AS parliament has been winding up for recess, I have been able to focus more on the local issues impacting the lives of my constituents.

Nothing has been more pressing to me in recent weeks than the upcoming cuts to fire and rescue services across west Scotland.

Readers of the Tele would have seen that up to 20 of Inverclyde’s firefighters will be at risk of losing their posts and Greenock’s own fire appliance will be cut from the service.

Considering the volume of emails I have received about this, people are clearly aware of the harm this can cause to our communities.

On top of dealing with fires, these servicemen are often the first responders to road and rail accidents, whilst also preventing severe environmental damage caused by floods and chemical spillages.

Greenock Telegraph:

These critical duties will only be made even more difficult to manage if full-time firefighters are cut.

Under current proposals, Greenock would be increasingly reliant upon Retained Duty firefighters, who operate on-call.

These servicemen perform an important role in supporting full-time firefighters, however it seems that this role will be changed to them plugging the gap in services provided over the coming months.

The Fire Brigade Union (FBU) have reported that across June, around 32 per cent of retained duty firefighters were unable to meet their target response time of five minutes, with nine per cent being unable to respond at all.

This is not to say that those on Retained Duty do not perform their job well.

What the FBU and officials within Inverclyde Council are arguing against is the mistake in overly-relying on an on-call system to deal with shortages in full-time services.

Last year, I warned that the underfunding and neglect over Scotland’s fire services would have a negative impact on public safety.

Our plans to properly maintain fire service assets and increase real-term funding were promptly ignored by the Scottish Government.

We have unfortunately witnessed the public harm that can be caused by unreserved cuts in public services.

Inverclyde’s roads have become more dangerous, NHS backlogs have grown out of control and the suffering caused by drug and alcohol abuse has been allowed to fester.

We cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes for our fire services.

As well as challenging the Scottish Government on these matters, I will commit to building an effective, cross-party strategy in Holyrood to supporting our firefighters and keeping our communities safe.