Points of Order
Wednesday 19th July 2017
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday’s Order Paper said that the debate on drugs could continue until 7 o’clock. The final speaker sat down four minutes early. The normal practice in this House is then to use that time for other speakers to contribute. It was particularly interesting that the final speaker, the Minister, had denied interventions on the grounds that she did not have enough time to finish. The Standing Orders are not clear on this point. Is it not right that we get some definition of past practice in relation to cases where speakers do not have anything else left to say and other Members can contribute to what would then be a full debate?
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his characteristic courtesy in giving me advance notice somewhat earlier of his intention to raise it. I am loth to quibble with the hon. Gentleman, who is a considerable authority on matters parliamentary, as evidence by the well-thumbed tome on how to be a Back Bencher of which he is the distinguished author. That said, I am inclined slightly to quibble with him on his proposition that it is normal or commonplace, if a ministerial wind-up concludes early, for other Members to be invited to contribute. In my experience, that is not commonplace. I would not say that it never happens, because you can almost always find an example of something if you try hard enough, but certainly when I am in the Chair I tend to work on the assumption that the ministerial wind-up is indeed the conclusion of the debate.
I note what the hon. Gentleman says about the conclusion of this debate taking place earlier than listed on the Order Paper, although I am sure that he will readily accept that the Official Report—that is to say, the verbatim account of what was said; there is no question of misleading anybody—will show that the debate concluded a little early. The Chair does not normally allow a further Back-Bench speech, and—this is not directed at the hon. Gentleman; it is just a wider point—certainly not from a Member who had already made a substantial speech in the debate.
As for interventions, the hon. Gentleman, as the author of “How To Be An MP”—available in all good bookshops, and of which I am myself a noted admirer, as he knows—he will appreciate that a Member is free to take interventions or not. I note what he tells me—that the Minister said, “No, I can’t take interventions because I haven’t time”—but that is not something on which the Chair can rule. Sometimes Ministers can be a tad neurotic in these circumstances, it is true, as can sometimes, perhaps, shadow Ministers, but that is not a matter for the Chair. Whether the Member seeking to intervene likes it or not, the situation is as I have described.
Let me take this opportunity, in a positive spirit, to encourage all new Members—I am not sure the Whips would agree about this—to read the hon. Gentleman’s books on being a good parliamentarian. [Interruption.] “No!” says a Government Whip, chuntering from a sedentary position, in evident horror at what bad habits new members of the flock might pick up. I think that they are fine tomes. The hon. Gentleman has used his position as a Back-Bench Member to stand up for his constituents and to fight for the principles in which he believes. That has sometimes pleased his party and sometimes not, but that is what we are supposed to get here—Members of Parliament who speak to their principles and their consciences. That is a good thing, and, as he knows, I like to encourage it. In fact, when I was a Back Bencher, I had a relationship with my Whips characterised by trust and understanding—I didn’t trust them and they didn’t understand me.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, the Department of Health accounts were finally laid before the House, after a week of to-ing and fro-ing that prompted no actual changes, as I understand it, to them. The Comptroller and Auditor General has raised some concerns about the accounts. I seek your guidance on two points, Mr Speaker. First, the accounts have again been laid late. Last year, they were laid on the final day on which Parliament sat; this time, they were laid only a couple of days before the final day. Secondly, what can we do to ensure that a Minister turns up to the House to explain the Department of Health accounts and address the financial concerns that many Members of the House, and not least the Public Accounts Committee, have about the Government’s handling of health finances?
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who has put her concern on the record. It will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench, and I suspect that the contents of her point of order will wing their way to Health Ministers ere long. The truth of the matter is that there is no resolution of her grievance available from the Chair. The Select Committee on Health may wish to return to this matter if it is dissatisfied, and the Public Accounts Committee, of which the hon. Lady is herself the distinguished Chair, may wish to pursue this matter further. Realistically, I fear that that will have to wait until September, although if the hon. Lady—she is of course a London Member, and a very assiduous attender—is present in her place tomorrow for the summer Adjournment debate and wishes to expatiate further on her concerns, she may well find she is able to catch the eye of the Chair.
If there are no further points of order—I think that there are none—we come now to the presentation of Bills.
Bills presented
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Chris Bryant, supported by Holly Lynch, Stephen Crabb, Mr Graham Brady, Ms Harriet Harman, Mr Dominic Grieve, Jo Stevens, Diana Johnson, Tulip Siddiq, Lilian Greenwood, Carolyn Harris and Philip Davies, presented a Bill to make provision about offences when perpetrated against emergency workers, and persons assisting such workers; to make certain offences aggravated when perpetrated against such workers in the exercise of their duty; to require persons suspected of certain assaults against such workers which may pose a health risk to provide intimate samples and to make it an offence, without reasonable excuse, to refuse to provide such samples; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 20 October, and to be printed (Bill 7).
Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Steve Reed, supported by Norman Lamb, Mr Charles Walker, Jim Shannon, Keith Vaz, Sarah Jones, Mr David Lammy, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, Marsha De Cordova, Caroline Lucas, Clive Lewis and Heidi Allen, presented a Bill to make provision about the oversight and management of the appropriate use of force in relation to people in mental health units and similar institutions; to make provision about the use of body cameras by police officers in the course of duties in relation to people in mental health units; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 3 November, and to be printed (Bill 8).
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Afzal Khan, supported by Joanna Cherry, Hannah Bardell, Mr Alistair Carmichael, Liz Saville Roberts, Lady Hermon and Caroline Lucas, presented a Bill to amend the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 to make provision about the number and size of parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 December, and to be printed (Bill 9).
Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Ms Karen Buck, supported by Luciana Berger, Jess Phillips, Matthew Pennycook, Shabana Mahmood, Heidi Allen, Marsha De Cordova, Andy Slaughter, Alex Sobel, Kate Green, Diana Johnson and Clive Efford, presented a Bill to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to require that residential rented accommodation is provided and maintained in a state of fitness for human habitation; to amend the Building Act 1984 to make provision about the liability for works on residential accommodation that do not comply with Building Regulations; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 19 January 2018, and to be printed (Bill 10).
Mr Speaker
Friday 19 January is a splendid day—it is my birthday.
Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Tim Loughton, supported by Mr Graham Brady, Dame Caroline Spelman, Mrs Anne Main, Frank Field, Heidi Allen, Caroline Lucas and Antoinette Sandbach, presented a Bill to provide that opposite sex couples may enter a civil partnership; to make provision about the registration of the names of the mother of each party to a marriage or civil partnership; to make provision about the registration of stillborn deaths; to give coroners the power to investigate stillborn deaths; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 2 February 2018, and to be printed (Bill 11).
Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Geoffrey Robinson, supported by Paul Flynn, Sir Vince Cable, Caroline Lucas, Michael Fabricant, Liz Saville Roberts, Dr Philippa Whitford, Kate Green, Sir Oliver Letwin, Jim Shannon, Angela Rayner and Crispin Blunt, presented a Bill to enable persons in England to withhold consent for organ donation and transplantation; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 February 2018, and to be printed (Bill 12).
Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Angus Brendan MacNeil, supported by Stephen Twigg, Robert Neill, Stuart C. McDonald, Tulip Siddiq, Tim Farron, Jim Shannon, Caroline Lucas, Anna Soubry, Ian Blackford, Stella Creasy and Hywel Williams, presented a Bill to make provision for leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom to be granted to the family members of refugees and of people granted humanitarian protection; to provide for legal aid to be made available for such family reunion cases; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 16 March 2018, and to be printed (Bill 13).
Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Kevin Hollinrake, supported by Will Quince, Sir Nicholas Soames, Craig Tracey, Carolyn Harris, Antoinette Sandbach, Jeremy Quin, Huw Merriman, Victoria Prentis, Diana Johnson and Rebecca Pow, presented a Bill to make provision about leave and pay for employees whose children have died.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 20 October, and to be printed (Bill 14).
Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement and Education) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Vicky Foxcroft, on behalf of Jim McMahon, supported by Jeremy Corbyn, Tom Watson, Peter Kyle, Diana Johnson, Lucy Powell, Sir Peter Bottomley, Stephen Gethins, Jo Swinson, Jonathan Edwards and Caroline Lucas, presented a Bill to reduce the voting age to 16 in parliamentary and other elections; to make provision about young people’s education in citizenship and the constitution; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 3 November, and to be printed (Bill 15).
Overseas Electors Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Glyn Davies presented a Bill to make provision extending the basis on which British citizens outside the UK qualify to participate in parliamentary elections; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 February 2018, and to be printed (Bill 16).
Parking (Code of Practice) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Sir Greg Knight, supported by Kevin Brennan, Pete Wishart, Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg, Daniel Zeichner and Graham Jones, presented a Bill to make provision for and in connection with a code of practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking facilities; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 2 February 2018, and to be printed (Bill 17).
Mr Speaker
I think the nation should be aware that, perhaps because the right hon. Gentleman’s Bill relates to parking, he is sporting a notably colourful tie, which features a very large number of cars. Knowing his penchant, I assume that they are classic cars.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
They are, indeed.
Unpaid Trial Work Periods (Prohibition) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Stewart Malcolm McDonald, supported by Ian Murray, Lady Hermon, Caroline Lucas, Christine Jardine, Patricia Gibson, David Linden, Alison Thewliss, Chris Stephens, Patrick Grady, Carol Monaghan and Martin Whitfield, presented a Bill to prohibit unpaid trial work periods in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 16 March 2018, and to be printed (Bill 18).
Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Esther McVey, supported by Andrew Selous, David T. C. Davies, Kirstene Hair, Trudy Harrison, Philip Davies, Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg, Mr Christopher Chope, Paul Farrelly, Mr Kevan Jones, Mr Stephen Hepburn and Sir Edward Davey, presented a Bill to make provision about interference with wireless telegraphy in prisons and similar institutions.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 December, and to be printed (Bill 19).
Stalking Protection Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Dr Sarah Wollaston, supported by Mrs Cheryl Gillan, Ms Harriet Harman, Alex Chalk, Antoinette Sandbach, Luciana Berger, Richard Graham, Victoria Prentis, Maria Caulfield, Mims Davies, Jess Phillips and Vicky Ford, presented a Bill to make provision for protecting persons from risks associated with stalking; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 19 January 2018, and to be printed (Bill 20).
Mr Speaker
Friday 19 January—I do hope I am here.
Employment and Workers’ Rights Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Stephanie Peacock, supported by Louise Haigh, Rachel Reeves, Dan Jarvis, Ellie Reeves, Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy, Jo Stevens, Ian Mearns, Mike Amesbury, Laura Smith and Chris Stephens, presented a Bill to make provision about employment conditions and workers’ rights; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 27 April 2018, and to be printed (Bill 21).
Licensing of Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Daniel Zeichner presented a Bill to make provision about the exercise of taxi and private hire vehicle licensing functions in relation to persons about whom there are safeguarding or road safety concerns; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 2 February 2018, and to be printed (Bill 22).
Freedom of Information (Extension) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Andy Slaughter, supported by Dan Jarvis, Jo Stevens, David Hanson, Ian C. Lucas, Ruth Cadbury, Christian Matheson, Clive Efford, Stephen Timms, Ms Karen Buck, Louise Haigh and Kate Green, presented a Bill to make providers of social housing, local safeguarding children boards, Electoral Registration Officers, Returning Officers and the Housing Ombudsman public authorities for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 2000; to make information held by persons contracting with public authorities subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000; to extend the powers of the Information Commissioner; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 15 June 2018, and to be printed (Bill 23).
Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Peter Kyle, supported by Nicky Morgan, Norman Lamb, Sir Peter Bottomley, Rachel Reeves, Ruth Smeeth, Wes Streeting, Anna Turley, Holly Lynch, Conor McGinn, Caroline Lucas and Jim McMahon, presented a Bill to reduce the voting age to 16 in parliamentary and other elections; to make provision for auto-enrolment onto the electoral register for people aged 16 to 24; to make provision about the use of educational establishments as polling stations; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 May 2018, and to be printed (Bill 24).
Physician Associates (Regulation) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Anne Marie Morris presented a Bill to make provision for the regulation of physician associates; to make physician associate a protected title; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 26 October 2018, and to be printed (Bill 25).
National Living Wage (Extension to Young People) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Holly Lynch, supported by Chris Bryant, Jo Stevens, Anna Turley, Wes Streeting, Jess Phillips, Tulip Siddiq, Ruth Smeeth, Gareth Snell, Conor McGinn, Naz Shah and Graham Jones, presented a Bill to extend the National Living Wage to people aged 18 to 24.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 6 July 2018, and to be printed (Bill 26).
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill
Friday 20th October 2017
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I start from a simple premise. An assault on anyone is wrong, but an attack on any emergency worker—whether that is a police constable, a paramedic, an ambulance driver, an accident and emergency doctor or nurse, a fire officer, a prison officer, someone working in search and rescue, or someone working on a lifeboat—is an attack on us all. And when we are all attacked, we all stand firm together.
It is not just that many of these people show daily acts of bravery; they put their lives on the line. We know that here in Parliament, where PC Keith Palmer was murdered earlier this year. We owe him a phenomenal debt of gratitude. London knows it. A brave British Transport police officer was stabbed when he faced the London Bridge attackers with nothing but a baton earlier this year. That same day, a Met officer was also stabbed when he came to defend the public, despite being off duty. The whole country knows it, too, as we have seen horrific instances, week after week, of emergency staff who have been stabbed, strangled, bitten, repeatedly punched, kicked when down on the ground, and threatened with knives and acid. It is incomprehensible that people should attack our national heroes like this. It is amazing that those staff still go the extra mile on behalf of the British public. It is time that we did everything in our power to protect them.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
I was taken to hospital by ambulance last month, having fallen ill. It was a horrible experience, which was made much better by the ambulance staff, who showed such kindness and professionalism to me and my two-year-old son. I got talking to them in the ambulance and they told me that they faced abuse on a daily basis. I told them about this Bill, and they wanted to pass on their thanks to my hon. Friend. This legislation is long overdue.
Chris Bryant
I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. She makes her point extremely well. It is worth saying that the Bill is supported not only by the Royal College of Nursing and all the trade unions that represent staff in these different lines of work, but by the Metropolitan police, the Police Federation and nearly every part of civil society. I hope we do not end up with a vote later today, but the lack of a vote will not show a lack of assent by this House. Indeed, I think it will show the unanimous assent of the House to change the law in this regard.
It is a depressing fact that the number of assaults on emergency workers has dramatically increased in recent years. The Home Office’s own figures—these are frightening—suggest that there were 24,000 assaults on police officers in England and Wales in 2016-17. The Police Federation reckons that there is an unarmed assault on a police officer every four minutes, and that is even without including police community support officers. The Ministry of Justice says that there were 7,159 assaults on prison officers last year—up a third on the previous year.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend will know, not only have attacks on police officers risen by about 7% in the past seven years, but those attacks are on fewer police officers. We have lost 20,000 police officers, so there is now more chance of a police officer being attacked than there was seven years ago.
Chris Bryant
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why I pay enormous tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who, with the Police Federation, has led the charge on this issue and brought it to the House. I feel as if I am merely carrying the baton that she elegantly shaped.
