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The Bill is impressive. It is
widely drawn to cover the objectives. Critics of the Bill who complain
that it does not deal with aggravated assault have the wrong target,
because it is filling a space, albeit not that one, and by so doing it
will provide valuable assistance to our emergency workers who, after
all, face enough danger in their jobs. They act out of public
spiritedness, first and foremost, because they want to serve the
public, to
save lives and to prevent suffering and damage. Their jobs are hard
enough without a very small minority of irresponsible people getting in
their way and preventing them from doing their job, thus putting other
people in more serious danger and putting property at greater risk of
damage than would otherwise have been the case. The Bill is welcome and
I sincerely congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea,
West on his success in bringing it to this
point.
11.51 am
Helen Southworth (Warrington, South) (Lab): Like other hon. Members, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) for introducing the Bill because I, too, have done night shifts and day shifts with police, ambulance and fire services and with accident and emergency services at the hospital in my constituency. I greatly admire people who spend their time in public service and now that I have worked those shifts with the emergency services my admiration for what they do knows no bounds. They go out and work in a difficult environment trying to resolve some substantial problems, and they do so in a way that is kind and friendly and helps people who are in severe distress. Like other hon. Members, I think that it is outrageous that, when doing that, they face the threat of attack and aggression.
I have received a communication from Cheshire fire service—an admirable fire service—telling me that there were 25 reported incidents in 2005. On 21 occasions, stones, bricks, bottles, iron bars or golf balls were thrown at crew attending incidents. On several of those occasions, the vehicle but not the crew was hit, and on four occasions the appliance was forced to withdraw to ensure the safety of crew and prevent the situation from worsening. Some of the incidents were severe: for example, a firefighter attending a rubbish fire was attacked by two youths who smashed his visor on his helmet, cutting his eye. Other incidents have involved water bombs being thrown that forced the appliance to swerve when it was trying to get to a fire to tackle it. A fire service mechanic was travelling in his marked vehicle when two youths pulled out what appeared to be a firearm and aimed it at the vehicle. A crew member on an appliance that was attending a rubbish fire was hit by a 2-ft iron bar. So far in 2006, stones, bricks, bottles and other debris have been thrown at crews attending incidents on eight occasions, causing crew to consider whether they can get through to deal with the fire. Firefighters attending a fire in June were threatened with knives by a gang of youths and the crew was forced to withdraw from the scene.
All those incidents are taken extremely seriously by Cheshire fire and rescue service, which is working to increase the safety of its personnel. The service has installed closed-circuit television cameras on appliances in a number of the areas it covers, and it intends to introduce them across its whole area as soon as it can. In addition, appliances have high-visibility stickers stating that they are equipped with CCTV recording equipment. The service is determined not only to deter such incidents, but to make it clear to people that offenders who can be identified will be prosecuted.
Not only
does our fire service deal with emergency fires, but it tries to
prevent them. We have an extremely effective initiative whereby a home
safety assessment is
completed every 15 minutes, every day, seven days a week. I particularly
admire our fire service personnel for the way in which they constantly
seek ways to introduce safety into our local community. As well as
going out, risking their own lives and safety in dangerous incidents,
they are looking for ways to make our community a better place to live
by helping people to make their homes safe and dealing with slip and
trip hazards for older people.
The fire service is also involving local young people in such work. At a surgery in a community building that had had problems with fires being lit, I saw fire crews talking to quite young children and explaining to them what a fire does, how dangerous it can be, and their role in helping to make their local community safer. The children were getting very involved—actually, they had a great time. Adults were treating them with respect and the children were learning directly from important role models what respect means in a local community. I was pleased because the community in question has a number of disadvantages and having adults of that type—admirable role models—coming in is not just about dealing with current problems, but about giving young people an opportunity to see what they can do in future.
Mr. David Anderson: The experience that my hon. Friend describes is seen in my constituency, too. The community in the old mining village of Chopwell was being destroyed by drugs and lack of investment. The retained service there has a young firefighters club where young people go to work with the fire brigade. They learn how to respect their homes and each other. The service also holds open days and public days, so it is a real community initiative.
Helen Southworth: I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that work. In my community, too, groups of young people are brought along to fire service stations where they can use the equipment, learn about what is happening, and get a sound idea of the future prospects, not only for their community, but for themselves through going into public service. The fire service is an integral and key part of our community, which is why the Bill is so important. The Bill shows that we, too, believe that our emergency services are key, integral, valued and respected parts of our community that we not only respect, but are prepared to defend.
We are talking about one of the things that particularly disconcerts me about the position for fire service personnel, ambulance personnel and people in accident and emergency services at hospitals. I hope that we will be able to look at that to see whether the ability to modify might need to take into account the needs of accident and emergency workers, particularly people who work shifts on a Friday or Saturday night and have to deal with the alcohol-fuelled antisocial behaviour that can kick off in hospitals sometimes.
