FIREFIGHTERS may strike if Rachel Reeves fails to provide extra funding for the service, the Fire Brigades Union has warned.

General secretary Matt Wrack has written to the Chancellor warning that her Budget must “begin to make up for the decade and a half of constant cuts to services and wages that have left many firefighters and other workers struggling to make ends meet.”

He called for a “generous funding settlement which allows fire service employers to make a decent pay offer” to firefighters and to ensure that services are fully equipped to protect the public.

Welcoming the government’s steps to deliver on its New Deal for Working People, Mr Wrack said: “That package must be reflected in funding for pay offers for public-sector workers to avoid disputes similar to that faced by the fire service in early 2023 or those seen in various other public services.

“Low wages, crumbling infrastructure and inadequate public services are not just a blight on the lives of working people: they are also a threat to public safety.

“Fire & rescue service response times are worse than ever before in recent history. We cannot deliver a resilient, joined-up fire service that is fit for the future without investment.”

Mr Wrack said that under the Tories, the fire service lost 30 per cent of its central government funding in cash terms. 

“Now, as the Labour Chancellor, you can deliver a Budget that marks the end of the catastrophic ‘austerity’ era,” he said.