Brian Mathew

I thank the right hon. Member for his comments; in fact, I will go into some details on that now. Members from all parties will recognise that rural fire services face different cost pressures compared with urban ones, and rurality is not adequately addressed in the current or previous funding formulae. We must continue that debate but, in the face of closures this summer, an urgent solution is required to safeguard our community fire services. If the Government are not prepared to review their central funding, the only options on the table, when the Treasury’s assumptions are proven incorrect, are station closures, or additional precept flexibility for the 2027-28 financial year to address short-term funding pressures through local rather than additional central Government funding. Dorset and Wiltshire’s current precept is below the national average for stand-alone services, and a one-off correction would bridge the funding gap while keeping the precept in line with that of neighbouring services. In the consultation on closures, residents have been asked whether they are willing to pay a little more for their fire and rescue services. I urge the Minister to study their responses and act on them. I can find no recent precedent for such a large number of fire stations being closed in one year, and with them the loss of so many frontline jobs. Once a station is closed and its site sold, there is very little chance it will be reinstated. The hit to emergency response times and community resilience is essentially irreversible. For the average household, the fire precept amounts to less than £100 per year or £1.85 per week. For that amount, we receive what is arguably the most important insurance policy any of us can have: a well funded, well staffed and well-trained fire and rescue service, ready to respond when the worst happens. All eight stations are staffed by on-call firefighters—individuals who put their communities first and who are ready to pause their job and family life at a moment’s notice, putting themselves at risk to keep us safe. To my mind, the question is simple. The Minister can do nothing, and the stations that have served our towns and villages for decades will close, or, by allowing some adjustments and giving the authority the opportunity to raise the funding that the Government say the Dorset and Wiltshire fire service should get via the precept, the stations will remain open, providing the emergency response, civil resilience and capacity that our communities will need in the years to come.