1947 Act require it to be called in any statutory order ''the firemen's pension scheme''—something that is, frankly, out of date.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 36
Prohibition on employment of police
Mr. Hammond: I beg to move amendment No. 152, in
clause 36, page 17, line 36, at end insert 'as a fire-fighter'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 123, in
Mr. Hammond: Amendment No. 152 would insert the words ''as a fire-fighter'' after the phrase:
''No member of a police force may be employed by a fire and rescue authority''.
The original purpose of the provision in the 1947 Act, as I understand it, was to prevent police constables from being employed as retained firefighters on the slightly curious grounds that such employment might give rise to confusion at the scene of a fire. I am sure that the Under-Secretary will be able to give a robust defence of that and say how such confusion might come about, although it seems to me that the matter could be dealt with relatively easily. However, I suspect that the employment of police constables as retained firefighters is not at the leading edge of most fire authorities' plans for resolving the retained firefighter crisis, given that there is plenty of work to be done in police forces up and down the country.
Mr. Raynsford: There are record numbers of police.
Mr. Hammond: The Minister of State should come to some of the counties outside the metropolitan areas.
The Chairman: Order. We are talking about firemen, not police numbers.
Mr. Hammond: I was looking forward to exploring whether there is a pool of surplus labour in police forces, meaning that police officers could be deployed as retained firefighters to deal with the obvious crisis in that area, but we will leave that for the moment.
The Under-Secretary might be able to explain to the Committee the original purpose of the ban. It is clear that it was about clashes or confusion relating to operational control at a fire scene. The point has been made—I am sure that it has been made to Ministers as well—that in the future, when fire and rescue authorities will have a much broader role and employ all sorts of people who are not operational firefighters, it will no longer be appropriate automatically to exclude members of the police force from employment in some other role. They could perform a support role
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or provide specialist input. Not only that, but there seems to be no operational reason to exclude such people.
Mr. Swire: I totally agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. Is not the logical extension that, as police forces continue to employ more and more civilians and community support officers, there will be some people in back-up jobs who will be able to support the fire and rescue services without being front-line firefighters?
Mr. Hammond: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There will certainly be employees of police forces. There may be a distinction between being a member of a police force—I suspect that that means being a constable—and being an employee of a police authority. The Under-Secretary will clarify that point. I see no obvious reason why, in the 21st century, a police officer performing his duties might not take part-time employment with a fire and rescue authority in a non-operational role.
There may well be police regulations that restrict police officers from taking part-time employment elsewhere. I am not an expert on that. However, that is clearly a separate issue and nothing to do with the provision in the Bill. That simply replicates what was in the 1947 Act, which might have been appropriate in a world in which, for all relevant purposes, the employees of fire authorities were firefighters.
Dr. John Pugh (Southport) (LD): I have two points, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be able to satisfy me on both. If a policeman is working for a fire authority, he is an off-duty policeman. I think that an off-duty policeman may have some residual responsibilities that he must discharge, so there could be a conflict between what the fire authority was asking him to do and what the police authority was asking him to do. Equally, in an emergency, the police authority and the fire authority may simultaneously call on him to go on duty. Which master should he obey? The situation seems confusing if the proviso is not included.
10.15 am
Mr. Hammond: I do not entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. What he says may have some force in general with regard to police officers taking on other duties and employment. That is a separate issue. It is a matter of police discipline and regulations. I do not believe that non-operational roles as an employee of a fire authority are different from non-operational roles as an employee of an education authority or a supermarket chain. The issues that he raised will arise in any employment.
Mr. Raynsford indicated dissent.
Mr. Hammond: The Minister of State shakes his head, but non-operational duties as an employee of a fire and rescue authority are not different in character from non-operational duties as an employee of any other body. There is no reason why, if someone is
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sitting behind a desk and reading and commenting on a report, or looking at a forensic analysis of a fire scene, that will cause conflict with his other duties.
Dr. Pugh: The hon. Gentleman must recognise that there is a qualitative difference between one's responsibility as an employee of Tesco, say, and one's responsibility to Her Majesty as a member of the constabulary.
Mr. Raynsford indicated assent.
Mr. Hammond: The Minister of State must not keep encouraging the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) from a sedentary position.
Phil Hope: The hon. Member for Southport is right.
Mr. Hammond: Self-evidently, what the hon. Gentleman said is right, but it is not relevant. The relevant contrast is not between employment as a member of a police force and employment by Tesco, but between employment as a civilian, non-operational employee of a fire and rescue authority and employment by Tesco. It does not seem to me at all self-evident that there is a qualitative difference between those two. Of course, police officers have a particular standing, whether they are on or off duty. I would accept it entirely if the Under-Secretary were to say that it is all academic because police regulations and employment codes prevent police officers from working in certain circumstances, but then there is no need to put it in the Bill. Will he explain why, from a fire and rescue perspective, it is undesirable for police officers to work part-time in non-operational roles and why the restriction should extend beyond that—I understand the reason for extending it to firefighters?
Amendment No. 123 is a probing amendment. Can the Under-Secretary assure me that nothing in the clause would prevent a fire and rescue authority, if it wanted to, contracting with a police authority to discharge some of its duties in respect of road traffic accidents? That might be required on some occasions, particularly in sparsely populated areas, but clearly the police officers would not become employees of the fire and rescue authority. However, it would be helpful if he placed that on the record for clarification.
Phil Hope: Amendments Nos. 152 and 123 have been helpful in provoking the debate, but I assure the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge that they are unnecessary.
The clause is designed to prevent a member of a police force from being employed also by a fire and rescue authority, most probably as a retained firefighter, where there would be a conflict of interest between their duties as a firefighter, or in any other emergency role undertaken by the fire and rescue services, and as a police constable. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to pursue the point, because a member of a police force is someone attested as a constable, and the clause would not apply to any other police employee. Therefore, I agree with both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Southport. The
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clause would not apply to special constables, for example, even though attested as constables, or to community support officers, whom the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) mentioned, who are civilian staff with limited powers.
We retain the important provision preventing that conflict of interest. Constables cannot act as retained firefighters, but we allow other employees of the police authority to take on those roles if they wish.
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