Andy Burnham wants emergency vehicles' withdrawal put on hold
A third of emergency vehicles kitted out to deal with a "dirty bomb" or other major contamination incidents in England are to be axed within days, according to a leaked document Labour said exposed a serious security risk.
Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham said the withdrawal of 22 incident response units (IRU) on December 31, including four of the ten based in London, was being done without consultation and should be put on hold until ministers explained the implications.
IRUs are equipped to provide mass decontamination facilities at incidents where large numbers of people have been exposed to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials.
Showers, protective clothing and detectors are among the equipment on board the trucks, which are ready at all times to be taken out by specially-trained firefighters from local brigades.
The document, a national resilience information note issued by the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOS), said the reduction was the result of a review conducted with the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).
It found 43 were sufficient "in order to meet the scale of event identified within the national resilience planning assumptions".
The 22 deemed surplus to requirements need to be taken out of service "almost immediately", it explained, because their power respirator protective suits (PRPS) are about to pass their expiry dates.
A set of the one-piece gas-tight chemical protection suits will be supplied for the remaining appliances.
Central government funding for affected areas will cease from April.
The CFOA said it was in discussions with DCLG to identify a disposal strategy.
Mr Burnham said: "It cannot possibly be the right time to cut, by a third, our ability to respond to serious terrorist incidents.
"Not only is it the wrong time, but it is even worse that these plans are being hatched in secret, without any public information or consultation.
"Ministers must put these plans on hold immediately and make a statement to Parliament as soon as it returns. It is disgraceful that we're days away from this happening without any debate."
The IRUs being axed are those based in: Alfreton, Derbyshire; Broughton, Buckinghamshire; Blandford, Dorset; Bovey Tracey, Devon and Somerset; Burton, Staffordshire; Canley, West Midlands; Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; East Greenwich, London; Godstone, Surrey; Hereford, Hereford and Worcester; Morecambe, Lancashire; Penzance, Cornwall; Plaistow, London; Slade Park, Oxfordshire; Southern, Leicestershire; St Albans, Hertfordshire; St Neots, Cambridgeshire; Stalybridge, Greater Manchester; Stanmore, London; Walsall, West Midlands; Wimbledon, London; Winsford, Cheshire.
