Fire Sale – Write to Eric Pickles

Last month Eric Pickles, the local government minister, said in a local paper that the government wouldn’t privatise the fire service or allow private firms to run it.

Great news, right?

Well, yes and no – it’s absolutely a step in the right direction. It proves that our 110,000 strong petition is working. But there still hasn’t been any formal confirmation from the government. They haven’t publicly announced that the fire service is safe from privatisation. And until they do, we can’t count on a quote from Eric Pickles in a local paper.

So we need to keep up the pressure. Eric Pickles has gone pretty quiet since his comments last month. He may be feeling the heat from members of his party who support privatisation. Or he might think that 38 Degrees members have moved on to another campaign. We need to show him that protecting the fire service is still a priority.

Can you write to Eric Pickles ask him to confirm that the government is no longer trying to push through new laws allowing fire and rescue authorities in England to contract out their full range of services to a suitable provider?

Our fire service protects and save thousands of lives each year. If authorities are allowed to start putting profit before safety we could all suffer.

We know that when enough of us join together we can stop government privatisation plans. We proved it when the government backed down over the sell-off of our forests and we can do it again with our fire service.

Write to Eric Pickles now asking that the government formally confirm they won’t privatise the fire service.