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Stephen Pound (Ealing, North) (Lab): Three hours it is then.
Mr. Dismore: As my hon. Friend says, three hours it is then.
I am chair of the Fire Brigades Union parliamentary group. In that capacity, I have had discussions with the Fire Brigades Union, which wholeheartedly supports the Bill. Before coming to the House, I was the solicitor for the Fire Brigades Union for almost 20 years. In that capacity, I saw many cases of firefighters who were injured as a result of arson or assault. Some injuries were career threatening. Some firefighters even had to retire as a result of what happened to them. For that reason, I
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strongly welcome the additional protections afforded by the Bill and, in particular, the Government's assurances as to how such offences should be treated in future.
The Fire Brigades Union recently published research showing that attacks on UK fire crews were running at some 40 a week and that the problem was getting worse. The research found that under-reporting meant that the figure could be as high as 120 attacks a week. In some parts of the country, fire crews are served a daily diet of bricks, bottles and missiles as they attempt to fight fires. In other incidents, ambushes have been set for firefighters. The attacks include scaffolding poles being thrown through the windscreens of fire engines. That not only impedes, puts at risk and injures the firefighters but puts the fire engine out of action not only for that fire call but potentially for many other fire incidents that it would otherwise have attended. Crews have been attacked with concrete blocks, bricks and bottles. They have been shot at and spat at. There have been direct physical assaults them. Equipment has been tampered with, stolen or even urinated on. The number and ferocity of the attacks seem to be getting worse. It can never be part of anyone's job to get a brick or bottle in the head as they are simply doing their duty.
Many attacks take place in deprived areas with poor youth facilities and poor housing, where bored young people turn to drugs and alcohol. In some areas there seems to be a culture of recreational violence with fire crews as the targets, often when dealing with fires that those vandals have set themselves to bring the firefighters into the trap that they have created.
Jim Dowd: My hon. Friend said that some 40 attacks happen every week and that that figure could be as high as 120 as a result of under-reporting. Does he think that creating the offence in the Bill would increase the level of reporting to the higher figure, and does he agree that there is currently under-reporting because action is rarely taken?
Mr. Dismore: My hon. Friend makes an important point. We know that if people have little confidence in the legal system they are less likely to report a crime, whether it be an assault on a firefighter, or other emergency worker, or domestic violence. Domestic violence is now treated much more seriously. The statistics have gone up, not because there is more domestic violence but because women know that if they are subject to it, it will be taken more seriously by the police. Similarly, if we send out the clear message from the House by allowing this Bill to pass through Parliament that we, as parliamentarians, are standing up for our emergency service workers and will not tolerate this, people will report offences more and the legal system will treat them far more seriously.
If firefighters cannot carry out their jobs because of violent assaults, the communities in which those assaults are being committed are being put at risk. Fire crews welcome the Bill because it complements the package of measures that are being put in place to tackle the underlying problem. The FBU hopes that it will get widespread support.
Some important points have been made in the debate about the position of public service workers generally. The Government's position is that the Sentencing
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Guidelines Council can put forward clearer recommendations to judges and that sentencing can be sufficiently flexible to embrace not only emergency service workers such as fire crews and ambulance staff but public sector workers generally. It cannot be right that anybody serving the public, whether as an emergency worker or more generally—I am thinking of the examples given by the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson)—should be subject to assault or abuse. Everybody doing such a job is entitled to be treated with respect and dignity and to have their customers treat them as the customers would expect to be treated by public service workers.
The proposed new offence of impeding an emergency worker would plug a significant gap in the law, as we have learned from discussions with the fire service. The current law is somewhat vague. The hon. Lady mentioned road blocks. A road block may well be an offence, but there is a world of difference between creating an obstruction on the public highway and obstructing a fire engine or an ambulance on its way to an emergency call. One is potentially a relatively trivial offence that is unlikely to be the subject of prosecution, whereas, under the Bill, the other would be subject to prosecution with, it is to be hoped, a severe sentence as a result.
The new offence would also deal with the problem of traps. My right hon. Friend gave graphic examples of the kinds of traps that can be set. Whether or not such a trap amounted to an assault, it would certainly impede an emergency worker.
Angela Watkinson: When fire service personnel are injured as a result of an attack, that has a career-threatening effect on them because they need to have a high level of fitness and ability. Once that is lowered, it often means the end of their career in that service, as well as possibly reducing their opportunities for further employment; and they could be a very long way from retirement age.
