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The Bill has benefited from constructive debates, and constructive amendments in Committee, and will prove to be effective. It is a clear and comprehensive Bill, and fills an important gap in our legislation. I therefore commend it to the House.
11.11 am
Meg Hillier (Hackney, South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op): It gives me great pleasure to follow a number of eloquent hon. Members in the debate. As a new Member of the House, I am learning from the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), whose brevity, eloquence and commitment to his Bill provide a model that I hope to pursue in my parliamentary career—which might not be as long as his, but which will, I hope, be at least as distinguished.
The hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) raised the issue of air and mountain rescue services being included in the provisions. I am glad that the Bill offers the Secretary of State the opportunity to add categories of people to the list of emergency workers, or to delete them. I am sure that the Minister was listening to what was said about that. I want to comment later on emergency services other than those that have taken up the main part of our debate.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), who is no longer in his place—
Clive Efford: Yes, he is!
Meg Hillier: My apologies. He has moved places, just to confuse me.
My hon. Friend talked about the Government’s respect agenda. Throughout the debate, there has been an undercurrent of comments about the lack of respect that these attacks demonstrate. They illustrate a lack of respect from young people and adults towards the vital services that emergency workers provide to us all. The Government’s respect agenda and the provisions of the Bill meet up in a very helpful way in that regard.
My hon. Friends the Members for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) and for Stourbridge (Lynda Waltho) highlighted horrific examples of the problems that some emergency workers face. I want to place on record the fact that I have now been inspired to go out with emergency workers in Hackney. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge said, there is nothing like doing it if we want to learn at first hand the difficulties that emergency workers face. My hon. Friend’s indignation highlighted the points that she raised, and I congratulate her on one the most eloquent speeches that I have heard her make in the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) is not in the Chamber today, but my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) paid homage to his skills as an orator in the House on these sitting Fridays. I commend her particularly for her eloquence and statistical knowledge, and for the research that she has done on this important issue. I will not go into the issue of the Olympics in Newham, but she will realise that I mention it in passing because they will be taking place in Hackney as well.
We are here to discuss the Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Bill. It is an important Bill, because our emergency workers are the backbone of a decent and caring society. The citizens of a well-run country with a responsive and effective Government expect proper and appropriate action to be taken in an emergency or crisis. They should receive such action, and we should do all that we can to prevent anything from hindering it. That is what the Bill is all about. It underlines and reinforces the totally legitimate expectation of British citizens that emergency workers will be able to carry out their duties and serve the public without fear of obstruction.
We have focused on the police, fire and ambulance services today. I am glad, however, that the Bill also covers voluntary organisations and other agencies that work on behalf of the state. These include organisations such as St. John Ambulance, and the mountain rescue teams that provide such great service in remote parts of our islands to rescue people in difficulty. No one has yet mentioned the lifeboat crews, who voluntarily do a great deal in their free time to rescue people in difficulty at sea. Speaking as a former merchant seawoman, I feel strongly about safety at sea, and it is vital that the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution should be recognised in our debate today.
The offence of
assaulting a police officer already exists, as hon. Members have
mentioned. It carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison, as
does common assault. The criminal law includes a range of powers and
penalties to protect individuals from violent behaviour. Perhaps the
lawyers in the House will criticise me for saying this, but I am not
too concerned about the difference. My concern is the
outcome. If someone is prevented from doing their
job—be they a police officer, a firefighter, an ambulance worker
or any of the other emergency workers that we have mentioned—the
sentence must be proportionate to the crime. Sentencing guidelines
allow the courts to take into account that the person involved is a
public sector worker. The Bill will reinforce and underline that, by
creating a separate offence.
Richard Younger-Ross: The hon. Lady mentioned St. John Ambulance. A St. John Ambulance crew attended a carnival in Chudleigh in my constituency recently, to provide first aid services. Is she aware that, if someone tried to prevent those crew members from doing that a job, it would not be offence under the provisions of the Bill? The legislation would kick in only for an ambulance capable of carrying out blue-light duties responding to a blue-light incident.
Meg Hillier: I am indeed aware of that distinction. I am sure that the Minister will go into this in more detail in his response. It is important to implement law that it is possible to deliver, and by drawing the provisions narrowly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West has done, it is possible to be clear about exactly when the law will kick in. Difficulties could result if the Bill had a very wide remit. However, it could represent the first step towards further changes. We often see law being introduced incrementally. As one part proves successful, other elements are added to it. The Bill contains a degree of discretion, in that the Secretary of State may add further categories of worker. It does not allow for other situations to be added, but who is to say that that could not be changed in the future?