Figures from NHS Protect are equally disturbing. There were 59,794 attacks on NHS staff in 2011-12. That is bad enough, but the figure increased to 70,555 by 2015-16. Yet the number of criminal sanctions for those assaults has actually fallen in that time, from 1,380 to 1,250. That is a lot of people who are not seeing justice.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that the cost to the NHS of these attacks is estimated to be £69 million a year?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is able to read my mind, because that was my next sentence.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the figure for assaults on NHS staff is probably much higher? I know from my experience of working in the NHS that a lot of staff did not report assaults, because they were not confident anything would be done.
Chris Bryant
That is part of the problem that we—and, for that matter, the whole criminal justice system—need to address: all too often, people simply do not feel at the end of the process that they have got justice. When people see those working alongside them not getting justice, with paltry sentences handed down, they of course decide, “I don’t want to have to go through all the grief and the hassle of pressing charges.”
Stephen Crabb
I am grateful to my hon. Friend—he is my hon. Friend too. Does he agree that there is a real sense of anger and frustration not just among police officers but among other emergency workers when they see people walking out of court with, effectively, a slap on the wrist?
Chris Bryant
If it were even a slap on the wrist, that would be nice, but sometimes the punishment is absolutely minimal. It is intrinsic to justice that it has to be seen to be done, and I will come on later to why I think my Bill will make a difference. I know there are people at the criminal Bar who—perhaps out of an excessive loyalty to other lawyers—dislike it whenever we introduce a new offence, but I hope the Bill will make a difference.
Incidentally, it is worth bearing in mind the fact that this year the Welsh ambulance service has listed 114 properties as housing potentially violent people, while another 320 were listed as potentially dangerous. That is this year; in January 2016, only 50 properties were flagged up. In other words, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of places where paramedics feel they are unable to go without police support. That is truly worrying for our society.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
It is important to emphasise, as the hon. Gentleman just did, that assaults on emergency workers are not solely an urban problem. Given the chronic reduction in police numbers, in particular, I hope this legislation will offer greater protection for officers in rural areas, who often respond to calls with insufficient back-up and bad communications.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I can only praise her for being here today, when she could have been at the Plaid Cymru party conference. That is a phenomenal act of dedication.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
While my hon. Friend is on the subject of Wales and the frequency of attacks, may I mention a real story that was recently relayed to me by a woman married to a police officer? She told me:
“According to my children their father is the clumsiest dad ever, as we have had to tell them he ‘fell over a bin chasing someone’, ‘he walked into a Police cupboard door’, ‘he caught himself on a police car door’. I am tired of having to tell my children about how he sustained his injuries to stop them worrying.”
Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the reality of working life for many emergency workers?
Chris Bryant
It is the reality, but it should not be—that is the point we all want to make. Of course, this affects not only the individual concerned but other members of the family. In terms of the recruitment of police officers and emergency workers in the future, people often follow their parents into a profession, and if they feel that their parents have been badly treated, it is unlikely they will come forward for these jobs in the future.
Chris Bryant
I am sticking with Wales, and then I will come to my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin).
Albert Owen
I am grateful to my hon. Welsh Friend for allowing me to intervene. He has rightly mentioned police officers, health workers and others. In his introduction, he mentioned search and rescue and lifeboats, and I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Many of these emergency workers are actually volunteers. They show us how to respect the sea; we must now show them respect.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I have had various people email me and twitter me—or whatever the verb is. [Interruption.] Tweet to me. Anyway, they asked whether lifeboat staff will be included, and, of course, they are included. For that matter, the Mines Rescue Service in my constituency is as well, because search and rescue people are absolutely vital. My hon. Friend makes the very good point that many of these people are volunteers. We could, of course, argue that most emergency workers go the extra mile, and that extra mile often means, effectively, that they are working as volunteers. That is why we should stand by them.
Tracy Brabin
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He mentioned that violent crime is on the rise and that people in some properties are being flagged up as potentially violent to the police. I have been lobbied by constituents who are PCSOs and find themselves increasingly going into potentially violent situations with no handcuffs, pepper spray or any of that. Will they also be included in the Bill, so that they, too, will be protected?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend raises a good point. I am not entirely sure that they would be. If that is the case, we will make sure in Committee, when I have taken a bit more legal advice, that they are included, because it would be bizarre in the extreme if they were not. PCSOs in my constituency are an absolutely vital part of the equation of community policing, and we should afford them exactly the same protection.
I should say that I have had an awful lot of conversations with Ministers over the last few weeks about the Bill, which has been a delight, and I am not entirely convinced that we yet have the definition of an emergency worker in the Bill right, because some people who work in the NHS who should be included would not be. I have talked to Ministers, and they are absolutely clear that we will put that right in Committee, so I hope both the elements I have mentioned can be put right in Committee.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that those who look after us and keep us safe need protecting with the full force of the law, and that that is the protection his Bill will provide?
Chris Bryant
Absolutely, and the point is that it needs the full force of the law. All too often, the victims, who work in our emergency services, and who know this area of the law well, have felt that the full force of the law has not been used.
I have cited some statistics, but this is not just about statistics. Last year, Nurse Sharon Morris was attacked in a mental health unit, and it is worth saying that Unison, the trade union, has found that more than two in every five mental health workers have been attacked in the last year. The effect on Sharon’s life was profound. She said:
"I’m not the same calm but confident woman I was. Personally, I’m feeling vulnerable, and I feel I’m not much use to my family as I am on edge whenever we are around people. I have nightmares and flashbacks. The worst part is seeing my assailant’s face superimposed on my eldest son’s face—they are physically similar—and I couldn’t cope with him hugging me for many weeks. I was off sick for three months, and I’m now seeking redeployment away from patient areas; I get anxious around patients, so I’m currently just doing office work.”
In fact, since she said those words, she has moved on to another area of work. That is one of the problems: these assaults are leading to a serious problem in the recruitment and retention of staff.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
I certainly hope the hon. Gentleman gets a Second Reading for his Bill, which should go through unopposed. I support the Bill, but there is so much that needs to be done on it. The example he has just given would not even be covered by it, so a lot of work needs to be done in Committee before it comes back to this Chamber.
Chris Bryant
There was a version of the Bill that did include this issue, but somehow or other, by some glitch of computers, it disappeared. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and that goes back to the point I made earlier. The issue is something we want to put right in Committee, and I hope the whole House will want to rectify it.
Members should just listen to what PC Adam Heslop of the British Transport police said. He had his nose broken when he was punched in the face. He had been in many situations where he feared physical assault, but he had never actually been punched. His assailant was given a curfew and ordered to pay court costs of £85 when convicted of actual bodily harm. PC Heslop said:
“I know better than to expect justice from the courts when it comes to police assaults. I think that’s one of the reasons assaults are up.”
That is the problem: if the victims do not feel that there has been justice or that justice has been seen to be done, it seems to the whole of society that people are getting away with these things—as if there is a law of lawlessness when it comes to attacking the police.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
I, too, support the Bill. Between April and September, Cheshire police recorded 277 assaults on police officers. That demonstrates vividly why the Bill is needed to strengthen the law in this area. This really is a problem locally.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. As the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) said, this is not just about urban areas—it is about the whole of the country. In fact, the north-west ambulance service recently reported a 24% increase in assaults on ambulance workers in that region in the past year.
Chris Elmore
You can never get enough Wales, as I am sure my hon. Friend would agree. In recent years there has been an increase in assaults on first responders to ambulance calls who are treating patients at the side of the road and being attacked by somebody who was attacking the person they were treating. Are first responders included in the Bill, or will they need to be included in Committee?
Chris Bryant
The legal advice that I have had is that they would be included, but we need to make sure of that in Committee.
I think every single one of us will feel it is inconceivable—incomprehensible—that, when somebody comes to save a life, they can be physically attacked for doing so. How does that happen? There is a cry of outrage at the heart of this Bill. It is an attempt to give an extra tool to the prosecuting authorities to make sure that we can stem the tide of these assaults.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Two years ago I stood in utter amazement in Porth watching kids on the other side of the valley throwing bricks at fire officers who were trying to put a fire out on the mountain. Words fail me.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is also Welsh. It is just as well that this Bill applies to England and Wales.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am glad that he is not at the Plaid Cymru conference either. I am sure he will get there later.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
My wife and I had cause to be extremely grateful to the fire service on Wednesday morning. We lost a dog that was staying with us—she had absconded over the fence. The efforts of the boys at Stockhill fire station in extracting Nike from between a hedge and a wall were greatly appreciated. Does my hon. Friend agree that glad though they will be to get my warm wishes on this very public stage, what they want from their legislators is an understanding in law that shows we understand what happens to them on a daily basis and will act on it?
Chris Bryant
Absolutely. It is worth saying that the reason I presented this Bill rather than any other is that I did a survey of my constituents and of the wider public, to which more than 40,000 people responded, giving them a choice of six different Bills, each of which I would have been very happy to present. Another Member is doing civil partnerships and somebody else is doing votes at 16 and so on, but this subject came top in my constituency and around the country. That means that we are also responding to the public, which is an important part of what we are sent here to do.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. At least the Rees bit of me is Welsh. I congratulate him on bringing forward this Bill, because he has managed to show that private Members’ Bills on a Friday morning may cover serious topics that have the widespread support not only of the House but the country. It is very important for Parliament that we do sensible and proper things today rather than just hear people making statements.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that. Because we now have a two-year Session for this Parliament, private Members’ Bill Fridays have been stretched out considerably. If this Bill gets its Second Reading today, as we all hope, it could easily get through Committee in the next few weeks. There is no reason why the Government could not give it Government time on a Thursday afternoon, for instance, rather than having to wait until the end of April for its remaining stages. We could then send it off to the House of Lords and it could be on the statute book by Easter rather than having to wait the whole year.
Ms Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)
As a former nurse, I am really pleased to see the call for blood and saliva tests when people have been bitten or spat at, because I know how worrying it is for somebody to think that they might have HIV or hepatitis. Waiting times in A&E, plus the shortage of nurses to de-escalate situations because they are busy doing 101 other things, mean that there is nobody to deal with the rising tensions in hospital situations. That is partly why assaults are on the up. This group of people have suffered under the public sector pay cap, and at least this Bill is one way of recognising their commitment.
Chris Bryant
I agree with all the different points that my hon. Friend made in her mini-speech. Indeed, I am going to make some of them myself, particularly in relation to resourcing in mental health units. It is self-evidently more difficult to make sure that staff are secure and safe at work if they feel that they are under-staffed.
Some people will think that no action is necessary and say that a new offence will make no difference. But I believe that we cannot be bystanders. We cannot just hold emergency workers’ coats while they are in danger. We cannot just issue warm words. Making something illegal will not necessarily stop it, of course, but I believe that legislation can play a role in tackling this scandal and clarifying the law, sending out as clear a message as possible that we—all of us—will not put up with this. If you attack an emergency worker you will face the consequences of your actions.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. Quite a lot of this is normalised by society; there is an expectation that it is part of the job. This Bill sends a clear message that emergency services workers do not have to put up with this type of behaviour and abuse.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I agree with every word. Indeed, I am going to say it again myself later.
My Bill does three things. First, it introduces a new offence of common assault or battery against an emergency worker in the performance of their duties. As I am sure hon. Members know, there are similar offences on the statute book: common assault contrary to section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1998; and assault on a police constable, a prison officer or an immigration officer in execution of his duty under section 89(1) of the Police Act 1996, section 8 of the Prison Act 1952, and section 22 of the UK Borders Act 2007. There will be a test afterwards.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I am not Welsh, but the west midlands are not too far from the Welsh border. Home Office statistics show that in the west midlands alone there were just over 1,300 assaults recorded against police officers in 2016-17. I hope that the Bill gets its Second Reading and continues. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this debate, as well as dealing with assaults on emergency workers, should, and really will, send out a strong message to other public sector workers in areas such refuse collection, who also face assault, that these attacks are absolutely not acceptable and will not be tolerated?
Chris Bryant
I would like to cut the number of assaults on anyone in society—that is the truth of the matter. The hon. Lady makes a good point about public sector workers.
Incidentally, I should make one comment before I continue. My hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Ms Lee) referred to HIV. It is true that people often fear HIV infection in these situations, but it is almost inconceivable that somebody would be infected with HIV by being spat at. I want to make that absolutely clear. I would be horrified if my Bill were somehow to be used to increase the stigma attached to such illnesses.
There is a problem with the existing offences. Common assault makes no distinction between a member of the public and an emergency worker, and the other offences apply only to police, prison and immigration officers, and not to all emergency workers. What is more, they are all summary offences triable only in the magistrates courts, with a maximum sentence of six months.
By contrast, the Bill’s new offence will apply to all emergency workers. It will be an “either way” offence, triable in either a magistrates court or a Crown court, with a maximum sentence of 12 months, or a fine, or both. In essence, it will double the maximum sentence available for assault or battery of an emergency worker. It will give the Crown Prosecution Service an extra string to its bow and it will match the provisions already in place in Scotland.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
On that point, I am trying to understand the hon. Gentleman’s reasoning for the sentence on indictment being exactly the same as the sentence on summary. Will that be teased out in Committee? What was his thinking on that?
Chris Bryant
My original suggestion was that it should be six months on a summary offence and 12 months on an indictable offence, but the Government decided that they would prefer it to be 12 months on either. Because I am in an emollient mood, I decided to go along with the Government. That may be a question for the Government, today or in Committee. There is an argument for holding the Committee stage on the Floor of the House on one of the days that might be empty over the next few weeks, given the legislative programme.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way so many times. He will be aware that the Attorney General can review unduly lenient sentencing for certain offences. I have called for that to be extended to offences against police officers, which the hon. Gentleman has referenced. Will he consider the possibility that, in Committee, the offences in the Bill could be wrapped into that extended power?
Chris Bryant
That is a good point, which had not occurred to me. The hon. Gentleman has made a good case for being on the Bill Committee, and that is up to me. The Bill Committee may be growing, however, so we may have to persuade the Government Whips; I have found that if one talks nicely to Government Whips, they are sometimes helpful. We might want to bring Committee or Report to the Floor of the House so that everyone can consider the proposals.
The second thing the Bill does is mirror, in clause 2, the provisions in part 12 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. That Act made any offence aggravated when it was based on hostility to the victim’s race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender nature. That statutory definition of aggravated offences built on the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which stipulated that certain offences would attract longer sentences if they were racially or religiously motivated. So clause 2 of my Bill will put an assault perpetrated against an emergency worker on a legal par with a hate crime, and I think that that is the appropriate way to go. It means that the court must state, in open court, that the crime is so aggravated and must treat as an aggravating factor the fact that the offence was committed in such a way.
Clause 3 defines an emergency worker. Thanks to a glitch, I think the definition is not quite right, and we will want to improve it in Committee.
Chris Bryant
I thought that that might prompt the hon. Gentleman to intervene. Lo and behold, Zebedee appeared.
Jeremy Lefroy
I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman thought that, but I am most grateful to him for giving way and for all the work that he has done on this incredibly important Bill. On a point of definition, we could consider in Committee the inclusion of minor injuries units as well as urgent treatment centres and emergency departments. Aside from the nature of the injuries treated at each one, the public do not see much difference between those three types of emergency unit.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I would prefer the inclusion of an additional subsection, which I think would meet his point. It would state that the Bill covered a person employed for the purpose of providing, or engaged to provide, healthcare services within the meaning of section 64 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, subsection—I cannot read the little number. I agree that it is something that we need to address.
Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I welcome the Bill and I will support it, given the opportunity. Does the hon. Gentleman consider that clause 3 includes jailers—people who look after defendants in court while they are waiting for trials and so on? If not, perhaps some thought should be given to that. The cells at court can be volatile places and the people who work in that environment might be at risk.
Chris Bryant
That is another matter for us to tease out, of course. Clause 3(1)(e) is clear in referring to
“a person (other than a prison officer) employed or engaged to carry out functions in a custodial institution”.
I think that that would cover such people, but—
Victoria Atkins
I jumped to clause 3(3), which defines a custodial institution, and I do not read that as including cells at court. This might be a matter for the Committee.
Chris Bryant
I feel as though we are already in Committee. The hon. Lady makes a good point. Once a barrister, always a barrister; I am not sure whether she is being paid by the word or by the intervention. [Interruption.] Sorry; there had to be one anti-lawyer comment today.
The third thing that the Bill does is make provision for the taking of samples when an assailant has spat at an emergency worker. It makes it an offence punishable by a fine of up to £500 for an assailant unreasonably to refuse to give an intimate sample, such as a blood sample. That matters, because so many officers and emergency workers have been spat at and lived in anxiety for months about whether they had contracted a communicable disease.
I want to be very careful about how people refer to HIV in particular, but I have had one example of a police officer—I met him yesterday—who was spat at, with the saliva entering his eye and mouth. The assailant refused to give a sample, and the police officer had a false positive test for hepatitis B, which created enormous anxiety. His wife and children had to be tested as well. I just do not think that that situation is appropriate, and I hope the Bill will help to change it.
Some have argued that the Bill is unnecessary because the sentencing guidelines already deal with the matter. In particular, they say that the guidelines on assault occasioning bodily harm—section 47 offences from the Offences Against the Person Act 1861—state that the court should consider the fact that the offence was
“committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public”
an aggravating factor. I believe that that is drawn far too widely in the guidelines, and I want to throw a cordon sanitaire specifically around our emergency workers.
The sentencing guidelines also make it clear, as they have to by law, that there are two categories of aggravating factor: statutory, such as previous convictions and offences committed while on bail, which have been mandated by Parliament in statute law; and a non-exhaustive list of other factors, including location, timing, an attempt to conceal evidence and 14 other factors. The point is that the fact that the assault leading to bodily harm was on an emergency worker is not a statutory aggravating factor, and my Bill would make it just such a factor.
Those who argue that that is unnecessary are arguing against the very concept of statutory aggravating factors, including hate crimes. I believe that the country now widely accepts the proposition that such factors should exist. Moreover, the victims of hate crimes say that the very fact that the court has to state that the homophobic or racial element of the offence is an aggravating factor gives them a sense that justice is being done. Part of the fury that 999 workers feel is caused by the fact that that element is never stated in open court, but now it will be.
Paragraph 4.12(c) of “The Code for Crown Prosecutors” states:
“A prosecution is also more likely if the offence has been committed against a victim who was at the time a person serving the public.”
That, too, is written in the widest possible terms, and I am trying to enhance the protection specifically for emergency workers, because they put themselves in harm’s way on a daily basis.
Every single one of us knows that merely introducing a new offence will not put a sudden end to such assaults, and there is much else that we need to do to protect our emergency workers. This comes to a point that was made earlier: one reason many prosecutions are not brought is that the perpetrator is a vulnerable patient suffering from a condition that makes them violent. The health worker, who wants only the best for their patient, is understandably reluctant to press for a prosecution. A hospital might be so keen to keep out of the news that it will be reluctant to summon the police.
The truth is that if a mental health unit or an accident and emergency unit is under-staffed, it is far more difficult to maintain order and secure the safety of staff and patients. It should be a fundamental duty of any organisation that employs people in such circumstances to make sure its staff are safe. Someone who rocks up at A&E drunk or high and is told that they will have to wait for several hours is, of course, more likely to get aggressive and violent than someone who is seen swiftly. I do not say that to excuse anyone—of course I do not; violence against medical staff is morally offensive and medically counterproductive, and we should adopt a zero-tolerance attitude towards it—but health bodies need to put the safety of their staff at the top of their list of priorities, and the Government must give the NHS the resources it needs.
I am not going to make many partisan points, but it is incomprehensible to me why the Government are going to cancel NHS Protect, which provides the statistics on this—without such statistics, we would not have been able to have this debate—and will rely only on staff surveys to get such statistics in the future.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about NHS resources. When I visited my accident and emergency department at West Middlesex University Hospital, I found that it is spending £2 million a year on additional mental health staff in the main part of the hospital, because there is not adequate capacity in the mental health services to enable people with acute mental health problems to be directed straight to the appropriate mental health services. The hospital has to spend a lot of money to protect the other patients and the staff in the accident and emergency department because so many people are very vulnerable when people with such problems come in and pose a risk. It has had to set aside separate rooms, but even then there is not enough capacity.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend makes a good point. This is a debate for another day, but my feeling is that this country wants a Swedish standard of NHS on American levels of taxation, and in the end I just do not think that works. The Unison survey I mentioned earlier said that 87% of mental health staff felt that the lack of staff was the major contributory factor in attacks, and 50% felt that over-reliance on agency staff was a problem because those staff do not know the patients well enough to ensure safety and deal with them appropriately. If the Bill is to have the desired effect, it is self-evident that the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and prisons will need adequate resources.
I again pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax. I was more delighted by her re-election than by the fact that I was myself re-elected at the general election. She has done a wonderful job of work, and we have worked closely together on this campaign. There are others I want to thank. This is going to sound like the Oscars now, but I am not going to thank Harvey Weinstein. I want to thank the Police Federation and all the trades unions—particularly the GMB, Unite and Unison, which have worked long and hard on this—as well as the Royal College of Nursing, the British Medical Association and the National AIDS Trust, which provided some important advice at the last minute.
I do not often say something like this, but many Conservative colleagues have helped me to get as tough a Bill as possible out of the Government parliamentary counsel. In particular, I am enormously grateful to the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), whom I think of as a friend. He was quite helpful when I broke my leg playing rugby—at Twickenham, incidentally—so I have to say that. I really never thought I would say this sentence, but I would like to thank the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), because he has lent considerable support to making sure that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.
Finally, I thank the Minister. I have had a few tussles with some Ministers over the legislation. It is only right and proper when we are considering a new offence under which people may be sent to prison for a considerable period to have a barney about how precisely we draft that legislation. I am grateful to the Minister on the Front Bench and his colleagues. I very much hope that the Bill will have unanimous support. I hope, too, that the public who are watching will not think it an anti-climax if there is no vote. That simply means that the view of the House is unanimous: we will not put up with assaults on emergency workers.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I intend to speak briefly because I know that many other colleagues want to speak. I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the debate.
I congratulate my good friend the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He is a friend—sometimes, a critical friend—and we have worked well together on numerous issues over the years. It has been particularly good to see the very careful way in which he has sought to garner cross-party support for the Bill. I have been impressed by how he has worked with Ministers to try to refine some of its details. I hope that the Bill will enjoy a successful Second Reading and that we can move forward and work out some of the details in Committee.
I was pleased that the hon. Gentleman asked me to be one of the sponsors of the Bill. I am of course delighted to be in the House today to stand with emergency workers from my constituency of Preseli Pembrokeshire, and from all across the UK, and join in sending what I hope will be a strong signal from the House about how we value them, the esteem in which we hold them and what we intend to do to improve their working lives. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I do not know her well, but she did much of the groundwork for where we are today and a lot of the credit goes to her for the work she has previously done.
The Bill now has Government support. I know from my meetings with the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service and with Justice Ministers that they genuinely desire a serious, useful and practical piece of legislation to put on the statute book to ensure better legal protections for emergency workers. I am impressed by the spirit with which they have responded to the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Rhondda. There is widespread support right across the House for the aims of the Bill and the measures in it.
In researching the aspects of the Bill with which I am less familiar, I have tried to speak to local officers during the past few weeks. I was impressed by the response I received from officers in my constituency and right across the Dyfed-Powys police force area, as well as by representatives of the local branch of the Police Federation. This time last Friday, I was in a meeting with local members of the Police Federation and a number of police officers to talk specifically about the Bill and other matters affecting them, and I was genuinely moved by some of the experiences they shared with me.
Officers do of course train and prepare for potential attacks and assaults. In some ways, that is part of their career and they expect it to happen at some point. The Dyfed-Powys police force area has some of the lowest crime rates anywhere in the country—it is a truly wonderful place to live: we do not have high levels of crime—but what struck me when talking to these officers was the sheer frequency with which assaults occur even in such a police force area.
It is true that all the offences the officers described are already covered in legislation—under the current statute book, it is not considered okay for attacks to happen on emergency workers—but I am nevertheless totally persuaded by the case they made last week, and by the case the hon. Gentleman has made, that our framework of legislation is too weak in this respect. I therefore very much support the Bill’s aim to strengthen the legislation on assaults on emergency workers.
Such assaults often occur when an officer seeks to apprehend a suspect. In one incident in my area, when police officers sought to arrest a man wanted for questioning about a domestic assault, the man drove at them in a tractor. He went on to attack one of them with a long-handled sickle—a sword, basically. He killed the police dog that was with the officer, and the officer narrowly missed being seriously injured. No one should think for a moment that such an incident does not leave a serious and deep mark on all the officers present at the scene.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making a very valid point about how brutal and shocking such attacks can be. I want to draw attention to one involving staff from the South East Coast Ambulance Service. While they were on duty and trying to deal with a road traffic incident, they were charged at by a driver in a car. They were attacked before they could get out of the ambulance, and had to deal with someone who might injure them before they could deal with the incident itself. Does he agree that most of our constituents do not fully appreciate the risks our emergency workers have to take?
Stephen Crabb
I agree with my hon. Friend. The vast majority of incidents never appear in newspapers and never get talked about in the media. They are hidden and affect just the officers and their families. At a time when so much good work is going on in the field of mental health and policing, we should also recognise the physical, psychological and emotional impact that an assault can have on an officer and their family. It is all too easy to forget that emergency workers are human beings too: they are mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, friends and loved ones.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
My right hon. Friend mentioned an unfortunate skirmish in his constituency in which a police dog was attacked and killed. Does he agree that it would be pertinent for the Bill to incorporate a response to attacks on animals that work in the police force and other emergency services, so that the law could deal equally with such perpetrators?
Stephen Crabb
I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but I will resist the temptation to draw this debate into a discussion about the detail. We will have time in Committee to sort that out. Let us stick to the broad principles today.
One officer with whom I spoke told me that she had recently had her nose broken on duty and that her daughter is now afraid every time her mummy puts on her police uniform—she is afraid to see her mum go to work. The impact extends far beyond the individual officer. The psychological fallout can be exacerbated when the perpetrator is seen to walk away with what seems like a slap on the wrist. If only it were a slap on the wrist; as the hon. Member for Rhondda has said, all too often it is nothing at all.
Antoinette Sandbach
In 2015-16, there were 668 attacks on NHS staff in the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, none of which were reported for criminal sanction.
Stephen Crabb
Those are shocking figures. There is a real sense of anger, certainly among the police officers with whom I spoke and other emergency workers, when they have suffered an attack and see those responsible walking away from court with no punishment at all. That is a factor in people deciding to quit these really important occupations in our society.
Another female officer in my police force area shared an incident with me. She was punched in the face, causing her lip to bleed. The suspect was known to be infected with hepatitis C and had a cut on their hand as well. That immediately put the officer in significant danger, as there was a possibility that her own blood could be contaminated. The officer was, of course, required to have blood tests and was prescribed antibiotics to try to prevent an infection. After two weeks’ leave, the officer returned to duty. However, she will not receive her blood test results for another eight weeks and feels that her life has in effect been put on hold. It was particularly galling for this female officer to hear that the suspect, who was convicted, received a prison sentence of only five weeks, which means that they will be out of prison weeks before the officer gets her blood test results.
The fact is that far too many of our police and emergency workers believe that their experiences of assault are not treated seriously enough by the judiciary and that laughable sentences are given to their attackers. Therefore, I welcome the tougher approach that the Bill provides.
Of course, it is not just the police who face assaults. Even more incomprehensible, in some ways, is the sheer frequency of attacks on paramedics, firefighters, nurses and prison officers—people who put their own lives and safety at risk for others—when they are trying to perform their duties.
In addition to the figures shared by the hon. Member for Rhondda, figures that I saw earlier this year indicated that attacks on firefighters had trebled across Wales. South Wales fire and rescue service reported 31 incidents between April 2016 and March 2017, up from just 12 in the previous year. It said that its crews had been subjected to verbal assault and physical abuse, including having bricks thrown at them.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for citing the figures from Wales. The Scottish fire and rescue service also collates the figures, but the House of Commons Library briefing for this debate has no national figures because they are not officially collected. Does he agree that that omission from public data should be addressed?
Stephen Crabb
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The devolved Administrations have their own systems for collecting data, but that should not be a barrier to ensuring a proper UK-wide picture of what is going on across the whole country.
If we are serious about taking a zero-tolerance approach to mindless attacks on frontline workers, let us ensure that we have a framework of law that reflects that, not only for the police but for firefighters, paramedics, nurses and prison officers. There have been calls for the scope of the Bill to be widened to include workers in other health and care settings. As I have said, that is a matter for discussion in Committee. The important priority today is to ensure that this Bill passes its Second Reading with the strongest possible support from across the House.
Before I finish, I wish to address one more aspect, which is the proposed powers to take blood samples and non-intimate samples such as saliva. When I began my research, I confess that I did not appreciate the significance of this issue in the context of assaults on emergency workers. One of the officers I met last week described an assault when she went to assist a woman at a domestic incident. The woman turned aggressively on the police officer and attacked her, causing several injuries including significant bleeding when she dug her long fingernails into her hand. The attacker then shouted at the officer that she was carrying a blood disease. For the past five months, that officer has been living with stress and anxiety over what she may or may not have been infected with. No samples have been taken from the attacker to check whether or not she was lying, so the officer has faced the long process of being tested herself. She told me how she has been afraid of just how much physical contact she should give her own children, for fear of passing something on. The right to take samples from suspects will rapidly accelerate the process of determining a potential contraction and will give a confident assurance to those emergency workers affected that we are here to help them through the situation.
There is plenty of detail to be worked out in the Bill, but this morning gives us the opportunity to show our strongest possible support for its Second Reading. It is a chance to signal the extent of our respect and support for our emergency workers. This is not just about signalling, however. I am sceptical of proposed legislation that is just declaratory or that contains just rhetoric; the important point about this Bill is that it is practical and useful, and its measures will make a real difference to the working lives of some of the most important people in our society.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I am delighted to speak on Second Reading. First, I must pay tribute to my honourable friend—in the truest sense of those words—the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has taken on this campaign, pushing it forward with his trademark tenacity, attention to detail, pragmatism and, of course, humour, which have allowed us to get to where we are. I know that I channel the voices of frontline emergency service workers all over the country when I thank him for the leadership he has demonstrated with this Bill.