Mr. Dismore: The hon. Lady makes an important point. When I was a solicitor for the FBU, I handled many compensation cases on behalf of firefighters who had been injured in such circumstances, some of whom had indeed been unable to continue in their chosen careers.
The proposed impeding offence goes beyond the question of assault. If a fire engine on the way to a fire call is impeded and slowed down, that could result in the loss of valuable minutes in attending that call. Although nobody in the fire crew may have been hurt or directly assaulted, the people depending on that emergency response may find that they have suffered as a result through greater destruction of property, or possibly even injury or loss of life. The new offence would do a great service not only to fire crews and ambulance workers but to the general public as a whole, who may otherwise have their emergency response delayed.
I am pleased that the Ambulance Service Association, which wrote to me the other day, also backs the proposals. It said that
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"in 2004/05 more than 1300 ambulance staff in England suffered a physical assault from a patient or a patient's carer, relative or friend. The 2004 NHS staff survey shows that nearly half of all ambulance staff had been threatened with assault or subjected to verbal abuse whilst at work in the preceding 12 month period."
That sort of behaviour is wrong and must not only be condemned in this House and by the public at large but treated seriously by our legal system. We must give the courts, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police the tools that they need to do the job, and I believe that the Bill would go a long way towards achieving that.
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Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) said that he had waited 41 years for the chance to promote a private Member's Bill. He may well have set a record. I wish that most colleagues had to wait equally long, but that is probably too much to hope for.
I, too, welcome the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. As has already become clear, it seeks to deal with a problem of which we are all becoming increasingly aware. I suppose that we are entitled to ask why something has not been done before, but that is often the case when we think about legislating in this place. I believe that the Bill seeks to deal with a genuine and urgent problem. However, the right hon. Gentleman himself says that it is not quite right. I wish that more Members would admit that on Second Reading, but they are usually reluctant to do so.
I hope that the way in which the Bill proposes to import elements of Scots law into English law will not set a precedent because, given what I hear about what goes on north of the border in that rather eccentric little Parliament that we unfortunately set up, I hope that we have no intention of following what it does, which seems to be increasingly socialistic, regulatory and eccentric, to say the least. I would rather that we avoided as much of that as possible. Nevertheless, it may be that it very occasionally does something moderately sensible and we should follow its example.
The right hon. Gentleman was, typically, very open with us. I was intrigued to hear that he conducted negotiations with the Minister and her Department, as is sensible with any private Member's Bill, and that they had together rapidly concluded that the Bill in its current form probably should not go on to the statute book. It is not unusual for that negotiation to take place, but rather unusual for it to be so openly described. We are in the odd position of being asked to give a Second Reading to a Bill that is not in the form in which even its promoter wants it to get on to the statute book. He is saying to us, "Trust me, trust the Minister: when the Bill emerges from Committee, it really will be one that you will all want to support." Normally, I would be very reluctant to do anything of the kind, but since it is the right hon. Gentleman and the Minister whom we are talking about, on this occasion the House should be prepared to give them a degree of latitude. As has been pointed out, not least by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), we can of course pause during subsequent stages and consider the Bill in detail and at leisure, just to make absolutely sure that what the right hon. Gentleman has said today—and what the Minister will doubtless say subsequently—comes to pass.
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It is therefore not quite as odd as it may seem that we can look at the Bill's thrust and purpose—and at the objectives as set out by the right hon. Gentleman, and elaborated on today—make our judgment on that basis and agree that there is a real problem to be dealt with, that there is a real necessity for a Bill, and that this Bill is the vehicle to allow us to deal with it. Once we have listened to the Minister and the Bill has gone into Committee, we can look at it again on Report and Third Reading, and I hope, if I may say so helpfully to the right hon. Gentleman, that he does not leave that process too late or allow it to take too long. Time runs out rather quickly in the private Member's Bill process, so he should look at the calendar and bear it in mind that the other place will have to consider the Bill, as well. If it gets a Second Reading today—I am very confident that it will—I urge him to try to see it through Committee as quickly as possible and to bring it back here in good time, so that the House can consider it and get it into shape.
All in all, this is an auspicious day. I again congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and I hope that he does not have to wait quite so long for his next private Member's Bill.
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