FIRE Brigades Union (FBU) president Ian Murray vowed today to hold Labour’s feet to the fire to ensure that it scraps the Tories’ draconian minimum service levels legislation.

Giving his opening address at the union’s annual conference in Blackpool, he noted that he had been going to such meetings for about 20 years.

“And I’ve seen, year after year, resolutions, policy statements that clearly demonstrate that the fire and rescue service has been decimated, fragmented, downgraded, with little or no investment in its infrastructure,” Mr Murray said.

“We are year on year fighting for the scraps that are left on the Treasury table, which isn’t even enough to maintain the current status quo.

“We need change soon, and hopefully that will come via a general election.”

He pledged that the FBU would hold the Labour leadership’s “feet to the fire” over its pledge to repeal the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act  within 100 days if the party wins the forthcoming general election.

The legislation requires fire and rescue services to operate at 73 per cent of capacity on strike days, while control rooms are expected to run as normal during industrial action.