For those who are not familiar with how the “Protect the Protectors” campaign started—which surely cannot be that many people now, given that I am genuinely losing my voice from having told the story so many times this week alone—it began last summer when I took the opportunity to join West Yorkshire police in my constituency for a Friday evening late shift, shadowing a single-crewed response officer responding to 999 calls.
It was not long into my time with PC Craig Gallant that the on-board automatic number plate recognition system flagged up that a car we had just passed should be stopped in order to speak to the driver about drugs offences. When the blue lights were put on, the driver initially sped away, but after a short chase, he eventually came to a stop. PC Gallant got out of the police car to speak to the driver, asking him to get out of his vehicle, but the driver, who had passengers in his car, refused to do so. It was a warm summer’s evening in an area of Halifax where, unfortunately, deprivation has fed a variety of social challenges, and those out on the streets took an almost instant and tribal dislike to the lone officer in their community.
While PC Gallant persevered with the driver, passers-by and passing vehicles began to take an interest, and a small and increasingly agitated crowd began to gather. The situation very quickly escalated when further vehicles pulled up at speed. The occupants of those cars got out to confront the officer, while the passengers of the first vehicle sought to escape by getting into one of those that had just arrived. Now facing a hostile crowd, with those engaged in criminal activity seeking to create havoc to facilitate a getaway, and some residents, disappointingly but probably unknowingly, assisting them by joining the threatening gang that had gathered, PC Gallant locked me in the police car for my own safety and was forced to draw his baton to protect himself while instructing the crowd to move back. Locked in the police car, I was equipped with nothing more than a fluorescent observer jacket. I did not know if PC Gallant had called for back-up and I did not know how to use the car radio to make contact with the control room. I cannot stress to colleagues enough the sense of powerlessness: the fear that I might have to sit in that police car and watch him take a beating, or worse. I decided that calling 999 directly was the fastest way to make contact with the control room. I cannot convey either just how it felt, having asked for the police, to be told repeatedly by an automated message, “Please hold the line.”
What was probably only seconds felt like an eternity while I watched the scene unfold. Having finally been connected, I relayed the situation to the control room. To say I was relieved when reinforcements arrived is something of an understatement. After the passengers from the first car had managed to escape, despite PC Gallant’s best efforts, their quick getaway and the arrival of further officers meant that the situation was defused fairly quickly. Astonishingly, no injuries were sustained on that occasion. It is fair to say that PC Gallant remained much calmer than I did throughout the ordeal, but I saw for myself just how quickly situations can become dangerous and just how vulnerable officers are when they are out on their own.
Those who attended the photo drop-in on Wednesday—I thank all those who did—will have had the opportunity to meet PC Gallant, who, after the incident, simply got on with the rest of his shift and shook it off, having not been assaulted on that occasion at least, unlike on so many others.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and it is good to see her having a glass of water. I met PC Gallant the other morning. She has given us a powerful and shocking report of the incident she witnessed. Does she agree that our constituents would be shocked to find out how many attacks take place? For instance, the Police Federation survey estimates there were nearly 21,000 attacks on police officers just in Gwent in 2015-16.
Holly Lynch
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. This is what we are seeing increasingly. It is both the frequency and the severity of these incidents. If we do not take this opportunity to act and address them, they will become more normalised and we absolutely do not want that to happen.
Having shared that experience with colleagues during an Adjournment debate last October, I then found myself inundated with what can only be described as horror stories from not only the police, but emergency service workers from all over the country who had been subjected to assaults that seem to be increasing in both frequency and severity. What thoroughly depresses 999 and NHS workers is that sentences handed down to offenders for assaulting them often fail to reflect the seriousness of the crime, or, more crucially, to serve as a deterrent. Many described feeling like they had suffered an injustice twice. first at the hands of the offender and then again in court when sentences were unduly lenient.
We make the laws in here, but we ask the police to uphold and enforce them out there. To assault an emergency service worker is to show a complete disregard for law and order, for our shared values, and for democracy itself. That must be reflected in sentencing, particularly for repeat offenders. Because of the separation between lawmakers and the Sentencing Council, we have sought to explore all the ways we could toughen legislation in the Bill to protect those on the front line.
In previous speeches I have made on this subject, I told Parliament about how, just days before my shift, PC Vicky Tompkins had responded to a call in my district. On arriving, she was head-butted by an offender, knocking her to the floor. The assault snapped one of her teeth and dislodged another, causing other fractures to her mouth and face. She had to have temporary filling work and a splint put in her mouth. There is a video of PC Tompkins recounting the incident on the Police Federation’s website, which is incredibly difficult to watch. The offender was released and went on to assault another police officer not long after.
I was proud to see PC Tompkins receive an award at the district awards in June this year, following the role she played in saving the life of a suicidal young woman who was holding on to the outside of a multi-storey car park by her fingertips. Since then, however, PC Tompkins has joined the increasing number of those who have handed in their resignation and taken the decision to leave policing. I take this opportunity to thank her for her service and to let her know that her experience has fed into this campaign, which I hope will make a significant difference in protecting those who continue to serve and those who will serve.
Victoria Atkins
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who has fought a magnificent campaign over the past 12 months. We worked together when I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Office. I commend her for seeing this legislation through with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). The scenes she describes are upsetting and just plain wrong. Does she agree that investing in body-worn cameras for police officers will help them to secure convictions, and, I hope, higher sentences, and perhaps save them from the arduous task of having to give evidence in court and be cross-examined to explain what happened? The videos will show what happened to them and I hope that will increase convictions in these circumstances.
Holly Lynch
I am really grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. I thank her for her support. We had an open dialogue when she was in her previous role, which was incredibly helpful. She is absolutely right that body-worn video has given frontline officers in particular the assurance that, should they be confronted in that way, there will be an evidence base that will help to secure prosecutions in court, which is what we all want.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
On that point, in a recent conversation with police officers in Bury St Edmunds, they said how beneficial body-worn videos are. Is there scope in the Bill for their use in other circumstances, for example for those who work in ambulances and so on who also go into very aggressive situations? They could help them, too.
Holly Lynch
Again, I am grateful for that considered and thoughtful intervention. There are lots of issues surrounding the challenge we are trying to address. Legislation and sentencing is one element, and, as legislators, that is our brief, but there are all sorts of conversations about personal protective equipment. Are our frontline emergency service workers carrying everything that would be helpful in those circumstances? The hon. Lady is right that we can look in Committee at where there is scope to incorporate that, but some of those conversations will need to happen beyond this legislative process.
The second aspect of the Bill aims to deal with the hideous act of spitting at emergency service workers. As well as being horrible, spitting blood and saliva at another human being can pose a very real risk of transmitting a range of infectious diseases, some with life-changing or even lethal consequences. At an event organised by Rob Marris, the former Member for Wolverhampton South West, I met PC Mike Bruce and PC Alan O’Shea of West Midlands police, who were also able to join us for the drop-in on Wednesday; my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda recounted one of those conversations earlier. Both officers had blood spat in their faces while trying to arrest a violent offender. They both had to undergo antiviral treatments to reduce their risk of contracting communicable diseases and they faced a six-month wait to find out whether the treatment had been successful.
During that time, PC O’Shea’s brother was undergoing treatment for cancer. Because it was deemed by professionals that the risk of passing on an infection was too high should he have contracted a disease, he was advised not to see his brother throughout that intervening period. He was also advised not to see his parents, because they were in such regular contact with his brother. PC Bruce had a false positive result for hepatitis B, and, for six months until conclusive test results came through and following further tests within his family, he was understandably reluctant to be close to his wife or children, fearing for their wellbeing. Victim impact statements provided by both officers outlining their experiences, failed to secure a custodial sentence for the prolific offender. Conversely, it only empowered him further. He left court knowing that he had a much greater impact on their lives than he had initially thought and showed absolutely no remorse. At the moment, as we have already heard, if an emergency service worker is spat at, they can take a blood sample from an individual only if that person gives their permission. Needless to say that in the case of PC O’Shea and PC Bruce, the offender was not in a helpful mood, so they were subjected to antiviral treatments and a six-month wait.
The Bill would protect not just police officers, but all blue light emergency responders, as well as healthcare professionals, those engaged in search and rescue work, and prison officers.
David Morris
I have read in the newspapers—in truth, I do not know if this is correct—that when people have an AIDS test or something similar, their insurance is reviewed. Could we put in the Bill, during the Committee stage, special provision for emergency workers so they are not penalised in this way by certain insurance companies?
Holly Lynch
That had not been brought to my attention until now, and I will certainly look into it. This too may be a conversation that we need to have outside the context of the Bill, but we will undoubtedly explore all the opportunities during its passage.
A report published in December by Yorkshire ambulance service revealed that staff faced “violence and aggression” on a weekly basis. There was a 50% increase in the number of reported incidents of verbal and physical attacks on staff, with 606 incidents reported in 2015-16. Richard Bentley, a paramedic in Leeds who was also with us on Wednesday, told the BBC that he had faced three serious assaults in five years He had been bitten, head-butted, and threatened with a knife. Members of West Yorkshire fire and rescue service have also reported being subject to assaults. On bonfire night, the service received 1,043 calls, with crews attending 265 incidents. It was disgraceful that, faced with such pressures on the busiest night of the year, firefighters in West Yorkshire were subject to 19 attacks overnight.
The Bill would also cover assaults on prison officers. Over the past 15 years, there has been a steady but dramatic increase in the number of reported incidents of prison officers being spat at or bitten. We should bear in mind that anyone can spit. People do not need to go to the trouble of acquiring or fashioning an offensive weapon in order to inflict life-changing consequences on another person; they can simply use their own bodily fluids. Regardless of whether the spitter has a communicable disease, the inability to determine that at the time of the incident leaves emergency service workers with no choice other than to undergo antiviral treatments and face an agonising six-month wait. When I checked with the Prison Officers Association, it confirmed that a prison officer would be expected to be at work during the intervening time, and—unlike those in the other services—might be asked to return to his or her duties on the same wing, to face the spitter every day of that agonising period.
When I was growing up, my mum was a nurse and my dad was a police sergeant. When she was working in A&E, someone tried to kick my mum in the stomach while she was pregnant with me. My dad received a bravery award following an incident when he came home absolutely black and blue after a violent offender had resisted arrest. I am pleased to say that he succeeded in making that arrest.
This is not a new issue, but in my time as an MP I have seen that the threats facing our emergency service workers are more prevalent than ever. If we do not take this opportunity to act, we shall be letting down some of the bravest in our society and those on whom we all rely the most. I am very pleased that the Government recognise that fact, and that we are, I understand, working together to deliver changes that would go some way towards giving our emergency service workers the protection that they need in order to do their jobs and keep our communities safe.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
I, too, support the Bill. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who rightly made the point that an assault on an emergency worker is not just a simple case of disrespect, but undermines the very fabric of our society. That places such assaults in a category all their own.
The hon. Gentleman also said that lawyers had a part to play, and I hope that, as a lawyer myself, I shall have some sort of contribution to make. During the 20 years or so in which I practised before coming to this place, my experience was that courts generally treated assaults on frontline and emergency workers in a context of aggravation, and that tougher sentences tended to be imposed. Notwithstanding that, it is right for us to put those protections in statute and reassure emergency workers in particular, when they go out to serve us and deal with the public, that we, as a Parliament, a country and a society, are behind them through legal means.
While, as I have said, I fully support the Bill, I hope that the hon. Member for Rhondda will forgive me if I draw the House’s attention to some of my concerns about it. I genuinely want it to complete its passage through both Houses and become law, but I do feel that it needs an awful lot of work. I have a great deal of sympathy for the hon. Gentleman, because I have presented a private Member’s Bill myself, and I know that it is almost impossible for such a Bill to reach this stage in a perfect state, so this is not a criticism. However, it is important for us to get it right now if it is to succeed.
I have to say that when I read the Bill’s long title I winced, because it referred to emergency workers acting in the execution of their duty, whereas the body of the Bill refers to “the exercise of functions”. It is unclear which of those terms will apply to any legislation. If I understand the procedure correctly, the long title cannot be altered at this stage. I hope that that does not hamstring the hon. Gentleman, and I certainly hope that the Bill will not be constrained by incidents in which workers are simply carrying out the execution of their duty. I have witnessed too many occasions on which people charged with assaulting police officers during the execution of their duty have been able to walk because of a technicality—a breach of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, for instance—which means that those officers have not, at that precise moment, been acting in the execution of their duty.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman has made a very fair point. One of the reasons for the difference between (a) and (b) is the fact that the long title was drawn up before the Bill had been written; it was agreed, effectively, on First Reading, and has now been agreed on Second Reading. During the intervening period, a great many people made representations to me about the problem of securing convictions under the tighter definition to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. It is not necessary to change the long title, because it is the main body of the Bill that carries the weight.
Gareth Johnson
I certainly hope that that is the case. What is positive about this is the fact that there is a cross-party consensus, and the Government are supporting the Bill. I think that an awful lot of work needs to be done by Government lawyers, and I hope that some of the lawyers in the Ministry of Justice will work closely with the hon. Gentleman to ensure that we have a workable Bill at the end of the process.
I also think that the Bill has problems with the definition of an emergency worker. The hon. Gentleman said he accepted that it did not cover all the medical workers that he wanted it to cover. The overwhelming majority of NHS workers would not be covered as things stand. It has been mentioned that people working in minor injury units will not be covered by the Bill in its present form, and that needs to change. A receptionist working in A&E would be covered, but a nurse working on a ward in a minor or other injuries unit would not. That is an anomaly that must be ironed out, and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has acknowledged that.
Chris Bryant
We are, in a way, having a Committee stage now. Let me explain how that issue arose. I discussed an original version of the Bill with the very lawyers at the Ministry of Justice whom the hon. Gentleman urged me to talk to. An element was taken out, because we felt that ambulance workers would not be covered, and in the process we lost other workers in the NHS. I have spoken to the Justice Secretary, and he made it clear that we would put that right in Committee.
Gareth Johnson
I am very reassured by that. It is excellent news.
It is also important, given that courts generally treat assaults on frontline workers as aggravated offences, for the Bill not to say to the courts, “This is Parliament telling you when you should and should not find an aggravated offence”. The danger is that someone who slipped out of the remit of the Bill could end up with a lesser sentence as a consequence. The courts need to understand that this legislation would be in addition to, not a replacement for, the current law. If they do not do so, people who would currently be treated harshly may not be in the future, because Parliament, by implication, has not included them in the body of the legislation.
Requiring emergency workers to be actively carrying out their functions also creates some problems. For example, a paramedic who was simply standing outside a hospital and was assaulted would not be covered by the Bill. I am sure that that is not the hon. Gentleman’s intention, and what I have said is not meant in any way to be a criticism, but I want the Bill to succeed.
The hon. Gentleman has rightly tried to include people who are off duty. As we know, emergency workers, especially police officers, often step in when they are off duty because they want to help someone out in particular circumstances, and it is absolutely right for them to be covered by the Bill. My fear is that the Bill is drawn too widely, because it simply covers any action that, if done while on duty, would constitute working, so it could even cover driving down a road. However, in a road rage situation, the court must—not can, but must— treat that as an aggravating factor, so that needs to be looked at.
