Operation BURBERRY - House of Lords Debate

In the review of the strike debated in the House of Lords on 8 February 1978, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh made the following remarks:

‘The Services, over-strained by Ulster, Belize, Bermuda and now this - so much so that they cannot cope with our NATO commitments - did, as has been generally recognised, a very good job. They would do a very good job, of course. In my discussions with various Servicemen about their experiences, the first point that was made by them all was that the Fire Services in this country are grossly overmanned. For example, in London only 100 green goddesses coped with the same number of fires in an area that is normally covered by 600 modern appliances. In the Wood Green area of Glasgow, four green goddesses and one military fire station coped with an area covered by five normal fire stations, each of which had two or more modern appliances.

The next point that was made by every Serviceman who was engaged in firefighting related to pay. We have all read in the Press about the pay of the private soldier. I will tell your Lordships about an officer friend of mine. Having been on leave for three days after returning from the worst part of Northern Ireland, he was called back for fire duty. He was on fire duty during the whole of the Christmas period. He told me that on Christmas Day the fire officer who was on duty at the same station received £100, including holiday pay, overtime and all the rest, whereas my friend got £12 a day as an army captain. One of my informants told me that in Glasgow the night rate is time plus one half and that when the night shift goes on duty, the men do a couple of hours' work at the most, cleaning up and training, and then go to bed, unless called out by a fire. However, there was no alteration in pay for the unfortunate Serviceman when he was on night duty’.