Chamber and committees

It is a pleasure to follow Christine Grahame’s contribution about some of the positive work that is already going on.

This debate on mitigating flooding impacts and increasing the resilience of communities is particularly important in the light of storm Babet, and I welcome the points that Maurice Golden and Sarah Boyack made in their opening speeches. As Claire Baker said, three people tragically lost their lives in the storm, and I associate myself with the condolences that she sent. I also pay tribute to our emergency services, the affected communities and local authorities for their efforts in responding to the storm.

Unfortunately, however, as Willie Rennie made clear, storm Babet was not a one-off extreme weather event. The reality is that extreme weather events are becoming more common and are going to occur more frequently as the climate emergency worsens. That means that we must be better prepared to deal with the changing climate and that the warnings from organisations such as the Climate Change Committee and Audit Scotland cannot be ignored. They have been very clear about the lack of progress made on climate adaptation measures.

Last year, the CCC warned that progress in delivering adaptation had actually stalled. It highlighted that there was a lack of clear targets and monitoring in place to determine what progress the Scottish Government was making in delivering climate adaptation measures. Back in April, Audit Scotland published a report in which it highlighted that adaptation was the area in which the Scottish ministers were making least progress.

Despite the Parliament declaring a climate emergency in 2019, it would appear that the Scottish Government is failing not only to make significant progress in meeting its own emissions-reduction targets, but to deliver vital climate adaptation measures. As has been said, the Climate Change Committee and Audit Scotland made a number of recommendations, including on the need for clearer adaptation targets and improved oversight of their delivery. I would be grateful if the minister could give an update on whether those recommendations are being acted on.

In addition, it has been revealed that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has faced real-terms funding cuts of 26 per cent since 2010, and two former SEPA chief executives have warned of the damaging impact that those funding cuts will have on the organisation’s ability to protect Scotland’s environment and respond to climate-related risks.

Yesterday, I held a members’ business debate on the cuts that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service faces. Over the past decade, the SFRS’s budget has been cut by 22 per cent, or £64 million, in real terms, 1,200 firefighter jobs have already been lost and it is believed that a further 780 jobs will be under threat if the planned budget reductions go ahead. Those job losses could be accompanied by a further reduction of dozens of appliances.

The SFRS has a statutory duty to make provisions for flooding and, in its climate change response plan, the service has identified that the threat of flooding will become more frequent and severe. The service has highlighted that one in 22 of all residential properties in Scotland are now at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or heavy rainfall. It has said that it is placing specialist resources, such as flood response stations and swift water rescue units, in areas at greater risk of flooding.

However, the “Firestorm” survey that FBU Scotland published last week found that 93 per cent of the Fire Brigades Union members who were involved—that is about 1,500 members—took the view that

“The SFRS is not adequately resourced enough to deal with the increase in climate-related incidents such as wildfires and flooding.”

That is why FBU Scotland is calling on the service to increase its capacity to deal with the predicted increase in incidents of flooding. Of course, an increase in incidents of wildfires has already been observed in Scotland over recent years.

As of 20 October, the fire service had responded to almost 70 weather-related incidents across Scotland, which included rescues from homes and floodwaters as a result of storm Babet. Ultimately, it is clear that we need to do more if we are to be able to respond to what is an increasing threat. Therefore, I repeat Scottish Labour’s call, which I made in yesterday’s debate, for an emergency funding package for the SFRS to enable it to deal with the challenges that the climate emergency poses.

The First Minister’s announcement of a council tax freeze without consulting councils will have a detrimental effect on local services if it is not fully funded. Last week, West Dunbartonshire Council warned that it faces a funding gap of £17.3 million next year. Will the Scottish Government provide a fair funding settlement for all councils, including West Dunbartonshire, so that local services such as sport and leisure facilities are protected?

The member is absolutely correct that the challenges that the fire service faces from the climate are going to be greater. In addition, as I will demonstrate in my contribution, the response times to incidents have been increasing as a result of budgetary pressures.

The number of available appliances across Scotland has also diminished, and the chief officer says that dozens more appliances will have to be withdrawn if the current planned real-terms cuts proceed. Many stations are in a state of disrepair because of the lack of adequate capital budgets.

The impact of all that is clear. Last year, it was revealed that the average time to attend 999 calls was eight minutes and eight seconds—a significant jump from the six minutes and 50 seconds that was recorded as an average in 2013. That is far from the stated policy intentions that were set out when the service was centralised. The policy memorandum that accompanied the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Bill in 2012 said that the intention was

“not cutting front line services.”

