10. What recent progress his Department has made on negotiations regarding firefighters’ pensions. (902038)

The Government have offered a generous pension scheme to firefighters and proposed steps and protections to help with their concerns about fitness and capability. We hope that the Fire Brigades Union will accept the offer rather than continuing with an unnecessary dispute. I also continue to meet the union, having last done so on 6 January, and I will meet it again next week.

I thank the Minister for his response. Given the Government’s praise for the actions of the fire service during the recent floods, does he believe it is right that if our brave firefighters cannot carry out their full range of duties, they should be faced with no job and no pension? Should he not be ashamed of himself?

The hon. Gentleman’s interpretation of the facts is inaccurate, as that is not how the system works. That is why we are consulting on a set of principles, which give even more protection than the principles being consulted on in Scotland, to deal with any concerns that firefighters have. His facts on this matter are not correct.

To achieve a settlement on firefighters’ pensions, firefighters need to believe that the fitness test that will apply to them in their late 50s will in practice enable them to continue in service until they reach the age of 60. Will the Minister update the House on what discussions he has had about the specifics of the fitness test that will be applied in the future?

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. One of the reasons that the issue does not exist in the way that the hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts) suggests is that there is no national fitness standard for firefighters. It is a matter for local services to look at their local needs and for the chief fire officer and the fire authority to decide on their local needs. What should be in place, and what we propose to put in place in the national framework, is a process and a set of procedures that are both fair to the service and to firefighters and which give them the right protection to ensure that they get the support from their service that they need to attain the relevant fitness required by their local fire service.

The Minister offers some reassurance. However, the Government’s survey says that between 29% and 92% of firefighters will not be operationally fit to continue until they are 60. He says that he is meeting the Fire Brigades Union. Will he seriously discuss with it the reassurance that he is offering and tell it how that will be achieved?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me a chance to clarify the issue. It is one of the conversations that we had on 6 January and which will be continuing, I hope, next week. I do not entirely agree with his interpretation of Dr Williams’s report, which makes it clear that, with proper fitness work going on—one of the things that we expect the service to do as part of the principles that we are consulting on—firefighters can retain fitness until 60. That is very achievable, and we want to make sure that the protections are in place. Beyond the Scottish agreement, we have suggested an independent review to ensure that the service is putting these protections in place.