The following details have been supplied by the TUC:

Cuts blamed for rising fire deaths
Resource cuts are responsible for a sharp rise in the number of people who have died as a result of fires in the home, the firefighters’ union FBU has said.

The union was speaking out after the Home Office released its latest Fire Incident Response Times statistical bulletin. This revealed that in England between April 2015 and March 2016, the number of fatalities from fires in the home increased by 17.4 per cent compared with the same period in 2014/15, resulting in 34 more deaths.

The FBU said these figures show how the government’s cost cutting exercise in the fire and rescue service has backfired.

The union’s general secretary, Matt Wrack, said: “Firefighters are doing their best to provide a world class service but the government have compromised the service by axing thousands of posts, closing fire stations and cutting equipment. It is the public who will pay the price of the government’s folly. The decision to prioritise budget cuts ahead of public safety is another example of how out of touch this government is.” The report also found that the average response time to primary fires had increased by 31 seconds since 2010. In rural areas, the figure was even worse, with fire crews taking on average 48 seconds longer to get to emergencies. The FBU leader said: “In a fire, every second counts. Those extra seconds might not sound like long, and ministers will try to dismiss them, but in an emergency, that time can be the difference between life and death.” The union warned last year that resource cuts were putting firefighters’ lives at risk