Firefighters 'contaminating children's bedrooms' because of a lack of station facilities, MSPs told

Firefighters are contaminating their children’s bedrooms because they cannot shower at Scotland’s inadequate stations Concerns “huge swathes” of the nation are left without fire service cover, MSP have been told. The stark warning from the Scottish Fire Brigades Union (FBU) comes ahead of Deputy First Minister and Finance Secretary, Jenny Gilruth, delivering her draft budget in December. Holyrood’s justice committee heard concerns around a lack of funding for fire services, as well as Police Scotland, legal aid and defence solicitors.

Colin Brown, executive council member of the FBU, told MSPs that “the justice sector is creaking in every single area”. He warned that retained, on-call firefighters cover around 80 per cent of Scotland’s land mass, but added that there were “over 1,000 vacancies on the RDS system in Scotland”. He added: “That’s huge swathes of Scotland’s land mass without fire cover. “The system right now isn’t serving Scotland particularly well.” Mr Brown argued that fire services in Scotland have been “underfunded to the tune of in excess of £800m in the last 13 years”.

He added: “It’s left firefighters unable to decontaminate in their own workplace, it’s left children’s bedrooms contaminated by fire contaminants that only have come from an incident ground because firefighters can’t shower on the stations that they work from. “That should be a mark of shame on this government, it should be a mark of shame on this government.” Evidence has found that firefighters are unknowingly bringing highly toxic, carcinogenic material back to their homes—including their children's bedrooms because fire stations do not have adequate decontamination facilities.

David Kennedy, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, bluntly told the committee that “Scotland needs more police officers”, which he argued should be “a genuine sustained increase in the number of police officers available to protect our communities”. He added: “The reality is we’re asking fewer police officers every day with more increasing demands. “The trauma that police officers are facing day in day out is having a massive impact on them.

To be frank, that cannot just continue.” Mr Kennedy pointed to figures for June 2026 that show there are 16,402 police officers in Scotland. “Ten years ago, we had 17,242 - that’s a reduction of 840 officers”, he added. Yet during the same period, the demands placed upon policing have increased significantly. “When we account for sickness, absence, annual leave, training, rest days and other necessary abstractions, the number of officers actually available to respond to incidents is considerably lower than the headline figure suggests.”

Mr Kennedy told the committee that “crime is only part of the picture”. He said: “One of the greatest pressures facing policing today is the increasing demand arising from incidents that are not criminal in nature. Mental health crises, welfare concerns, missing persons and vulnerable people require assistance. “In just 13 months, police officers dealt with more 576,000 non-crime incidents. That’s an extra-ordinary level of demand. “We cannot continue to rely on the goodwill, resilience and personal sacrifice of police officers to compensate for inadequate staffing when they don’t have enough police officers.”

The committee also heard from Tracey Mulholland, president of the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association, who raised concerns about "the haemorrhaging of defence agents, particularly to the Crown and the Scottish government”. She added: “Previously it had been more lucrative to staying at the defence and that was a career that you had. That’s no longer the case. There’s a bit of a cliff-edge coming. Ms Mulholland warned that funding for defence agents, primarily through the Scottish Legal Aid Board, should increase as Crown funding also rises if Scotland is to “continue to have a robust defence system”.