Markyate Monthly Article, February 2009

Parliamentary Diary - Retained Firefighters debate

I took part in a debate on Wednesday (11th Feb) about possible changes to the hours that retained firefighters are permitted to work. As a former fireman myself, I have a keen interest in this issue. Also this could have a real impact in Markyate which relies on a retained fire station.

Our retained firefighters - and firefighters in general - do an excellent job. You’ve only got to look back to 2005 and the Buncefield incident to see the professionalism and commitment to serving the community of both full-time and retained firefighters. Indeed I was there with the firefighters for four days, and I never knew who was a retained firefigthter or who was a whole-time retained or a regular full-time firefighter.

The problem that could affect a retained firefighters’ hours comes from the decision by the European Parliament to abolish the ‘opt-out’ of the working time directive. This only affects the UK as our firefighters are treated as employed, whereas in other European countries they are treated as volunteers who receive allowances.

The basis of the working time directive is to prevent people being forced to work long hours – which is all well and good, but in the case of retained firefighters if they didn’t want to work the hours they do, they wouldn’t do it. They don’t need the protection of an EU regulation.

I simply do not understand why we must kowtow to comments such as, “No one should be forced to do more than a 48-hour week.” No retained firefighter is forced to do it; they do it for the love of their community and to protect their community.

If we allow that to be undermined by the ludicrous idea of people being told that they cannot work for their community because they happen to have done another job during the course of the day, it will be a sad day for this country.