It is particularly important
that we protect people who work in stressful jobs and who should be
able to know that they can call on other people when they need help. I
am concerned that paramedics who have suffered assaults and attacks on
their vehicles when they are working in an extremely stressful
environment
feel that they cannot continue to work in the front line. It is shocking
that they believe that they are not sufficiently protected to be able
to continue to do their valuable job, because we all want them
to.
I want to draw attention to Merseyside and Cheshire ambulance services, because the work that is being carried out locally to tackle assaults on crews is drawing together in the most effective way management and trade unions to get across the message not just that we will not tolerate attacks on ambulance crews, but that if someone prevents an emergency service from getting out and doing its job, it could be that person or a member of their family who faces the effect. It is admirable that the management and Unison are working together to get that message across in a poster and public relations campaign. The figures indicate that ambulance crews reported 86 separate incidents involving an assault on them during 2005 in Merseyside and Cheshire. That is completely unacceptable. The Bill sends a clear message that we will not tolerate that sort of thing and I would like to add not just my support and that of the ambulance and fire services in my local area, but that of all my constituents, who want to see our emergency services given the protection and support that they need and deserve.
12.1 pm
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con): I congratulate the Father of the House on his success in allowing the Bill to proceed so smoothly and quickly through the House. I repeat the words that were offered on Second Reading and in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert): the Conservatives wish the Bill to proceed as quickly and smoothly as possible to the statute book. I offer my apologies to the House on behalf of my hon. Friend. He cannot be with us today because he is in his constituency seeking to protect the jobs of emergency workers in the NHS and other health workers who are threatened by incipient cuts to the health service in Sussex, and indeed Surrey.
We wish the Bill to proceed because we recognise that it performs three valuable functions and in that respect we are more than happy to give it our full support. First, it plugs a legislative gap. We are aware that, at the moment, legislative protection is afforded to the police as they go about their duties. Everyone knows that if they assault a police officer, it is an aggravated offence for which they will face a tougher sentence. As a result of the Bill being passed, a signal will be sent that to obstruct an emergency worker, whether it is an NHS worker, a fireman or someone who is working for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution or the coastguard, will also mean facing a particularly severe punishment. In that respect, we wholeheartedly support the legislation.
As well as plugging a gap, the
Bill sends a message. We do not always support legislation that sends a
message, because sometimes we believe that legislation should not be
used so lightly, simply to communicate censoriousness on the part of
the House. However, by sending a message, the Bill can have a welcome
deterrent effect. We have heard from a number of hon. Members this
morning about the increase in the number of incidents of attacks on, in
particular, ambulance workers. There is a clear need for legislative
action to ensure that those tempted to go down that path understand that
the House and the Government wish to prevent them from behaving in that
way.
The third reason why we want the Bill passed is because we believe that those who obstruct the work of emergency workers are guilty of a double crime: not only are they interfering criminally with the work of public servants, they are endangering the lives of others. As well as interfering in the effective provision of a public service, they are maximising the risk to others, whom those public servants are attempting to assist. In that respect, because those who commit such crimes are guilty of a double assault, we welcome the Bill.
As my hon. Friend said earlier, we wish to enter one note of regret. The original legislation that the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) introduced was based on the Bill that was introduced in the Scottish Parliament. For the sake of ease of legislative drafting, he attempted to introduce a Bill that was, in many respects, almost identical to the Scottish legislation. As someone who was born in Edinburgh and raised in Aberdeen, I am well aware that Scottish and English law are distinct from one another, and it may not be the case that Bills introduced in Scotland can have identical application in England. However, in order to introduce his Bill, the right hon. Gentleman had to negotiate with the Home Office, as he did in a spirit of good faith, and it insisted on dropping the aspect of the Bill that dealt specifically with assault. That is a matter of regret because, as has been spelled out by almost all hon. Members who have spoken, the incidence of direct physical assaults on emergency workers has increased in recent years, and legislation to deal with that would be welcome.
Indeed, the Government recognised that in their manifesto, which says:
“we will introduce tougher sentences for carrying replica guns, for those involved in serious knife crimes and for those convicted of assaulting workers serving the public.”
They have accepted legislative changes to deal with those carrying replica guns and with serious knife crimes, but when it comes to protecting workers who serve the public, they do not want legislation and say instead that the Sentencing Guidelines Council will do our work for us. We all remember that in recent weeks some of the decisions taken in court by judges acting in accordance with the Sentencing Guidelines Council have earned the criticism of Home Office Ministers. How can it be that judges who are operating according to the Sentencing Guidelines Council were excoriated by the Home Secretary two weeks ago but are now, according to what Home Office Ministers have said, to be the agents of the protection that we all feel that is required?