The Bill also covers a number of offences under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, but it does not refer to the Public Order Act 1986. The hon. Members for Halifax and for Rhondda both mentioned situations in which emergency workers were threatened with a knife. That will not be covered under the Bill, and it needs to be. It is not an assault; it is an affray and comes under the Public Order Act as threatening behaviour. Therefore, the courts would not treat it as an aggravating factor under this Bill.
I appreciate that some of these matters can be ironed out in Committee, and I reiterate that I fully support the principles behind the Bill. I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Rhondda and for Halifax and all those who have assisted with the Bill. It is vital that we get it into statute and working correctly, but it has some serious problems that have not been addressed. I will try to rattle through some of the brief points I want to make, because I am in no way trying to cause problems for the hon. Member for Rhondda in getting the Bill through Second Reading.
I want to highlight the hon. Gentleman’s definition of “emergency worker”, which for some reason does not cover customs officers, who can often put themselves in an emergency situation where they perhaps need the protection that the legislation would give to other emergency workers.
I am pleased that the Bill covers intimate and non-intimate samples. As we know, there have been many instances of police officers and other emergency workers being assaulted and having their lives placed in limbo. I shall never forget a case at City of London magistrates court where a police officer was in tears in the witness box because he had been bitten by somebody and he had just got married but, because tests were still being carried out on him, he was unable to consummate his marriage. He was unable to live a normal family life and he was in tears as a consequence.
The House appreciates that when an assault takes place on an emergency worker, it is not just the individual emergency worker who is affected; very often it is the family members as well. That is why this legislation is vital and it is right to ensure appropriate penalties for failing to give non-intimate samples. We do not want to end up making it better for someone with an infectious disease to refuse to give a sample because they would only get fined under this Bill, whereas if they gave a sample, that would be an aggravating factor and they would go to prison. That, too, needs to be sorted out.
In conclusion, I hope the Bill gets its Second Reading and is not opposed by anybody in this House. It would be a valuable contribution to the criminal justice system. It would give reassurance to emergency workers, who deserve it. It is a Bill worthy of the valiant emergency workers we have in this country.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
It is a great privilege to speak in this important debate. I want to place on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for all her campaigning and the detail in which she spoke this morning on issues such as spitting and why this change in the law is important for those issues.
I also thank my Welsh hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for his fantastic speech and campaigning on this issue. We should remember that his constituents—the people of the Rhondda—voted for him to choose this as his private Member’s Bill. I think that would have been the case in many of our communities, because most people, up and down the length and breadth of this land, are fed up to the back teeth with emergency services workers—the police, A&E staff, prison officers, firefighters or whatever—going to work and just doing their job, yet being treated with such disrespect, being assaulted and their lives being put in danger. That is not right and it should not be allowed. The law is not in the right place at present in this country, and it is absolutely right that my hon. Friend is bringing forward this Bill. I hope it will be supported unanimously and carried through, so that, finally, our country will have better laws on this issue.
When I mentioned to my constituents that I was one of the large number of cross-party co-sponsors whom my hon. Friend had brought together to support the Bill, I asked whether the emergency workers among them had anything they wanted to contribute to this debate. Among the contributions I received was an account from a police officer of why he wants the Bill to be passed. He wrote:
“I was the first to arrive and witnessed a man (a martial arts instructor) assaulting a female and telling her that she was going to die. This man was charged with attempted murder of the female in relation to this assault so I’m sure you can imagine the gravity of the assault taking place before me. The lady was being manually choked on the floor and punched to the face in an attempt to kill her. She was struggling to breathe and could not survive much longer.
I used my limited equipment of captor spray and baton in an attempt to physically hurt the man sufficiently for him to stop trying to kill the lady as my verbal commands fell on deaf ears. Eventually he dropped her like a rag doll allowing her to run for safety.
He then turned to me, adopted a fighting stance and said these words: ‘Now you are going to die’.
The man then began to punch me to the head countless times. As I stated, this man was a martial arts instructor and he was in a rage. I defended myself and fought back as best I could until a colleague arrived and we overpowered the assailant.
The man continued to make threats, stating that he would have killed the female victim had I not arrived and killed me had my colleague not arrived at the scene.
Whilst he was charged with attempted murder he pleaded guilty to threats to kill (in relation to me) assault upon the female and possession of an offensive weapon (in relation to a knife that he took with him to commit the assault). He received six years and four months imprisonment and nothing in relation to assaulting me.
At the time the Judge stated that the actions of my colleague and me prevented the man from killing the woman.”
This account shows what an outrageous position we currently have with the law in this country and it is high time that we changed it. I wholly support the attempt by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda to do so.
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)
I welcome this Bill and I am very happy to support the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on this cross-party issue.
The nature of crime is changing. It is becoming more violent and more aggressive. Even as we see crime numbers fall, add the threat of terrorism, coupled with the sheer number of incidents involving mental health issues, and I can understand why police officers in my constituency feel besieged. My constituency is large, at about 400 square miles. That adds challenges, not just because of the size and scale of policing in our community, but because of the sense of isolation. Thirteen officers in Essex are assaulted every week. There were 666 reported cases between April 2016 and March 2017, but the real figure is far higher, because many cases go unreported. Police officers in my constituency tell me that they are scared and do not feel that the public understand or even care. This Bill sends a message that we do.
Earlier this month, officers in Saffron Walden responded to calls of road workers being threatened with a weapon. They pursued the suspect through difficult terrain. The man, heavily under the influence of drink and drugs, was eventually stopped, only to attack officers with a hammer. Officers present sustained injuries and, if not for their training and professionalism, could have been fatally injured. I am incredibly proud of Chief Inspector Carrington’s team, who put their own wellbeing at risk to keep us all safe.
I am also pleased with the Bill’s provisions for collecting samples from those offenders who spit at our emergency service workers. Spitting is a repulsive act and, when I was a London Assembly member, I worked extensively with the Met police on addressing the issue. I heard story after story of people who were worried about their health, not knowing what would happen as they waited for scary test results. Authorities that wish to use spit guards to protect their officers should be allowed to do so.
Emergency service workers are our first and last resort. These men and women dedicate their lives to us. They run towards danger as we run away. Police officers, in particular, are not typical employees. They accept no employment rights, which means they cannot go on strike. They have to rely on this place to ensure that they are provided with the support they deserve, which is why I support the Bill.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
My contribution to this important debate will be brief.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), as others have, on introducing this Bill and on his work to raise awareness of it. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on her work in last year’s ten-minute rule Bill and her wider “Protect the Protectors” campaign.
We all know that our emergency service workers put themselves in harm's way every single day. They have no idea what they will face when they turn up for work. They take whatever comes, and they deal with it professionally in the true sense of public service. Our emergency service workers work hard to keep our communities safe and to look after people when they are ill or in danger. Those hugely important tasks are the bedrock of any society, and they do it on our behalf. They therefore deserve our full support and whatever protection we can provide.
Last year I took part in the police service parliamentary scheme, which gave me a small glimpse of the commitment and dedication of police officers, and of the pressure and difficult circumstances they have to deal with on a daily basis. On the scheme I spent some time with special constables. My dad was a special constable with South Wales police when I was young. He was seriously attacked in that role, and it is important that we remember the role of special constables and remember that they are an essential part of the police family. We must also remember that, ultimately, they are volunteers.
Jim Fitzpatrick
The police service parliamentary scheme is run by Sir Neil Thorne, and I was on the pilot scheme back in 1998. There is also now a fire service parliamentary scheme. I am sure that, like me, my hon. Friend would commend the schemes to all colleagues so that they can get a better understanding of how the police and fire services work. I am grateful that he has mentioned the police service parliamentary scheme, which will raise awareness of it among colleagues.
Gerald Jones
The police service, fire service and armed forces parliamentary schemes give parliamentarians a small but important glimpse of those services at the grassroots and of the daily pressures they deal with on our behalf.
Attacking a police officer is already an offence but, as things currently stand, the legislation is not effective and sentences are not fit for purpose. No specific protection exists for workers in the health service. We know from the Police Federation of England and Wales that the rate of attacks on police officers is unacceptably high—one every 15 seconds according to the latest estimates.
A third of my constituency is within the Gwent police force area, and its records show that 103 police officers have been assaulted since 2015, an average of one a week, 24 of which were assaults on detention staff in custody suites. The larger part of my constituency lies in the South Wales police area, and there, on average, nine officers are assaulted in any given week. Assaults often mean that officers are absent from their duties, which means that police resources are further depleted at a time when police numbers are significantly down owing to cuts.
The actual figures might be much higher, as there is evidence to suggest that officers report only the most serious cases, while the rest go unreported. That is replicated across our emergency services, as we have heard this morning.
We also know from figures released by South Wales fire and rescue service in June that there has been a 158% increase in the number of attacks against its crews in the past 12 months. Fire crews have been subjected to verbal and physical abuse and have had objects such as bricks and fireworks thrown at them as they respond to incidents, which is clearly unacceptable. Figures released in December 2016 show that NHS staff in Wales have been physically attacked more than 18,000 times over the last five years.
The evidence is there. Society supports our emergency services and the Bill, as highlighted by the survey of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda. Parliament must act and send the strongest possible message that attacks on people working on behalf of the public will not be tolerated. One of the most effective ways to do that is to create a new aggravated offence of assaulting an emergency service worker and to make it an offence for a person who has spat at or bitten an officer not to supply an appropriate sample.
I fully support the Bill and urge others to do likewise. There seems to be a sense of unity across the House on this issue, which is entirely appropriate and very welcome.
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I am extremely pleased to speak in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on introducing the Bill. His speech was very good, and it was lovely to listen to him. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on working with her colleagues over the past 12 months to highlight the issue.
It is great that a Bill has finally been introduced to address the desperate calls to deal with assaults on our emergency workers. I will cover three important points: matching the punishment to the crime; ensuring that NHS emergency workers are protected; and having the ability to take bodily samples where there is a risk of disease transmission.
First, it is high time that we started protecting our protectors and ensuring that the weight of punishment was in balance with the weight of the crime. At the moment, the penalty for assaulting a frontline worker is far too low, and the aggressor can get away with just a fine, whether it be for spitting, biting or punching a public servant. There have been many examples of such assaults resulting in victims having periods out of work, yet the perpetrators get off scot-free.
I am blessed in Rochester to have some amazing police community support officers.
Kelly Tolhurst
The hon. Gentleman has been to my constituency many times. I am keen to see what happens to the definition of “emergency worker.”
Jo Churchill
When we tease out that definition in Committee, I will offer up lone workers such as general practitioners who go out on call on their own. The definition should encompass the broader point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch) said, those of us who represent large rural constituencies, including the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), know that people are often going into unknown situations on their own.
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I was just going on to say that in Rochester I am blessed to have some amazing PCSOs. These individuals go well above and beyond their job description in how they deal with the community. One particular officer, who is part of the community and often works on her own, was attacked this year after going to help somebody. She was supported and assisted by a member of the public who was outraged at what they were seeing. PCSOs do a massive job, so it is important that they are highlighted in the definition.
We have talked about officers having to have time off work, but we must consider the mental impact on an individual who experiences any kind of abuse and physical attack. It affects them but they never quite know how it will do so. It was sad to hear the hon. Member for Halifax mention that she has had contact with policewomen over the past 12 months who are now leaving the profession—that is devastating.
Clearly, we do not currently have the legal framework to ensure that there is proper sentencing, so I am pleased that clause 2 will introduce a new aggravating factor of a more serious degree of harm than usual. That is essential, as the aggressor is hurting not only the public sector worker—our emergency frontline worker—whom he or she has abused but the entire sector. When a police officer is forced to take leave following a violent incident, that force is left short-staffed, which can have a direct impact on the entire area, particularly in rural areas, as we have heard. The same can be true in any public sector, and I find this wholly unacceptable. Why should UK taxpayers have to receive a lower quality of service purely as a direct consequence of an individual’s reckless actions against another member of our community? Put simply, we cannot allow our public services to be weakened by the callous actions of individuals who are indifferent to the negative impact their behaviour has on the rest of our community. If we ensure that the presiding judge takes the wider impact into consideration and we increase the maximum sentencing time, I am positive that offenders will be less likely to assault a frontline worker.
Secondly, it is imperative that all public sector workers on the frontline are protected. The amount of physical and verbal abuse that I have seen spewed at A&E staff and other emergency workers is disgraceful, and we need to protect them. I wish to recount one quick story. Prior to being elected, I had a serious operation and I was in an A&E unit for a number of hours waiting for a life-threatening complication to be treated. I was completely out of it because of the pain, but I recall the abuse and aggression from the individual in the next cubicle while I was suffering. It was appalling, and it is terrible that we have to have police officers standing in our A&E departments—that is an outrage in itself. It is therefore great to be having this debate, but I just wanted to mention that.
Given that Scotland modified its emergency workers legislation to include healthcare workers nine years ago, I am pleased that we are now taking steps to follow suit, which is why I support the hon. Member for Rhondda wholeheartedly in his Bill. Many will agree that as our emergency services are already under pressure, this withdrawal of staff from active duty and, thus, a reduction in the service, is intolerable.
My third point relates to clause 4, which introduces new provisions for taking bodily samples from those suspected of assaulting an emergency worker. It is simply wrong that an emergency worker would have to go out of his or her way to ensure that they have not been infected with a disease after being assaulted. Working on the frontline may increase the risk of the transmission of an infectious disease, so our greatest concern should be to protect those who are tirelessly protecting us. By agreeing to this clause, we can save our emergency workers from that extra hassle and the mental stress and hell of having to go for weeks not knowing what has happened, as other hon. Members have mentioned. The taking of a non-intimate sample can save the victim considerable time and stress, by providing a definite result in the first instance. I very much welcome that.
I fully support the Bill, deeming it necessary legislation, particularly at the present time. While crime rates continue to increase, serious assaults on prison staff have trebled since 2013, and last year there were 24,000 assaults on police officers in England and Wales. In the short term, that has a direct impact on the frontline staff, who already have to deal with a plethora of challenges and situations. In the long run, not having these powers is not sustainable. I agree with the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service that we have to send the strong message that assaulting any kind of emergency worker will not be tolerated in any form. This Bill goes a long way towards doing that.
In closing, I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in this process, and I am extremely pleased to be here to support the hon. Member for Rhondda today.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to make this brief contribution and pleased to follow the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), who made a positive contribution and added her own story to some of the moving and horrific stories that we have heard and which have been experienced by emergency service workers across the country.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on choosing this subject for his private Member’s Bill. He correctly and generously added his acknowledgement of the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) has done in getting the Bill to where it is today. Curiously, and ironically, one of the most significant legislative achievements of parliamentarians is to win the private Members’ ballot. Clearly, that requires consummate skill, and perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda can share how he did it with the rest of us, who have been struggling for 20 years and been unable to achieve it.
Chris Bryant
I had always wanted No. 18, as it was my number at primary school, and the first year I got that number, I won.
Jim Fitzpatrick
Well, there we are—that is the secret. I was going to poke some fun at my hon. Friend and say that his constituents must be proud of him, but of course having heard that he canvassed his constituents I am sure that they are actually very proud to see him introducing the Bill today.