Richard Younger-Ross: The hon. Lady refers to making clear what the provisions cover. I am not an hon. and learned Member, and perhaps I am being a bit slow, but I would have thought that it was very clear to say that if someone obstructs a St. John Ambulance crew who are in uniform at an event, they are committing an offence. To say that it is an offence to obstruct emergency workers at certain times when they are responding to certain incidents is actually unclear.
Meg Hillier: We are becoming involved in definitions now. It is a question of whether St John Ambulance, for instance, is attending on behalf of the public service, which will often not be the case. I may not be best qualified to comment on such questions, but the Minister may be able to clarify the position. The hon. Member for Teignbridge may not be hon. and learned, but he is certainly au fait with parts of the law with which I, as a new Member, am less familiar.
As I have said, the sentencing guidelines allow sentences for attacks on public servants to be weighted. I hope that the Sentencing Advisory Panel’s recent consultation on sentencing for violent crimes against the person will produce some sensible proposals. Perhaps the Minister could give us a tantalising glimpse of anything that may have emerged from that consultation, which was wide-ranging and to which a number of interesting contributions were made. That might reassure Members, including me, that some of the points we have raised could be dealt with in that way rather than by the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham spoke of “young people larking around”, and impeding emergency workers. As he and others have pointed out, education is an important way of tackling that kind of obstruction. I also agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes).
I want to say something about the work of the London fire service. I am particularly impressed by what Graham Howgate, the Hackney borough commander, has done in collaboration with the Shoreditch service. They have been working with fire cadets. Young people are chosen for the scheme because they are likely to become criminals if they are not channelled in the right direction at a particular time. They may commit a crime if they are not given support, and this excellent scheme provides them with that support. It gives them a sense of purpose, and educates them about the work of the fire service. The results have been good so far, and I wonder why the scheme has not been adopted more widely. Although such matters are not in the Minister’s remit, I hope he will take up that question with Ministers in other Departments.
Since the creation of a borough command unit in Hackney some interesting collaborative work has been done, thanks largely to Valerie Shawcross, chair of the London fire authority. Although largely unsung, her achievement has been significant.
One of the first things that Commander Howgate and his team observed was that a number of fires are started in abandoned cars. They would often have to deal with such fires, and clear up the mess. Such fires were frequently started by young people in particular spots in Hackney, but happily the problem has now been solved. Cars are removed much more quickly, because the fire service mapped the incidence of the attacks. It was realised that if the cars were removed, there would be less arson, less antisocial behaviour and fewer opportunities for young people to impede emergency workers in connection with their crimes.
Although the Bill is welcome, the low-level obstruction that Members have mentioned is also important. The Hackney firefighters repeatedly find that equipment is stolen from their fire engines when they are out on a job. They themselves may not be impeded, but bolt cutters—which are particularly popular—and other emergency equipment are often stolen as trophies. Lack of respect for public services is a crucial part of what the Bill attempts to tackle. It deals with the worst elements, but we and, in particular, the Government have a responsibility to consider a number of possible solutions.
I was disturbed by the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, which involved an adult. We should bear in mind that young people do not always cause these problems, although we tend to focus on them. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is smiling, because of course he wants to hug the hoodies, but not all young people are bad, whether they wear hoodies or not.
The Bill
sends out an important signal about the seriousness of impeding
emergency workers. Members may have heard of a project called
“Prison? Me? No way!”. It is run by an educational trust
set up by prison officers, which visits secondary school across the
country
to demonstrate the reality of prison to young people. There is a mock-up
of a cell on the back of a lorry, and young people are locked into it.
Prison officers drill the young people in teams, and explain to them
clearly what the prison regime means. In combination with such
educational initiatives, the Bill should help young people to realise
gradually that if they commit the offences that we have heard about
today, they could end up in prison. Organisations like the one that I
have described are there to remind them that that is a very undesirable
consequence of such
action.
The Bill obviously focuses on the criminal act of impeding emergency workers, but the services themselves have acted both to protect their staff and, crucially, to encourage them to report incidents. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley, Greater Manchester is ahead of the game because of the particular problems that it has experienced. Various initiatives have been launched, including the placing of video cameras in the cabs of appliances so that offenders can be identified. I know that one of the Opposition parties has persistently resisted the installation of CCTV. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Teignbridge wants to tell us now whether he supports the move to put video cameras in cabs. It appears that he does not wish to take me up on that, but it may be a subject for another debate.
