Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)

My Lords, Amendment 170 would require a mayor who holds fire and rescue authority functions to delegate those functions to a deputy mayor for fire and rescue, creating governance arrangements that mirror those already in place for policing. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, raises a number of interesting and important points, as we have heard from this short debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response, particularly on the issue of democratic accountability, as raised by my noble friend Lord Trenchard, and on my noble friend Lord Fuller’s point about making sure that public services all work from the same geographic area. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ensure that; it might take a little longer, but I am sure it is worth doing. During our consideration of the Bill, it has become clear that fire and rescue services are not listed as statutory consultees in the devolution framework. For me, that raises a number of important questions for the Government. As we have heard, fire and rescue services play a central role in public safety, resilience, planning and emergency responses, yet when decisions affecting land use, building standards, transport corridors or climate adaptions are taken without any requirement for fire service input, there is a risk of the safety and resilience considerations being added only after decisions have been made, rather than being embedded right from the outset. In that context, I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why fire and rescue services are not statutory consultees, whether the Government consider this omission appropriate, and whether steps are being considered to strengthen their formal role in devolution and governance arrangements.