I should declare that which a number of colleagues know: I was a member of London fire brigade for 23 years before being elected to this place. During my 13 years as an operational firefighter, the great anomaly was that on 364 days of the year there were always those, young and old, who wanted to come into the station to see the fire engines, but on 5 November we were not always that popular. In my day, there were many fewer organised bonfires and firework displays, and sometimes they needed fire attention and dousing for public protection. In the approach to fireworks season, whether Diwali, which is on now, or Guy Fawkes night, I hope we have a safe period for all celebrating. We have heard too often of fireworks being used as weapons against police, fire and ambulance workers.
I am grateful to the House of Commons Library, the Fire Brigades Union and London fire brigade for their briefings on this debate. The House of Commons Library briefing says, “Prime Minister Nick Hurd”—[Interruption.] Sorry, I meant to say Policing Minister, although some of us see the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) as a future Prime Minister—and the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) has also been mentioned as a prospective future Prime Minister. The House of Commons Library briefing cites the Policing Minister as saying that
“the Government supports the spirit and principle of the Bill, but that ‘there will be detail to work through’.”
Of course that is great news for the whole House, where we have heard positive speeches from Members on both sides indicating that the Bill will pass Second Reading. The briefing goes on to list the number of assaults and attacks, saying that the Home Office estimated that there were 24,000 assaults on police officers in 2016-17 and that the latest bulletin from the Ministry of Justice on safety in prisons in England and Wales says that there were more than 7,000 assaults on prison staff.
On the subject of NHS staff, NHS Protect—which my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda mentioned as being under threat—states that, according to the figures it has collected, more than 70,000 staff were affected in 2015-16.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I was in Moorfields hospital the other day, having had an eye haemorrhage, and as I sat there during the afternoon, three instances came up on the screen of someone being assaulted in one of the cubicles. I think that numbers such as those are grossly under-reported. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Jim Fitzpatrick
My hon. Friend quotes from personal experience, and we have heard anecdotes in other contributions in the Chamber this morning that officers and hospital staff are reluctant to report incidents other than the most serious. Clearly, there seem to be barriers preventing all the assaults that appear to be taking place from being put on record. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I am sure that the Minister will want to comment on it. I am also grateful to her because she gives me the opportunity to mention West Ham. Just as an aside, we need three points against Brighton this evening.
In an intervention on the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), I mentioned that there were no data on attacks against firefighters. Dr Paul Hampton from the Fire Brigades Union has written to me:
“You probably know that data on attacks on firefighters is not published by the Home Office for England (figures are published in Scotland by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service).”
The right hon. Gentleman indicated that there are figures for Wales, and other hon. Members have made that same point. Dr Hampton continues:
“So I think you can make the points about the lack of central government monitoring and under-reporting in the debate.”
That supports the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), and I would be grateful if the Minister commented in his winding-up speech on the absence of data on firefighter assaults in England.
Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, made this point:
“It is never acceptable for anyone to go to work and have to put up with verbal abuse or physical assault. Yet that is what fire crews are now facing on a daily basis in some areas of the United Kingdom.”
That was written 10 years ago, and sadly it is still true today.
Fiona Onasanya (Peterborough) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the stark reality is that members of the public might think that it is par for the course that this sort of thing happens to people who do these jobs? Does he also agree that the Bill will use the full force of the law to show that we unanimously disagree that the people who protect us should have to go through that?
Jim Fitzpatrick
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which has also been made by a number of colleagues, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda. The emergency services face enough difficulties and threats to their wellbeing because of the nature of the job they do, and they are therefore entitled to whatever additional protection we can give them. I fully agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Fiona Onasanya) on that point.
I want to conclude on a more positive note by making a comment on prevention rather than on dealing with perpetrators after an assault. Ms Helen Newton from the London fire brigade has supplied me with a note about one of its successful initiatives, called LIFE:
“The Local Intervention Fire Education (LIFE) course is a week-long youth intervention programme. It is a programme targeted at young people aged 14-17 who: are at risk of or involved in anti-social behaviour, gangs or other criminal activity; have poor attendance at their educational provision or have been excluded; display challenging behaviour; or are NEET (not in education, employment or training). Starting in Tower Hamlets in 2002”—
it was actually in Shadwell, in my constituency—
“the LIFE project was an innovative approach to engaging with the local community in response to repeated call-out to an estate for youth-related deliberate fire setting and the firefighters being attacked during their response. Running the LIFE courses with firefighters and the local young people helped break down the barriers, develop a respect for the emergency services and educate them about the valuable job they do for their community. Over the course of a week, the young people work alongside the London Fire Brigade to develop skills they can transfer to improve their relationships at home and support their education and future careers. It is a disciplined programme, packed with challenging practical activities which include climbing ladders, working with the breathing apparatus, hoses and casualty rescue techniques. These are interspersed with classroom sessions which teach the young people about social responsibility by learning how their behaviours impact their community, families and themselves. Working alongside the Brigade’s firefighters, they are role modelled positive behaviours and learn to respect uniformed authority figures.
Young people on LIFE may have encountered negative experiences with authority figures such as the police and their teachers, and they view the Fire Brigade in the same light. A positive and supportive rapport is developed with each young person, who then in return develops a respect for the officer they work with and the job they do for the community. Every young person has their progress evaluated by an operational trainer, enabling them to improve their key skills and build a bond of trust. These evaluations form part of a detailed portfolio containing certificates earned through the week, demonstrating a commitment to developing skills such as punctuality, conduct, politeness and effort. The portfolio is presented at a passing-out ceremony at which candidates demonstrate the skills that they have learnt during the week. They are given an individual appraisal by their trainer, and the opportunity to speak about their experiences on the course. Referral agencies, parents and partners attend the pass-out to be presented with their AQA accreditation and portfolio of achievement.”
I have attended many of these pass-out parades. They are hugely impressive events for the trainers, the youngsters and their families, as well as those who sponsor the courses: the police, the City of London, Tower Hamlets pupil referral and others.
I naturally support the Bill, as everyone who has spoken this morning does. I welcome the Government’s support, which is absolutely key for any private Member’s Bill to get on to the statute book. I also hope that the Government will continue to resource initiatives to prevent young people in particular from attacking our emergency service workers.
Finally, I again congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda and for Halifax. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda for choosing this subject for his Bill. Emergency workers across the country have reason to be grateful to him and his colleagues.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who brings an awful lot of professional experience to the debate, given his career in the fire service. I was particularly interested to hear what he had to say. It would also be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is undoubtedly a canny parliamentarian. He has introduced his Bill with great skill. In my experience, he has always been happy-go-lucky, so I am not at all surprised that he was successful in the ballot. In bringing forward his Bill, he has made sure that he gets the maximum bang for his buck. We have to get the Bill on the statute book.
The hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) has also contributed a lot to the debate and championed this work in the House. For her, and for me, there is a personal dimension to all this. Both my parents were police officers. My dad did 30 years’ service and my mum was a frontline officer until she had me, at which point she gave that up and went to work on the administrative side of the police service. I cannot imagine how I would have felt, when I was growing up, if my mum or dad had come home and told me that they had been assaulted at work. I cannot imagine the sense of anger, upset, bemusement and concern that I would have felt if we had had that discussion at the dinner table on an evening while I was growing up.
Tom Pursglove
It is just horrendous that anybody should feel that they have to go home after work and try to cover up what has happened so that their children will not be concerned about what mummy or daddy does at work every day.
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
In September 2016, an officer with Devon and Cornwall police was involved in a fracas in Cornwall while arresting two males. One of the males, who was already handcuffed, spat blood and saliva into her face. She attended hospital, where her eyes were washed and blood tests were carried out—the blood testing continued for three months. In the meantime, she was worried every time she went home and kissed her grandchildren and husband. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is completely unacceptable and that we should give all power to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) in supporting the Bill?
Tom Pursglove
I could not have put it better myself. We all share the sentiment of “all power to the hon. Gentleman’s elbow” in making sure we get this on the statute book.
It is through the prism of my personal perspective that I look at this issue, but I do not want to detain the House for long because we must get the Bill through Second Reading today. We all support the provisions that underpin it. I want briefly to raise one gap in the law, however, that I hope the hon. Gentleman will consider in Committee. For me, that loophole was brought to the fore in a constituency context by the appalling treatment of a well-respected and dedicated police officer in Corby by the name of Candice Liverpool.
A few years ago, Candice received a report of a domestic dispute at a local address, and she attended the incident with colleagues. The male perpetrator had not committed any criminal offences, and on the attendance of officers he calmed down and the matter was resolved. At that point, he chose to become quite obnoxious to Candice. He did not raise his voice and remained calm, but he was extremely offensive on the basis of her colour. He used extremely derogatory and offensive language and appeared to enjoy her obvious discomfort and that of her colleagues, who were powerless to do anything.
Had the individual behaved in such a manner in a public place, he could have been arrested and dealt with under offences in sections 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, but that law applies only when the activity takes place in a public place or can be seen or heard from a public place. Because the offensive behaviour took place in a dwelling and could not be seen or heard by anybody outside the property, no offence was committed. In my opinion, that is wrong. I contend that any public employee, while lawfully on any premises, including private dwellings, as a result of their public service or role, should be protected in the law from racist or sexist abuse. To my mind, verbal assault is as unacceptable as physical assault. I hope the hon. Gentleman will consider that important point in Committee. There is clearly a gap in the law that could be filled.
I would also like the issue of the two-month commencement period to be addressed in Committee. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to get through this as quickly as possible, and if time could be made available I would welcome that, but I wonder whether there is any scope to reduce that two-month commencement period so that progress can be made as quickly as possible.
Chris Bryant
The original version of the Bill suggested that Ministers should have to lay an order for the commencement of the Bill to happen, but I was keen that that should not be part of the Bill, and I thought that two months was pretty much the shortest period we could allow for the prosecuting authorities and others to get everything out there. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but we would be better off speeding up the processes in Parliament than the process after.
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification, which addresses my point. We should consider anything that can be done to speed this up.
Like colleagues across the House, I pay tribute to emergency service workers in my constituency for what they do day in, day out on behalf of our communities. I cannot fathom how anybody could think it appropriate to verbally or physically assault somebody who is doing their job and trying to help them. As Members of the House, we are incredibly privileged to be able to see the work of our emergency services at close hand. That is an opportunity that not many members of the public ever get. We get a unique bird’s eye view of what is happening in our communities.
A few months ago, I went out on a “nightsafe” operation with local police officers in Corby. It was an eye-opening experience to see at first hand what they have to put up with—the volatile situations officers can find themselves in within a split second of a call coming in, the risks they face on a daily basis in fulfilling their duties. One of the big upshots of the Bill, apart from doing the right thing, is that the debate, not just in the House but out there in the country, will ensure much greater understanding among members of the public about what is going on.
The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse mentioned the House of Commons Library figures, but I think they bear repeating: 24,000 assaults on police officers in 2016-17; 7,159 assaults on prison officers in 2016-17; 70,555 assaults on NHS staff in 2015-16. Those are eye-watering figures that I do not think anybody in the country would have comprehended before we started a proper debate on this issue.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the promoter of the Bill, and in pointing out the debt we owe to our emergency services. The police officers my hon. Friend spent time with on the streets of Corby will be acutely aware, as are mine in Horsham, of the pressures on our justice system. Will he join me in welcoming the fact that the Bill allows provision for offences to be prosecuted through both the magistrates courts and the Crown courts to ensure that we get swift as well as proper justice?
Tom Pursglove
I absolutely share that sentiment. The Bill has done a public service in itself by bringing this concerning problem to the fore: it is a national outrage that people out there in the country should be aware of, and this debate has certainly generated that awareness, which I welcome. This issue shows the House at its best. All too often people see the House in a bickering and adversarial context that they find disconcerting, unacceptable and distasteful. Our emergency service workers are the best of British and do so much for our communities. Let us make the law the very best it can be and back them to the hilt.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) and to listen to his experiences as the child of two police officers. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on introducing this timely and important Bill and my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on her hard work to bring it forward.
More action is necessary to protect emergency workers such as healthcare staff, police officers and firefighters from violence and aggression. They perform a vital public service, putting our safety before their own, and we must do all we can to protect them. Earlier this year, PC Jack Denton from Bedfordshire police had to have staples in his head after he was struck by a blunt object. He was called to assist armed police who had handcuffed a suspected car thief who ran away. PC Denton chased him to a house and then felt a massive thud. Bleeding and weak, he fell to the floor. He had been hit by a candlestick most likely thrown from the top window. Fortunately, PC Denton recovered from his injuries, but instances like this are far too common.
We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to frontline public workers placed in dangerous situations on a daily basis. Jim Mallen, chairman of Bedfordshire Police Federation, told me:
“Police Officers do not go to work to be verbally or physically abused. Too many officers return to their families every day having been assaulted – not only having to deal with the physical effects but battling the often long term mental impacts.”
Mike Hill
I understand the issues around capacity, but does my hon. Friend agree that mental health workers, by the nature of their jobs, are often at risk of assault, that such attacks need to be recorded and dealt with properly, and that adequate support needs to be provided to workers subjected to such assaults?
Mohammad Yasin
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is a very important point. Mental health workers do an important job and should be protected, like many other key workers in our country.
Just yesterday, Jim Mallen wrote to six more officers who had been injured on duty. Their injuries were from their being driven into, elbowed in the face, bitten and kicked. He believes that the emergency services are becoming the punch-bags of society and that the time has come to punish those who see fit to assault those on the frontline. I agree with him: it is time to protect those who daily protect us.
As MPs, we all know the dangers of violent and aggressive behaviour. I am grateful for the steps the House has taken to increase security in all our constituency offices so that all MPs and their staff can feel safe at work. We now owe it to all our frontline emergency workers to do all we can to make their workplaces as safe as possible.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin). I thank him for that insight into the dangers faced by so many emergency workers. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is right to say that an assault on anyone is serious, and that an attack on an emergency worker is an attack on us all. The debate has highlighted the distinct lack of deterrence in the system, especially when it comes to sentencing. It is almost as if some of the most violent in our society are treated with excessive gentleness, whether in respect of attacks on emergency workers or more broadly.
Clause 3 deals with the definition of an emergency worker. I appreciate why the hon. Member for Rhondda desires a cordon sanitaire around emergency workers, but I wish to put on record the circumstances in which social workers often work. I was contacted by a constituent of mine from Blackrod. She was assaulted several times before she retired from her job as a social worker and manager of a children’s services team. Social services staff often work alone and, although they are required to keep colleagues informed of their whereabouts for safety reasons, they often do not have the back-up of colleagues immediately on hand. Social workers deal with people with a variety of issues, including mental health, and drug and alcohol problems. In such an environment, people’s behaviour can be erratic and change rapidly.
Violence against social workers is commonly regarded as “just part of the job”, with nine out of 10 social workers suffering abuse, assaults and threats. According to Community Care, councils recorded more than 45,000 incidents against social care workers in the past three years. The Bill is a step in the right direction to protect emergency workers—to protect our protectors—and I hope it can be a step in the right direction for social services to follow in future.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for introducing the Bill. I agree with the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) about the importance of deterrence. I am sure we all find it hard to comprehend how anyone could wish to harm the emergency workers, such as paramedics or firefighters, who have rushed to help them. It is precisely because emergency workers attend events that are outside the norm and deal with people who are particularly unlikely to be able to behave rationally—for reasons of pain, confusion, fear, drink, drugs or just plain anger—that they put themselves at increased risk of assault.