The onus is on the Minister to explain precisely how the Sentencing Guidelines Council will give effect to the feeling of the House to ensure that emergency workers get the protection they deserve. He must also explain why legislative action is not specifically required in this case. What is it about emergency workers that means that they do not deserve the same legislative protection that he has extended to other categories of potential victims in the range of legislation that he is introducing?
I look
forward to hearing from the Minister as he provides enlightenment on
this and many other topics. It remains only for me to say that we
congratulate the
Father of the House on introducing this much needed legislation. Our
only regret is that his original intent was blunted by the Home
Office.
12.7 pm
The Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety (Mr. Tony McNulty): I congratulate the Father of the House on securing the Bill and on facilitating its smooth passage.
As a member of the 1997 intake and a London MP, let me start in the same place as my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) did. At that time, we sat for perhaps half the Fridays available instead of 13. That was an interesting way to get more and more practice in this place. None of us can ever get enough of that. We had all-day Adjournment debates as well as debates on private Members’ Bills. I remember with great fondness duelling constantly, but mostly failing in the attempt, with my right hon. Friend—I hope that he would not have minded me calling him that—the former Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. As this is the first time that I have participated on a Friday since his sad demise, I want to put on record how much I learned from him. He was much maligned, misunderstood and excoriated—not least by Labour Members who did not know any better—but he will be sadly missed, not least by the 1997 intake of Friday boys, some of whom have been mentioned in dispatches today and some not.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) on securing cross-party support for the Bill. I also congratulate him on selecting, from among the plethora of choice of legal advice in this House, my hon. Friends the Members for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) and for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) rather than certain other learned colleagues. I can furnish him with a list of those on both sides of the House from whom he should never seek legal advice.
It is important—this has underscored many of today’s speeches—to say what precisely the Bill is supposed to do. It is not an attempt to reinvent assault legislation. It is not an attempt to establish a legislative framework for other things such as education awareness, antisocial behaviour, respect and all the other relevant considerations that hon. Members have mentioned. The Bill does not seek to achieve all that. Nor does it seek to afford aggravated status to the offence of obstructing emergency workers—a point to which I shall return.
However, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) suggests, the Bill seeks to fill a serious gap. Many of the concerns that he and my hon. Friends expressed would be more relevant if we wanted the Bill to be an overall comprehensive measure like the Scottish Act, but the Bill does not profess to be such a measure. There is no need for that, not least because, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath well knows, the Scottish Act sought to fill considerably more gaps in the Scottish legislative framework, and those gaps simply are not there in English legislation.
I had to
check my notes on this point, but I thank my right hon. Friend the
Member for Swansea, West, for saying that a Bill that the Home Office
had anything to do with was short and clear. That has not entirely been
my experience, either as a Back Bencher
or as a Minister, particularly in the Home Office, so I am grateful for
those comments. The Bill is short and clear—rightly so, because
these are extraordinarily serious matters, and filling the gap is
hugely important.
I must confess that although hon. Friends and colleagues have tried to explain such behaviour, I do not entirely understand why people think it a clever, smart or positive use of spare time to throw rocks at ambulances, or why they regard people in uniform who seek to help the public, and who invariably save lives, as invading their turf, or think that they are just “uniforms”, like the police. Some colleagues were even more generous, saying that the blue lights sparked off adrenaline, everyone became terribly excited, and testosterone levels went through the roof, but none of those are excuses for impeding, obstructing or doing something worse to prevent our emergency workers from going about their business. That simply is not right in any way, shape or form. Whether it is just a kick-out at authority, or whatever the excuse is, or not, it must desist, and we must introduce legislation that addresses the issues—and the Bill is a necessary part of that.
I know—all the more because, happily, there is a cross-party approach to the Bill—that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) would tell us that the perpetrators simply need a bit more love and affection. He would say that they are much misunderstood, and if only we understood them more, everything would be so different, and that we should hug them or whatever—but I do not agree with that approach, either. However, to take one step back, I agree with the opening sentence of the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown)—her point was repeated by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous)—that we have to go a long way back along the chain and consider issues such as parenting, family breakdown and other factors that are the antecedents of antisocial behaviour, to try to address such matters. That is part of the Government’s comprehensive approach.
Many of my hon. Friends mentioned the respect agenda and what we are trying to do to tackle antisocial behaviour. That very much fits in with trying to take preventive measures, but we have heard some horrendous stories this morning about the ways in which people seek to impede and obstruct emergency workers. Some of the points that colleagues have made are entirely fair and were dealt with in Committee. Some have been answered, but some perhaps will need to be revisited. It was right and proper to try to define an emergency worker as narrowly as possible, but also to include the escape clause so that we can consider adding to the categories, if experience dictates that the list is not adequate. I understand what was said by many colleagues about social workers and people who, in the course of their routine day-to-day work, may not necessarily be construed as emergency workers, but who are often put in positions in which they solve or help to solve an emergency. Those people deserve to be covered by the Bill so that they are not obstructed while carrying out their work. Those matters can and should be considered.