As we heard earlier, in Northern Ireland support is already given to firefighters along the lines suggested in the Bill, but the Bill will apply to ambulance workers and coast guards there. It is important to recognise that it will not apply only to England.
Although the Bill mainly concerns ambulance workers, we should bear in mind the implications for other public service workers, notably in the national health service. Early indications suggest that 71 per cent. of staff trained in the NHS to deal with potentially aggressive and violent incidents believe that they have the necessary skills to do so, compared with only 29 per cent. before the training. We must not sit back and assume that the Bill alone will solve the problem. I am sure none of my hon. Friends are doing that. We may try to initiate further debates in the House to discuss other ways of protecting emergency workers. The law is an important tool, but it is not the only one.
The NHS, supported by the British Medical Association, Unison and the Royal College of Nursing, has produced posters reminding would-be offenders of the tough penalties that they could incur. I hope that public information campaigns will stress the reality that the Bill is law, and that people may, in the most serious cases, be sent to prison.
Several of us have mentioned young people and antisocial behaviour. What is needed is proper youth work, and I am glad that the Government have provided more money for the purpose. In my borough of Hackney, nearly £1 million extra will be spent on youth work this year. We pay attention to the respect agenda, and aim to tackle antisocial behaviour at all levels, nipping it in the bud. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham said, it must come to be seen as absolutely unacceptable.
The
decent folk whom I meet on doorsteps nearly every week want to lead
peaceful lives. They do not want their emergency workers to be impeded.
Low-level activity escalates quickly if it is not challenged,
and we must challenge it. Sport, including competitive sport, is an
important way of channelling young people’s energies in the
right direction, as is education. I will cite one example from a visit
to Mossbourne city academy on the edge of my constituency. I talked to
children and staff at the school, and asked one child what he liked
about the school. He said that he liked the discipline. I was surprised
that a 12-year-old said that, as one does not tend to think of that as
a top desire of a child of that age.
Michael Gove: Young Conservative. [Laughter.]
Meg Hillier: I would not want to comment on how the hon. Gentleman brings up his children.
I was puzzled by what the child said, so I asked him what he meant. He said that the discipline meant that he could get on and do his work, concentrate and not be messed around. He was not a top achiever but a child who wanted to learn and have a disciplined framework in school. Children stay late and come at weekends to work at that school, because they find it a quiet and calm environment. In that regard, the Government’s agenda of extended education also helps to generate respect. Children want a framework of stability, and the Bill will help to achieve that.
I want to end on one incident from my experience as a teenager. I was sailing with my older brother, who had offered to take me out off the Isle of Wight. I was not an experienced sailor, but I thought that it would be exciting, which it was until we capsized in the middle of the Solent. I was cold, shivering and scared. I give credit to my older brother, who did everything that he needed to do and whom I trusted, but I was young and scared. Who came to our rescue? It was the coastguard. Had they not been there, I do not know whether I would be here today. There were there, however, and they were not impeded. Nobody tried to stop them getting to me, and they rescued me. For that, I am ever grateful.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West on introducing this important Bill and adding a further protection to our emergency workers in the course of their duties in protecting the public of this country.
11.31 am
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). I add my voice to all those who have praised my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) and congratulate him on successfully steering his Bill through all its stages. The signs are encouraging that it will also pass today’s stage.
I supported
the Bill on Second Reading, and I am pleased to do so again today. On
that earlier occasion, my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea,
West explained his reason for adjusting the focus of his Bill. He made
a good decision. In its new form, the Bill is positioned between those
cases that involve no offence having been committed and those more
serious cases involving assaults on emergency workers, which can
attract serious sentences of imprisonment, as we heard earlier. An
offence of obstructing an emergency worker in the execution of his or
her duty is a valuable addition,
as, for a long time, there has been such an offence to protect police
officers from being obstructed in the execution of their
duties.
Some people might therefore think that the Bill is quite narrow, but I hope to show that its application is broad. People might be pleasantly surprised at what a valuable tool the Bill will be to emergency services in adopting policies of zero tolerance to such behaviour, and to the prosecuting authorities—the police and the Crown Prosecution Service—in enforcing the law. The Bill extends the same protection from obstruction enjoyed by the police to the other blue light services, but applies more widely than to the blue light services alone. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend has secured a provision in the Bill for the protection to be extended later to other emergency workers. I congratulate him on ensuring that the Bill protects emergency workers from obstruction at every stage of their response to an emergency, which is important.