Chief Officer Ross Haggart has indicated that, as a result of the flat-cash budgets, the service will be required to make savings of £36 million in the next four years to balance its budget.

In September, second or third appliances were temporarily withdrawn from 10 fire stations across Scotland as part of an £11 million package of cuts for this year. The number of high-reach appliances was reduced, and that means more risk.

Since then, concerns have been raised about the increased time that high-reach appliances take to attend incidents in, for example, Ayr, East Kilbride and elsewhere. Freedom of information answers that were recently released to my office show that full-time fire appliances were “off the run”, or unavailable, 6,272 times in 2022, which represents a 138 per cent increase since 2013. In his evidence to the Criminal Justice Committee, Mr Haggart told us that if further cuts proceed next year, the SFRS might have to reduce the number of appliances by a further 17 per cent.

Firefighters have also had a pay cut of about 12 per cent in real terms during the past 10 years. We know that those workers put their lives on the line for us. Earlier this year, firefighter Barry Martin died as a result of injuries that he sustained in the Jenners fire. Research shows that firefighter cancer rates are 1.6 times higher than the rates for the rest of the public as a result of exposure to dangerous contaminants, and yet, in many cases, firefighters in Scotland do not have adequate spaces in which to wash, or adequate equipment.

In the “Firestorm” survey, many firefighters say that they have access only to baby wipes after incidents. Several describe decontamination as the “biggest issue” for staff, with others submitting that they are “extremely” worried about their health. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has a duty of care to its employees, and a duty to provide safe systems of work. I understand that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is working on guidelines, and I ask the Minister for Victims and Community Safety to provide an update to ensure that the service is meeting its legal obligations as an employer.

Research by my office found that three quarters of stations are assessed as being of “bad” or “poor” suitability. Indeed, not a single station in the region that I represent is assessed as “good”. Tackling those issues will take sustained investment, and yet there is already a capital backlog of £630 million.

The fire service has faced a decade of cuts. Response times have increased, and the chief officer says that they will continue to increase if the proposed cuts go ahead. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is failing in its duty as an employer to provide a safe system of work. I call on the Scottish Government to bring forward an emergency funding package.

Will the Scottish Government set out a timescale to get to a minimum of £15 per hour pay for all local government workers?

The Deputy First Minister has not made it clear whether the Scottish Government complied with its own policy, which is that salient WhatsApp messages should be saved, at least on the centralised records system. Can she confirm that that is normally what happens, and can she confirm whether it happened in relation to Covid messages? Can she confirm whether Covid records policy was reviewed on receipt of the “Do not destroy” notices?

I welcome the opportunity to raise the serious concerns that are currently facing the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. I thank all those members who signed the motion to enable the debate to take place, and I put on record my gratitude to the Fire Brigades Union Scotland for its briefings and its tireless campaigning work.

Last week, FBU Scotland published “Firestorm: A report into the future of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service”—a state-of-the-nation report on the fire service, in which almost 1,500 serving FBU members in Scotland participated. It makes for grim reading.

In the past decade, there has been a real-terms cut of 22 per cent to fire service budgets, which amounts to around £64 million in real terms, going by the Scottish Parliament’s inflation calculator. More than 1,200 jobs have been lost, which is about 15 per cent of the entire workforce. In addition, according to Chief Officer Ross Haggart when he gave evidence to the Criminal Justice Committee, another 780 jobs are at risk if the Scottish Government proceeds with the planned budgets.

When I speak to firefighters, they tell of fewer firefighters on every shift, and fewer available for each incident. They often speak of how, when the first appliance has arrived and there are insufficient firefighters available to proceed to fight the fire or deal with the incident without acceptable risk, there are delays while they wait for more colleagues to arrive.

The First Minister made it clear that COSLA is not in control of its own budgets. Will the minister meet Unison to discuss how the dispute can finally be resolved?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to resolve industrial action in schools. (S6T-01599)

You have explained that, cabinet secretary. You have made very clear the differences in the system, but—

Statistics have previously shown that people in Scotland are waiting longer for their adult disability payment decision from Social Security Scotland than people in England and Wales who have applied for the personal independence payment through the DWP. The average wait time for an adult disability decision is around 19 weeks, in comparison to nine weeks for the personal independence payment decision, and the wait times have doubled over the past year. What steps is Social Security Scotland taking to reduce those waiting times?