'Good news for our retained firefighters,' says MP (From Watford Observer)

'Good news for our retained firefighters,' says MP

4:00pm Thursday 30th April 2009 in

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The village’s retained firefighters are safe from harm for the time being as EU working time negotiations collapse.

Hemel Hempstead and Kings Langley’s MP Mike Penning has welcomed news that the European Parliament’s attempt to scrap Britain’s opt-out of the EU working directive has failed.

Negotiations between MEPs and representatives of EU governments had been going on for months and were finally abandoned earlier this week after no agreement could be reached meaning the existing rules remain.

Mr Penning said proposed changes to EU legislation would have "severely compromised their role and fire cover provision in many parts of the UK".

Mr Penning said: “I am glad that we have got the right result - even if it is only because no agreement could be reached, rather than EU bureaucrats seeing common sense. People should be able to choose the hours they work.

“This is particularly good news for our retained firefighters who play an important role providing fire cover – especially at Kings Langley and Markyate which have retained fire stations."

Under the new proposals employees would only be allowed to work a maximum of 48 hours per week.

For retained firefighters, many of whom have another full or part-time job in addition to being on call to attend emergencies; this would mean dramatically cutting down the hours they can provide to the fire service or even giving up their work as a firefighter altogether.

Mr Penning added: “The situation is straightforward – if the retained firefighters didn’t want to work these hours, they wouldn’t. They choose to do it to serve their communities. They don’t need an EU directive to protect them.

“It is utter nonsense to start meddling with a system that has been in place a long time and works very well purely because of EU ideologies.”