Some Members have asked about the Bill’s application to mountain rescue workers, and I think that I agree with the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) that they do not attract protection under the Bill as drafted. Like him, I examined the provision about air ambulance services, which are provided at the request of a national health service body. That would not extend to mountain rescue services, such as those launched from RAF Stafford in my constituency, which rescue people lost on mountains in Wales. Clause 1(2)(f)(ii) extends protection to
“any other person or organisation operating a vessel for the purpose of providing a rescue service”.
I am pretty sure that that the definition of “vessel” would restrict the protection to ships on the sea, and would not include vessels that carry people through the air. If I am wrong, of course, the provision would be wide enough to protect those engaged in mountain rescue services. If not, although, as my right hon. Friend said in his speech, it is too late now to amend the Bill further, I urge the Minister to consider making use of the power in clause 5 to extend the protection to other groups, to make sure that the crew of aircraft who are engaged in saving and rescuing people are also protected.
I am pleased that protection is extended to fire and rescue service workers. In Staffordshire, horrendous news reports appear from time to time about obstruction and assaults on fire and rescue workers. Happily, such occurrences are few and far between. I hasten to add that the Bill is not intended to deal with hoax calls, which are a much more prevalent nuisance to fire and rescue service workers. In relation to fire and rescue service work, a specific offence already exists for hoax calls, which prevent people from doing their job and saving lives when necessary.
Fire and
rescue service workers are usually enormously popular, which is why
those who obstruct and assault them are such a small minority. At the
time of the last national pay strike, however, there was a little ill
feeling in some areas of Staffordshire towards fire and rescue service
workers. Unchecked, that could have become the kind of behaviour about
which we have heard today. Even before that strike began, however,
Staffordshire fire and rescue service had embarked on a community fire
safety strategy, which, once the strike was out of the
way, applied fully. That involved a widespread campaign to issue
householders with smoke alarms and, as other Members have described, of
fire and rescue service officers meeting young people and families in
schools and more informal settings such as school and garden fetes, to
explain their work. That has ensured that fire crews get much earlier
notice of a fire, so that they can respond to it more quickly, and that
there is less chance of people wanting to obstruct them, as they
understand the importance of the job.
The happy ending to the story in Staffordshire is that, as a result of that community fire safety strategy, the number of deaths in fires has dropped dramatically. That fall has been long-lasting, which is a tribute to the workers who have committed themselves to go into communities, meet people and persuade them to protect their property and lives with smoke alarms and to understand the importance of fire workers and not getting in their way.
Having mentioned the national pay strike, I hope that it will be a long time before we see green goddesses back on our streets. The Bill, however, has the foresight to extend to members of the armed forces who carry out the duties of firefighters the same protection from obstruction as fire and rescue service workers. That is important, albeit that none of us wishes to see the provision apply, as we would prefer the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force to continue their normal duties and not have to protect us from fire as well.
I am pleased that the Bill protects crew members of the third of the emergency services—the ambulance service. Hon. Members might know that Staffordshire has the best-performing ambulance service in the country. That is no mere puff or boast; anyone who studies the statistics will see that, year after year, Staffordshire ambulance service massively outperforms any other in the country in its response times and the number of lives saved as a result. There is a secret to our success. Our ambulance service has tried desperately for many years to explain it to other services and to persuade them to adopt the same standards, but sadly too few have followed so far, although I know that it has been on the Government’s agenda since their policy statement last year to persuade other services to go the same way.
As a footnote I should add, if you will permit me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that during the recent large ambulance service mergers we successfully argued that Staffordshire ambulance service should stay out of a west midlands service precisely because our standards are so much higher than others. There was concern that the standards of a very good ambulance service might in the course of a merger fall, by however small a degree, and that that would harm the public of Staffordshire.
I mention that because, although we have the best-performing service in the country and all residents of Staffordshire know that, we still face the problem of a minority of people obstructing, assaulting and threatening ambulance service crews as they go about their duties. There was a horrendous report last year of an ambulance crew member being badly assaulted and seriously injured.