As
I said, the Bill was not intended to reinvent assault legislation in
the context of public workers. We are doing that in many other ways. It
has been pointed out
that unlike Scotland, we have the Sentencing Guidelines Council. It
already almost imposes a tariff for impeding people in the execution of
public service, and we are considering in detail, with the council,
other ways in which sentences can reflect the spirit and sentiment of
the Bill. It is appropriate that many colleagues have put the wider
issues of assault of public sector workers generally, and emergency
workers specifically, in the context of the Bill, but the Bill does not
try to do everything. Its narrow focus is
appropriate.
It probably was inappropriate that the original Bill almost exactly reflected the Scottish provision, given that we do not start from the same legislative base. I shall say very carefully—and I shall not, as I was invited to, tease the House about what the Sentencing Guidelines Council may or may not say—that that is a matter that the Government should keep under review. Having set up the Sentencing Guidelines Council, we should let it do its work. If that achieves what we want with respect to the legislative base, that is more appropriately done in that way, although I reserve our right to return to the matter.
Richard Younger-Ross: The Minister used the words “may” and “if” with reference to the Sentencing Guidelines Council. Will he give a commitment that if there is not an increase in sentences over time, the Home Office will review the matter and consider whether assaults on emergency workers should be deemed to be aggravated?
Mr. McNulty: That sounded terribly like one of those elephant traps that Liberal Democrats are always trying to get Ministers to fall into by giving cast-iron assurances. None the less, unusually, that is a fair paraphrase of what I said, and I will take it back to the Home Office. I think that means yes, in a convoluted way.
Michael Gove: The Minister used the conditional “may” or “might”, yet the manifesto on which he fought the last general election—and, I concede, won it—says:
“we will introduce tougher sentences . . . for those convicted of assaulting workers serving the public.”
We have already had retreats by the Home Office this week on ID cards and on police mergers. Is this the third retreat this week?
Mr. McNulty: I thank the hon. Gentleman, whom I respect very much, for conceding the last election. That is terribly generous. He is being tedious. We already have people looking at how we can carry out that manifesto commitment. It is not a matter of whether we will do that—we will; it is a matter of how. We have established the Sentencing Guidelines Council, so it is appropriate in the first instance that it does the job with which it is charged. Then, as I tried to say to the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross)—in a convoluted way, I fully accept—we will examine the matter further if the Sentencing Guidelines Council route is not the appropriate one.
With
the Sentencing Guidelines Council, there is already an implied tariff
in place for those who obstruct public service workers. We need to
build on that. We are considering, as the hon. Member for Teignbridge
rightly
suggests, other aspects such as sentencing for firearms and knife
offences, and the wider context of assaults on public sector workers,
rather than the narrow confines of obstruction of emergency workers.
That commitment remains absolute.
When the hon. Member for Surrey Heath speaks of retreats of this sort or that sort, both of which are fiction, he is introducing an unnecessary and poisonous veneer of partisanship into our deliberations, which he should be ashamed of. I agree with his starting point. We need to fill the gap and add a deterrent or exhortatory value to the law. I agree with his point about the double impact of interference in the discharge of emergency workers’ duty and the potential damage done by that obstruction—for example, when the pipes used by firemen are cut.
I absolutely commend what the Father of the House has done with regard to the Bill. To hon. Members who have criticised the extent of the Bill, I say that it elegantly fills a gap that needs filling. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have discussed the wider issues, and we will examine those points and report back to the House. The House is about to give the Bill a fair wind, and I hope that it receives a fair wind in the other place too, in which case the Father of the House will be able to add it to his many other significant contributions in his long and enduring time in this place.
12.20 pm
Mr. Alan Williams: With the leave of the House, I shall reply to the debate. It has gone on longer than I anticipated, and there is another important debate to come. I therefore hope that hon. Members will excuse me if I do not go through all the excellent speeches that have been made. All the speeches have been positive, and there has been unanimity on both sides of the House in our support not for the Bill, but for the work done by emergency workers, which should be satisfying for those workers.
I want to make two points about the debate. First, it has emerged that hon. Members are deeply afraid that with increasing attacks on emergency workers, as well as interference in their work, we may end up with no-go areas in parts of some towns. Secondly, hon. Members are deeply conscious that sanctions alone are not enough, and that education, training and understanding must form part of the programme.
It would be invidious to pick out one speech, but I shall pick out one comment, which I commend to the House as the quote of the day: my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) intervened to suggest, “Hug a firefighter”. I am not sure whether that would create a sense of neglect among the other services—but I do worry that our poor firemen will be afraid to go out in daylight.
I thank everyone for their support.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.
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