MARTIN'S ANSWER TO PARMJIT OVER TRI-SERVICE

5.46.31pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 3rd Sep 2007

Cheltenham MP Martin Horwood has answered Gloucester MP and fire minister Parmjit Dhanda's criticism of the Tri-Service emergency centre by tabling parliamentary questions to his boss Hazel Blears and signing the No 10 website petition in support of the emergency response centre started by Gloucestershire Lib Dem leader Councillor Jeremy Hilton.

MPs are allowed to table a limited number of questions to ministers during the parliamentary recess and Martin has used two of his to highlight the outstanding role of the Tri-Service centre. The questions have been tabled for answer by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears MP, boss of fire minister Parmjit Dhanda. Mr Dhanda, who is also MP for Gloucester, recently criticised the operation of the Tri-Service emergency response centre during the recent flood emergency. He highlighted the 700 calls passed to other call centres.

Martin said "I have a lot of respect for Parmjit but he just got this badly wrong. 700 calls cascaded on to other call centres was a small percentage of the overall total of tens of thousands of calls. When I took Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell around the Tri-Service Centre recently we made a point of asking each service whether being in the same building had been important. They were very clear that the Tri-Service model had helped emergency response enormously."

"I would have thought that a local MP like Parmjit might have used his position as fire minister to quietly force a rethink of the crazy government strategy of regionalising fire control centres, which is threatening the future of Tri-Service. Well perhaps we can influence those higher up in Government. If Hazel Blears considers these questions carefully and if Gordon Brown pays any attention to the petitions on his website, then perhaps they can tell their fire minister to urgently review the plans to break up this important centre."