It might be a coincidence, but Staffordshire ambulance service recently issued—on 6 July—its own press release saying that it has
“a robust policy of zero tolerance toward any alleged verbal or violent behaviour”
aimed at its crews. The release says:
“This Ambulance Trust appeal to the Community to help change the apparent attitudes developing in society that seems to say it’s ok to behave in such a way.”
I would add that, if such societal attitudes develop and embed in behaviour, just as the violence and abuse referred to in the release would worsen, so would obstruction of ambulance crews, which would be highly undesirable.
As I mentioned in an intervention, the Bill is important in the education process for which many hon. Members have called as part of the response to the problem. It is important that we send the message that we think that this is such an important issue that we are creating a specific offence of obstructing emergency workers. We do not wish to send mixed messages—that the matter is important but we are not doing anything to face up to it.
My right hon. Friend gave an assurance that the Bill extends more widely than to employees of ambulance services. There has been some debate about whether that means voluntary workers such as St. John Ambulance, but I want to mention another group of people who are extremely significant in Staffordshire and other rural ambulance services: community first-responders. There is a strong association of community first-responders around the country. They are remarkable people who voluntarily undergo training by paid ambulance service workers and stand ready in their isolated localities and communities to receive calls to attend the scenes of serious incidents. Very often, because they are in isolated locations, they are first on the scene, before the ambulance crew arrives in response to the 999 call. I stress that they are volunteers who attend in their own time and who have the skills to deal with however horrific a situation they find when they reach their destination, where they help of their free will keeping people safe and alive until the professional crew arrives.
I also welcome the fact that the Bill extends to the air ambulance service. I tried to think in what ways people in helicopters might be obstructed in carrying out their duties and saving lives. The most obvious situation is somebody obstructing the landing of a helicopter that is picking up someone who is seriously injured in order to take them to hospital. Therefore, there is a point to that provision.
I shall not take up time dealing with the other groups of people who attract the Bill’s protection, but I should like to mention the case of staff who are transporting organs from one hospital to another in order to save a live in a transplant operation or delivering much needed blood that is required for a serious operation. They are clearly carrying out highly time-sensitive work, and obstructing them in the course of their duties could have serious consequences. It is right that they attract the protection of the Bill.
My hon. Friend
the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch mentioned protection for
those who are willing to put out to sea to save lives. There is no
coast in my constituency; we are a long way from the coast in
every direction, but as my hon. Friend pointed out, people travel to the
seaside and might get into danger. Conceivably, that could be any
resident of my constituency. It is therefore pleasing to know that the
protection of the law extends to people doing such important
work.
I said that clause 1(3) is sensibly wide, covering all the emergency operation: the journey to the scene of the incident, the preparatory work at the scene and the time spent giving help at the scene. The entire process is covered by the Bill and protects those doing such work.
Subsection (4) contains a comprehensive definition of emergency circumstances. I am particularly pleased that it extends to cases involving mental illness, which are so easily overlooked. It is interesting to note the protection offered concerning serious harm to the environment. I think instantly of the great expanse of beauty in my constituency in Cannock Chase, where there are numerous sites of special scientific interest and an area of outstanding natural beauty, which during the summer months are at serious risk of an outbreak of fire. Somebody obstructing the fire services on their way to tackling a fire in an open space such as Cannock Chase could be endangering hundreds of square miles of sensitive landscape, and I see the point in the provision.
The same point applies to buildings and premises. If the response is delayed, the extent of damage can be great. Perhaps most obviously, life and death situations are also covered, in subsection (4)(b).
I said that the Bill is surprisingly broad, and clause 2 is certainly a good example of that. Whereas the primary protection is for an emergency worker who is usually an employee of a fire or ambulance service, clause 2 extends to a person assisting such a worker. As I think I heard my right hon. Friend say, such a person could be a good Samaritan among the public who steps forward to help emergency workers at the scene. If that person, anxious and willing to assist, is obstructed on their way to give that assistance, it would be an offence. That is the impressive extent of the coverage that the Bill offers.
Action that amounts to obstruction is also widely defined in clause 3(1). It can consist of action other than physical obstruction, and when trying to think of examples of that, I recalled the incident last summer when someone killed a number of people at a garden barbecue and the police, fire service and ambulance service all stayed away for several hours because they believed that there was a person at the scene who was armed and would be a danger to the emergency workers who attended. I realised that a way in which workers could be obstructed by other than physical means was by someone maliciously and falsely claiming that there was something at the scene that would make it dangerous for them to attend—an armed person or explosive device, for example—thus keeping them away from the scene.
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