First responders on the streets of Ipswich have been assaulted both verbally and physically by those whom they have come to help, as well as by bystanders. In the past, firefighters in Ipswich have asked me to do what I can to raise this issue. Medical staff at Ipswich hospital have been subjected to sufficient attacks for the police to have had to open an outreach police station in the hospital to deal with the trouble. It is clear that the attacks are happening; the question is how we can stop them.
If the public perceive a strong likelihood of prosecution and a stiff penalty, potential assailants, however drunk or angry they might be, will be that much less likely to launch an attack in the first place. The experience in Scotland has shown that to be the case. The existing penalties for the assault of an emergency worker are inadequate, but more importantly, the public do not perceive that assault on an emergency worker is a crime particularly likely to be prosecuted and carry a heavy sentence.
All assaults are wrong—of course they are—but it is particularly important to ensure that our emergency services can carry out their duties without being assaulted. Emergency workers are individually far more likely to be assaulted than the rest of us. They put themselves into situations in which more assaults are likely to occur. If they are assaulted, the consequences are likely to be graver, too. We all saw the fires burning out of control during the 2011 riots in Croydon and other places, where the firefighters who had been sent to deal with those blazes were subjected to sustained attack. If we do not adequately protect our emergency workers, can it be any surprise if we find it difficult to recruit the emergency workers we need?
If we can build a clear public perception that assaulting an emergency worker—any emergency worker—is a particularly heinous crime that carries a strong likelihood of prosecution and a heavy penalty, I believe that even when people are confused, angry, drunk or under the influence of drugs, they will be that much more likely not to launch an assault in the first place.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman talks of building a public perception in support of emergency workers. We have heard today about emergency workers being hassled by the public. We need to build a public perception that when an emergency worker is doing his or her duty, the public equally have a duty to protect that emergency worker, not to attack them. That would be a very good thing.
Sandy Martin
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is precisely the point that I wish to convey, so I thank him for clarifying that.
However aggressive or uncontrolled someone’s behaviour might be, taboos are a powerful block on people’s actions. We need to make assaults on emergency workers a taboo in England and Wales. I believe the Bill will be an important step in making that happen.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin). I entirely agree that we need to make assaults on emergency workers a taboo. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for her work and to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for choosing to introduce this Bill after coming top of the private Member’s Bill ballot. This is a real example of how working together, across party lines, can make a huge difference to people’s lives.
There is no question but that an attack on an emergency worker is an atrocious crime. Two police officers from Cheshire constabulary had apprehended a suspect and were driving along the motorway at 70 mph, when that suspect attacked them inside the car. One officer was receiving treatment for injuries six months after the incident. I am glad that the individual involved in that case was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment, reflecting the severity of the injuries received by those Cheshire police officers. I am also glad that clause 3 would extend the statutory aggravated offence not just to police officers, but to all emergency workers. All emergency service workers engage in vital work on behalf of us all. Not only do they deserve the utmost respect, but they should be able to work without fear of attack. Legislating for tougher sentences is absolutely right and I wholeheartedly support the Bill.
As Members of Parliament, we have a duty to do what we can to protect our constituents, and a responsibility to uphold law and order. Those working in the public services relevant to this Bill selflessly work to achieve those aims and we owe enormous gratitude for their unrelenting efforts. This legislation will go some way in sending a strong message about how much we value emergency workers in our communities and it will adequately punish the perpetrators of assaults against them. To that end, I ask the hon. Member for Rhondda to consider, in Committee, extending the sentencing period for the more serious offences—which would be indictable and go to the Crown court—from 12 months to 24 months, so that there is a distinction between assaults that fall at the lower end of the scale and the more serious assaults that may inevitably end up in the Crown court.
Cheshire police headquarters are based in my constituency, and I have always prioritised working closely with the police to ensure that our streets become safer. Total recorded crime in Cheshire has been falling in recent years and Cheshire police deserve a great deal of credit for that. Any attack on a police officer is a flagrant disregard for what they do for the public. One figure that has not been falling is the number of attacks on police officers. Between April and September this year—a period of just three months—Cheshire constabulary recorded 277 assaults on constables. The headquarters of Cheshire fire and rescue service are also based in my constituency. It is through working with those on the frontline that we gain an understanding of the relentless demands of the job.
The Bill provides even greater reassurance—if it were needed—of our admiration for the work of our emergency workers, and of our continuing support and protection. While preparing for this debate, I was shocked to read the figures for East Cheshire NHS Trust, where there were 124 assaults on staff between 2015 and 2016, 44 of which required medical treatment. There were 668 attacks on staff of the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. The most shocking thing about that statistic is that, despite staff reporting 668 assaults to the trust, not a single person was criminally sanctioned. This information is publically available; the data are collected by the NHS and published. I urge hon. Members to look at their own NHS trusts because, as a result of my preparation for the debate, I am going to go to my local NHS trust and say, “Why are you not encouraging your staff to contact the police to ensure that action is taken against people who subject them to assaults and violence? It is not good enough.”
I am pleased that the Government are supporting this private Member’s Bill. It will not only provide greater protections for emergency workers, who give so much to society, but mean that the force of the law is greater against those jeopardising the invaluable work of our police officers, paramedics, prison officers, firefighters, nurses, doctors and other public servants. I thank the hon. Member for Rhondda for the work he has put into the Bill and I am pleased to support it. I hope that other hon. Members will check the figures for their NHS trusts. We must ensure that the protections we are trying to get into law are actually acted upon, and that the CPS and local police take action to prosecute those who assault our emergency service workers.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach). Let me start, as so many right hon. and hon. Members have—[Interruption.] I have only said three words, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is asking me to speed up. I mean, I was just clearing my throat, and I was just about to congratulate him on bringing in the Bill—
Simon Hoare
Oh, he does not want me to. In that case, it is a great pleasure not to congratulate him on bringing in the Bill. To please him, as a fellow Welshman—that was obviously one of his key criteria for Members taking part in the debate—I will be as quick as I can.
It is important to remember, for the benefit of those the Bill seeks to protect, that there are protections in the law today. I just wanted to make sure that was on the record, because I would hate those who often work in vulnerable and dangerous circumstances to think this was the first time lawmakers had thought about this. As the hon. Gentleman said in his opening remarks, there is legislation already, but the Bill rightly seeks to identify a cohort of people whom we want to recognise for the work they do and for whom we want to provide additional protection.
In supporting the Bill, let me say that I think quite a few things will be teased out in Committee—if the hon. Gentleman is looking for recruits for the Committee, I would be very happy to serve on it. If it is not too late, we may need to think about the title of the Bill, because there are people we would want to be covered by clause 3, on the meaning of “emergency worker”, who would perhaps not be described as emergency workers.
Chris Bryant
I have inadvertently misled the House. Earlier, I suggested that I could not change the long title, but I could change it in Committee.
Incidentally, I was trying to say earlier that hon. Members do not have to keep on saying thank you to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch).
Simon Hoare
Inadvertently, the hon. Gentleman—in his usual humble, don’t look at me, I’m pretending not to be here sort of way—has drawn attention to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I know from talking to my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), when he was the Policing Minister, about the important work the hon. Lady has done on this proposal, and she deserves the thanks of the House.
It is great that the hon. Gentleman has confirmed that the long title can be changed. I just wonder whether it should refer to assaults on “public service workers”. There are a number of categories of people I do not think anybody would seek to demur from including. This is not a full list, but they might include social workers, as several Members have mentioned; psychiatric nurses, particularly when they are on an interaction; those who work for Border Force; people involved with public transport; and our local authority staff. We talk about ambulances, but I am not quite sure whether those who volunteer for St John Ambulance would be covered.
Simon Hoare
The hon. Gentleman nods, and I note that, as does the Minister.
I am also tempted to include traffic wardens, who are not always the sort of people we cheer for, but they do good work enforcing parking regulations, and they often suffer a huge amount of abuse from people who are caught.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) made me think about our armed forces. We have all read of instances when people in uniform in our constituencies have come under attack from those who do not hold our military personnel in high regard.
I am particularly pleased to see prison officers included in clause 3(1)(d). I have Guys Marsh prison in my constituency, and my hon. Friend the Minister has visited it with me. He and I heard first hand from some of the prison officers there of the day in, day out degrading behaviour they have to suffer at the hands of some prisoners. It would be good if, as a result of the Bill becoming an Act, which I very much hope it will, those who perpetrate entirely unnecessary attacks on our prison officers could have their tariffs increased somehow.
I close as I opened, by congratulating the hon. Members for Rhondda and for Halifax. I agree that it is a shame that the House will not divide today, because we need to make sure that the people in the country who are interested in this issue know that the Bill has the full, wholehearted and full-throated support of both sides of the House.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I rise to make three points in welcoming this Bill and seeing, I hope, the House at its best in coming together on something that we all clearly agree on.
On Friday night, three police officers were injured breaking up a brawl in Boston, one of them seriously. Subsequent comments on Facebook included, “The only thing I’m disappointed in is that the other two coppers didn’t get knocked down as well.” While there were more responsible people saying, for example, “Police officers are willing to help anybody and that’s why they put on their uniform”, that underlines why such legislation is necessary. We tell ourselves in this place that everyone is on the side of our public servants, but frankly that is not always the case. I pay tribute to Constables Mike Redfern, Michael Rooke and Dan Lewis, who were injured on Friday night in the course of their duties. This legislation is clearly vital.
Much has been said about the definition of an emergency worker, and it will surprise nobody that I would like to chip in a couple of extra suggestions. I agree with a lot of what has been said about social workers. I would add—not simply because my mum was a nurse and I am married to a doctor—that our general practitioners are often at their most vulnerable when they are alone in a room with a patient who may be seeking emergency treatment with an on-the-day appointment. I urge the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the Minister to consider whether workers in the NHS more broadly, who are often also providing emergency care, should be considered in this. I think, having declared my interest, that particular consideration should be given to GPs, because they are often particularly vulnerable.
It is extremely good news to see the inclusion of prison officers such as those serving at North Sea Camp prison in my constituency, and the RNLI, which does hugely valuable work on a voluntary basis. In Lincolnshire we are lucky to have an RNLI that thrives and does exceptional work. Apart from having to deal with prank calls, they often find that the people who benefit from their work, in sometimes extraordinary circumstances, do not always appreciate it as much as they should.
Holly Lynch
The hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly powerful speech. He makes a very valid point about the RNLI. I recently visited the RNLI at the Tower on the Thames and saw the unique circumstances that it faces. Predominantly, people end up in the Thames because they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or because they have attempted to self-harm or commit suicide, and the RNLI meets a great deal of resistance from the people it seeks to assist. I am really pleased that we have been able to incorporate protections for it within the Bill.
Matt Warman
I absolutely agree. It is a testament to the thought that has already gone into this Bill that we are not asking whether we should add the RNLI. However, the hon. Member for Rhondda was right to say that while we might wish to protect every public servant in one go, there is a risk that the Bill becomes a sort of spine on which we hang a huge number of professions. We do not want a whole load of unintended consequences when, as I think we all agree, this is a very good Bill for us all to support. The more we can do that, the better a place we will end up in.
I welcome this Bill hugely. I very much hope that it can be refined in Committee. I put in a special word for my wife, specifically, and for GPs in general.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I congratulate —not thank, because he does not want me to do that—the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for all the work that they do here.
As we have heard, there is currently protection within the law for anybody who is the victim of assault, and protection in the enhanced sentencing regime guidelines for anybody who is carrying out the work of public service, so why do we need to change the law? The NHS England statistics on assaults tell us why. In 2011-12, there were 59,744 assaults on workers in the NHS in England, and that figure rose to 70,555 in 2016. Quite clearly, the law is not working.
Without wanting to take up too much time, I will refer to some of the feedback I have received from the A&E department in the area of east Sussex that I represent. Here are a few examples from just one doctor:
“Held in a room with a patient threatening me with scissors. Punched in the face on my first emergency department job. One of my juniors got held up against the wall by a bloke who called her a slut and spat in her face. Recently threatened by a bloke I was stuck in a room with whilst pregnant. Sure I could think of more.”
There are many similar examples.
That takes me to the point that I would really like the hon. Member for Rhondda to think about in Committee. How much consideration has been given to the question of how many of the 70,555 offences against NHS staff would be covered by the draft legislation? Would they all be covered because they are all within the sphere of emergency services? Do they all count as emergency workers, or are the vast proportion of them outside that sphere, because they work in other wards and non-emergency settings? If they are outside it, I ask the hon. Gentleman whether it would be worth widening the scope of the Bill to extend the protection to non-emergency services so that it covers not just emergency workers, but those who do other, related, healthcare work. If the Bill covers all those who need protection, I will absolutely welcome it.
I recognise that there is a danger of extending the scope so much that it covers practically all public sector workers. We could well end up with additional enhancements for everyone bar lawyers and estate agents—God forbid—in which case we would have lost sight of the original drift. I ask for the Bill to cover hospitals, and to ensure that the NHS is a safe place, because the situation has got out of control, as the figures show. Those who work in the NHS deserve our protection, but the number of assaults on NHS workers show that something has gone wrong. I would like the NHS as a whole to be given this special protection to send a strong message that such assaults will not be tolerated. We must do everything that is necessary to show people that the NHS is a profession in which they will be safe and in which we want them to work.
I would be delighted to work with the hon. Gentleman on the Bill. I absolutely support it, and I look forward to the possibility that the definitions will be widened in Committee to give this protection to even more people.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I am delighted to support this Bill, not only because the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and I are rarely on the same side of something that is discussed in this place, but because a few months ago the all-party group on alcohol harm, which I chair, published “The Frontline Battle: An Inquiry into the Impact of Alcohol on Emergency Services”. It is a catalogue of attacks on police, fire, ambulance and hospital staff.
Throughout our inquiry, we heard countless first-hand accounts of the physical and emotional challenges for emergency service personnel of responding day in, day out, to alcohol-fuelled incidents. It is completely unacceptable that every 13 seconds a police officer is assaulted in the line of duty. It is unacceptable that medical staff have TVs thrown at them, or that an A&E consultant is kicked in the face. Assaults on people who work in these crucial areas should not be without consequence. We heard about police officers who were assaulted while breaking up drunken street fights, pumping the stomach of a young person and tackling house fires caused or exacerbated by alcohol-induced forgetfulness. We heard about our frontline emergency service staff being attacked day in and day out.
What really interested me was that the report received nationwide press coverage. It was covered not only by several national newspapers, but by breakfast TV. However much as we in this House may like to think that all-party groups are important—I am sure they are to all of us—it is very rare for them to receive such national coverage. That is a reflection of the public concern about this issue.
We also learned how much such behaviour—attacks on emergency personnel, fuelled by the fact that people have drunk excess alcohol—has a significant impact on the morale and the health and wellbeing of those in our emergency services. We were shocked to hear how emergency services personnel were depressed, with some of them leaving the services simply because they could not tolerate any further assaults on such a scale.
