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Mrs. Sharon Hodgson (Gateshead, East and Washington, West) (Lab): If an offence of common assault, actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm were committed against a member of the emergency services, do sentencing guidelines say that the sentence should be weighted? Will the Minister comment on the position of the Sentencing Guidelines Council?
Fiona Mactaggart: I will explain fully the way in which the Sentencing Guidelines Council works later, but it may be helpful if I quote from the overarching principles that it issued in December 2004. Paragraph 1.23 identifies
that must be taken into account when determining a sentence. One such factor is:
"Offence is committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public".
It is obvious from the debate that Parliament takes seriously the problem affecting people who perform the special duty of providing emergency services. However, such people are already covered by a specific aspect of the guidance on seriousness, and we hope that the Sentencing Guidelines Council will consider the matter further.
Richard Younger-Ross: Does the Minister not accept that when dealing with assault, it is important to make it clear, to young people especially, that emergency workers are a special case because they save people's lives? That point is rather lost in the guidance of the Home Office and the courts on how things should be weighted. I do not know of many 16-year-olds who would say, "Oh, this is weighted, so I won't do it." If there were a clear red line to say that an assault on such workers would be an aggravated assault, they would be more likely to take account of that.
Fiona Mactaggart:
We need to be honest about what influences 16-year-olds' behaviour. The hon. Gentleman is right that guidance from the Sentencing Guidelines Council does not tend to make much difference to them, but I am not convinced that the
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existence of an aggravating factor does, either. Sentencing can have an impact if it has serious and clear consequences. It is important to use education and community sentences. We must ensure that the message that we have been sharing with each other during the debate is not kept in the confines of the Chamber, but spread more widely by campaigns such as the protect our heroes campaign, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) and is run by the Manchester Evening News, and the respect campaign. The message must go out to young people that emergency workers could save their mums, families, or friends. We must decide the most effective technique that will ensure that people who are tempted to commit such an offence are deterred—that is what all of us want—and that those who commit the offence are effectively prosecuted and convicted.
Nick Herbert: The Minister said that a specific additional offence would add nothing to the existing law, and expressed scepticism about whether aggravated offences add anything—so does she think that racially aggravated offences add nothing to the existing law?
Fiona Mactaggart: No, I am absolutely certain that they add a great deal to the law. Let me say why, and explain why the offence that we are talking about is different. We made a substantial change to the law to ensure that there was a specific aggravating factor for racially and religiously motivated offences of all kinds because of what happens when an offence is committed against a person in a category shared by many other people in the community. If a person is attacked because of their faith or race, other members of the same community are terrorised. Such an act should be a statutory aggravating offence because of the terrorising effect on those who share the person's characteristics. An assault on a person would not have the same terrorising effect on those who shared his or her profession. None the less, emergency workers need to be properly protected, so if I can make progress with my speech I will describe the actions that we will take to deliver that. There is consensus in the House about what we want to achieve. If hon. Members give me time to explain how we can do that, we can get consensus on that, too.
We all know about the vulnerability of private Members' legislation; indeed, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) mentioned it in a slightly guarded way. I hope that we can build consensus about the important lacunae that exist in the law and use this opportunity to deal with them. We should not try to move forward with private Members' legislation on too wide a front so as to put its progress at risk.
Ann Keen: Thank you for giving way. At the point of my intervention, you were describing quite rightly—
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
As the hon. Lady has now committed the offence a second time, I must point out that when she says "you", she is referring to me. I am sure that that is not what she intends.
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Ann Keen: My apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I spoke earlier about what is almost antisocial behaviour among young people and about the respect agenda. Will the Minister give any more information about how Government legislation on those matters can assist this Bill?
Fiona Mactaggart: Absolutely. I shall come on to that issue. As well as specific parts of the respect campaign that can make a positive contribution, we have developed some other important tools and techniques. We have developed antisocial behaviour orders and measures to deal with parenting, such as parenting orders, allowing us to intervene early and use schemes such as those mentioned by some hon. Members to educate and engage young people, perhaps with their local fire services, for example. All such measures can make a difference.
I think that our consensus is not only about catching, prosecuting and convicting those who are guilty of assaulting and obstructing emergency service workers, but about preventing such activities from happening. Having listened to the debate, I think that there is a very clear view that although catching, prosecuting and convicting are one very important tool in prevention, as has been shown by the work of the NHS security authority, education can also play a role. The respect agenda includes the possibility of providing such education.
I described why I felt it was unnecessary to include in the assault offence a statutory aggravating factor, which the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) mentioned. Indeed, I think that it is also unnecessary to have a wholly separate assault offence. As I said, assault is assault, and it is proper that we should deal effectively with all assaults and violent crime. We need to seek as far as possible to resist the temptation to over-complicate the law by creating very specific offences. As I said, such offences are often difficult to prove and act as another burden when matters are dealt with in court.
Janet Anderson (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab): Does the Minister agree that the situation in Scotland is not really comparable? The Scots created a new offence partly to ensure that courts would sentence appropriately for such actions, whereas elsewhere we have the Sentencing Guidelines Council, which does not exist in Scotland.
Fiona Mactaggart: That is absolutely true. The Sentencing Guidelines Council provides a mechanism that can read across to all sorts of offences. For example, there are other at-risk groups: other public sector workers are rightly included in the present overarching principles, which also cover teachers who are beaten up by angry parents. Such issues should be a factor that is dealt with in sentencing. It is inappropriate that someone who is serving the public by teaching children should be more vulnerable because they are in that situation.
It is therefore wrong to try to over-complicate the law by slicing off little bits and creating legislative ghettos if we can deal with the problem properly under existing law. I hope to persuade hon. Members that we can do
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that within the scope of a single offence. That means better constructed, less complicated and clearer law and greater ease in securing prosecutions. I believe that we all agree that people need to understand the law. Some hon. Members suggested that adding bells and whistles to it will make it easier to understand but I do not accept that. The law needs to work well on the ground and creating different offences for different groups of people is a recipe for confusion.
Mr. Ellwood : If I understand the Under-Secretary correctly, she is not willing to give special treatment to people who expose themselves to danger far more than the rest of us. Is she aware of the success of such measures in America, where the extra powers to protect the police and the fire and ambulance services have acted as a deterrent to attacks on them?
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