One police force told us its staff survey showed that
“90 per cent of police officers expect to be assaulted on a Friday or Saturday night when they police during the night time economy”.
I was really shocked by an account involving female police officers going into licensed premises while policing the night-time economy:
“There is one thing that is specific to female officers and that is sexual assault. I can take my team through a licensed premise, and by the time I take them out the other end, they will have been felt up several times.”
That is completely unacceptable.
Frontline officers are in the firing line. Some 86% of police officers surveyed in the north-east told us they have been assaulted by people who had been drinking, and 21% of them had been assaulted six or more times during their service. Over 52% of ambulance service staff whom we heard from had suffered sexual assaults or harassment while on duty. One submission to our inquiry showed the devastating impact that assaults can have:
“Assaults can affect workers both physically and mentally: some frontline emergency staff have moved on to work in other fields. Others are forced into early retirement as a result of stress, or medically discharged.”
A hospital trust has recorded that in one year just three of its patients were responsible for more than 100 assaults on staff each. The Bill is necessary to protect the protectors. As I have said, making this an aggravated offence will stop patients such as those three each being able, time and again, to assault more than 100 staff members in one hospital without facing a penalty for such behaviour. There has to be a deterrent, and the Bill sends the message that this behaviour is not acceptable and will no longer be tolerated.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
I have been told that congratulations are not necessary, so I will move swiftly on to say that I join everyone in the Chamber in saying that we should protect our protectors. Emergency workers deserve the respect of all of us as they do all they can to keep us safe. I am here today to support the Bill, and I add my voice to those of all Members in sending the very strong message that attacks on emergency workers are unacceptable and will not be tolerated, and that the full weight of the law will be applied to those who attack emergency workers to make them pay for their crime.
The Bill will provide the police and the courts with the powers they need to deal effectively with those who use violence against hard-working emergency workers. I have again been surprised to hear so many horrific stories today about the violence meted out to people who are just going about their work to protect and serve us. I want to take a moment to thank emergency workers in East Sussex, and especially in my constituency of Wealden, whether they work in the fire, ambulance or police services, or in one of my community hospitals in Crowborough and Uckfield. They should not have to go about their work under the threat of violence.
The crucial changes in the Bill send a clear message that attacks on emergency workers will not be tolerated. We must guarantee that our emergency workers, especially those on the frontline who are responding to life and death situations, and those upholding the law have the full protection of the law when carrying out their duties. Attacking a person serving the public is already an aggravating factor in sentencing guidelines, but the Bill will put on a statutory basis a specific requirement to consider an assault on an emergency worker as an aggravated offence.
I hope that the Bill will give victims of this crime the confidence to come forward, and that it will deter those who are violent towards public service and emergency workers. I hope it will help in the recruitment and retention of staff, given that we are trying to get more people into such jobs in the first place. I also hope that it will stop those members of the public who think it is okay to go out and attack an emergency worker, feeling that they will not be dealt with in any way whatsoever.
I welcome in particular the clauses proposing powers to take blood and saliva samples from people who have spat at or bitten emergency workers and exposed them to risk of infection. We have heard how traumatic that can be, not only for the individual victims but for their families.
I want to talk briefly about a case that took place in East Sussex. It has a couple of distressing aspects: the perpetrator was just 18 years old and she did damage to not just one but two police officers. The police officers were called out to an incident at a home and tried to control this young woman, who was in a fight with her mother. As she was restrained on the ground, the young girl—she was just 18—cleared her throat and spat in a PC’s face. Unfortunately, the violence continued and both police officers were attacked.
The Sussex Police Federation called that attack “disgusting”, and Matt Webb, chairman of the federation, said:
“We hear about these attacks on officers in Sussex weekly, if not daily, just for doing their job—which is absolutely unacceptable.
Spitting at officers is a particularly vile act and that is why we are grateful to Sussex Police for being one of the first forces to issues spit-guards to officers to place over the heads of suspects if they had been spitting, to prevent them committing any further offences.”
In another incident, a female police officer was attacked with a hammer. I am concerned at the tone being set by some perpetrators, who think it is okay to attack our public service workers.
In conclusion, I support the Bill and am grateful for the opportunity to thank emergency workers across the country, especially those in my constituency. This Bill and today’s debate send a clear message that violence against emergency workers is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
If the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) will not accept our congratulations or thanks, let us then acknowledge his work and that of the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), as well as that of previous Administrations who have worked on this particular topic and of those responsible for taking this Bill through the House. It was interesting to hear how the hon. Gentleman conducted his own ballot to find which topic the public supported most for a private Member’s Bill.
The Bill and today’s contributions send a clear signal from this House that certain attitudes towards and attacks on emergency workers will not be tolerated. Emergency workers are among the most respected people in this country. They should be able to do their job in the knowledge that if anyone assaults them while they carry out their duties, the persecutor will be punished. My own sister is a nurse, although not in the emergency sector, and I would not wish to think that she was doing her job without adequate protections and safeguards.
I have done some research on emergency workers and frontline staff in the west midlands and my own constituency. In the west midlands in 2016-17, there were 1,312 recorded assaults against officers. That is the second largest number of attacks, by police force area, with only the Metropolitan police recording a higher number. Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust recorded 175 assaults in 2015-16, which equates to 3.5% of staff being attacked. We have to remember that behind every police officer, fire officer and nurse who is assaulted, there is a partner, husband, wife or family. As we have heard, they are equally affected.
I will turn briefly to the Bill’s specifics—I must get my teeth in today and keep my pieces of paper in the right order. This is the disadvantage in having one’s speech curtailed.
There has been a lot of debate about clause 3 and the definition of “emergency workers”, and I mentioned earlier an assault on a constituent of mine who is a refuse collector. We need to look very closely at that definition. For example, are members of the armed forces under Operation Temperer covered under the Bill? I am not quite sure, so I ask the Minister to confirm that in his winding-up speech.
Wendy Morton
The hon. Gentleman highlights the need to look at the specifics of the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) highlighted the need to look beyond emergency workers in accident and emergency. We have heard about minor injuries units, but what about nurses on wards? Could they be included in the Bill?
It is very important for the Bill to undergo line-by-line scrutiny in Committee so we can get it right. We have an excellent opportunity not just to send the right message, but to protect the people who need our protection most. What we have heard today, and what we have seen in our own constituencies, is absolutely not to be tolerated. That message must go out loud and clear, and be backed up by legislation that works to protect our frontline services.
Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I am not going to thank the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) but I am going to pay tribute to him, and to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who has worked so very hard on this issue.
I was not planning to speak—that may have been to the relief of everyone in the Chamber—but I have been moved to do so by the examples given, and the strength of feeling displayed, by Members right across the House. This is one of those wonderful occasions in this place when we do the right thing and come together to make real change that will help real people in our constituencies who make such a difference to our lives.
I would like to pay tribute to Lincolnshire police, who this summer, in the largest ever slavery case, managed to secure the convictions of eight people from the same family who had enslaved vulnerable people and treated them despicably—very violently. The police managed to secure not only convictions, but sentences totalling 80 years. The police showed great bravery, which they show on a daily basis, walking into caravans and houses. I hope the Bill will go some way to supporting that bravery.
My constituency is very rural, which means that often when there is a medical emergency it is not paramedics who come to people’s assistance but volunteer first responders, in particular volunteers for LIVES, which is based in Horncastle. I am delighted that clause 3(2) covers not just paramedics who are formally employed by the NHS, but volunteer first responders who help the NHS. I join colleagues who have set out food for thought on issues such as a maximum sentence for conviction on indictment in saying that the Bill Committee needs to examine such issues. I too would happily sit on the Committee, if the hon. Member for Rhondda needs further help.
I will finish with the words of a constituent who works for Lincolnshire police. He puts it far better than I can:
“We deserve to be able to go home to our families and not be injured or worse.”
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Just as for other sons and daughters of emergency service workers, the Bill has a particular resonance for me. In the nearly 30 years that my father served with West Midlands police, he suffered various injuries. Some resulted from accidents in the line of work, but too many were the result of physical assaults: being hit around the head with a stool in a central Birmingham bar, being pulled off a police motorbike and hooligans trying to pull him off a police horse during a football riot. There were too many other incidents that he saw first-hand, such as the Handsworth riots. He saw rioters assaulting the paramedics, ambulance workers and firefighters who were trying to save lives and put out fires right in the middle of the riot zone.
Sadly, as we all know—as I certainly know, not only from the patrols on which I have joined my local police, but from the emails that I have received from serving emergency workers—such assaults happen far too regularly. The emergency workers at whom the Bill is aimed choose to wear their uniforms. They dedicate their careers to putting other people first, and we must ensure that the Bill puts them first. It is precisely because we need the Bill to succeed in its aim of ensuring that these particularly appalling crimes attract suitably strong punishments that we must also ensure that the perpetrators are charged effectively.
Adam Aston, a Dudley Labour councillor, has served as a paramedic for 13 years. He tells me that he has been assaulted twice during that time, and that on neither occasion did the Crown Prosecution Service choose to press charges. If the Bill is to be effective, we must ensure that this is not simply another offence for which the Crown Prosecution Service will not prosecute.
I hope that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the Minister will work together on both prosecuting and sentencing guidelines. Our public sector workers regularly put themselves between us and danger, and we, as legislators, must ensure that we put the law firmly on their side.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is a particularly shy and retiring type, and I am sorry to do this to him, but I must congratulate him and thank him for the work that he has done. He made a powerful and compelling case for the Bill. I also thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who laid all the groundwork for the campaign, and who did so much work to help the Bill to reach this stage. I thank the Police Federation for its work as well.
This has been possibly one of the most successful campaigns in parliamentary history. It was launched only in February this year, and now the Bill is being given its Second Reading. I thank Unison, the GMB, Unite and the Prison Officers Association, which have been working closely with my Justice colleagues. Most of all, however, I thank our brave emergency service workers, who, when the worst happens, put themselves in harm’s way to protect us all.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Speaking as a former Unison officer who represented those emergency workers on the frontline and, all too often, responded to reports about assaults on them, I am pleased that the debate is taking place. Does my hon. Friend agree that while the Bill is long overdue, the broad support for it on both sides of the House is extremely welcome?
Louise Haigh
I could not agree more.
This year has placed unprecedented demands on our emergency services, but, despite all the undeniable pressures that they are under because of a range of issues—with which I shall deal shortly—they have stepped up without fail, and we have seen them at their very best. Keith Palmer paid the ultimate price when defending us in this very building while we ran for safety. Wayne Marques, equipped only with a baton, ran headlong at the terrorists who attacked us on London Bridge. Countless paramedics, A&E staff, nurses and firefighters saved lives and acted with unmatchable bravery and compassion in response to Grenfell and Manchester. Sadly, this has been a year in which we have asked too much of our emergency service workers too often. It is not too much to ask of us that we protect them in law, and allow them to do the job that they desperately want to do: the job of protecting and serving our communities, for which we are so grateful.
Everything that we have heard this morning has made clear why the Bill is necessary. We have heard the harrowing, emotional stories of officers, nurses and paramedics who have been subjected to the most vile and unprovoked abuse, and the effect that it has had on them physically, mentally and emotionally. We have heard about the personal experience of Members who have served as emergency workers themselves, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), and others whose families have served: the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) and the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman)—and a compelling case has just been made by the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood).
If I may, I would like to add an experience from my constituency. Last year, PC Lisa Bates went to a routine call of domestic violence and, on attending the property, found a man who was in a psychotic state. He attacked her with an axe; she fell down two flights of stairs, grappling with him; he chopped off several of her fingers. She is still recovering at home, and I am sure the House will join me in wishing her a full recovery.
What no police officer, nurse, firefighter or paramedic should ever expect—what should never be normalised for them—is being assaulted in the line of duty. That is what the Bill seeks to challenge: the attitude, which sadly exists across the criminal justice system, that being punched or kicked is somehow to be expected and accepted. Well, it is not. The tougher sentences in the Bill will send a message from the House today: as MPs, we will never accept that people should be assaulted while they are doing their job and we will do everything in our power to protect them.
As we have heard, an assault on a police officer takes place as frequently as every 13 seconds, there were 70,000 assaults on NHS staff last year and fire crews are attacked 10 times every week on average. These figures are shockingly huge and they are growing year on year, as is the disgusting practice of spitting at emergency workers. Interestingly, I have been spat at as a politician, but I was never spat at in my time as a serving police officer. I therefore appreciate, and I know the House does, why clause 4 is vital for workers whose lives have been made a living hell waiting for test results after being spat at. The clause will lessen the trauma of that wait and provide them with assurances as quickly as possible that they have not contracted any communicable diseases. The stories that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax told about the affected officers and the impact on their families were truly shocking, and I know they moved the House. I had the privilege earlier this week of meeting those officers, who are back at work, serving their communities. They are a credit to their force.
It has been fantastic to see such cross-party support for the Bill today, from all parties across the House. I add my thanks to the sponsors and to the Government for allowing the Bill to pass through to Committee. I reiterate the call that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda made for the Committee stage to take place on the Floor of the House, given that there have been so many enthusiastic volunteers today to take part in Committee.
Emergency workers will be watching the debate with interest and will be heartened to hear so many voices speaking up for them, as I know they can feel neglected and taken for granted. However, I would not be doing my job if I did not also use this opportunity to highlight the other pressures they are under and some of the reasons assaults have increased so significantly in recent years. The NHS, as we know, is under unbelievable pressure and is struggling to cope with limited resources. Waiting times for A&E are up and hospitals are failing to meet their targets. Ambulance services across the country are simply unable to meet the demand they face and prison officers are near breaking point, in prisons that are not fit for purpose, while all of them continue to face pay cuts, on top of the thousands that have been taken off their salaries over the last seven years.
Our police are facing unprecedented demand from rising crime, as yesterday’s figures revealed: rising violent crime, a terrorist threat that is now relentless, soaring numbers of 999 and 101 calls, and unsustainable demand thanks to cuts to services elsewhere. The Metropolitan police receive a call related to mental health every five minutes. In 2012, West Yorkshire police were looking for 118 missing persons a week. That figure is now 450. The police are now constantly being asked to attend to vulnerable people when they are not the appropriate agency to do so.
Among all this, we have lost 20,000 officers and 30,000 police staff. Neighbourhood policing has been decimated, and just yesterday Norfolk police force announced that it was abolishing every single one of its PCSOs. Single crewing is the norm, PCSOs are being asked to go to jobs that are appropriate only for PCs, long-term sickness and mental health issues are through the roof, and morale is at rock bottom. The only way to fix these issues is to resource the police and all our public services properly. We can never truly protect them unless they have the capacity and the support to deal with the many and varied situations that their job throws at them.
If we are to do everything we can to protect those workers, I would beg the Justice Minister to take this away from the debate. We are so grateful to the Government for their support for the Bill. We look forward to improving it together even more in Committee and to its speedy implementation, but we are also desperate for more resource in the Budget next month. Without it, I genuinely fear that our emergency services will not survive as we know them.
I know that we will return to this debate and that neither I nor my colleagues in Health or Justice, or the many champions from the Back Benches, will let the issue drop. In closing, I therefore reiterate my congratulations to my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda and for Halifax and my thanks to the Government, to all the supporters and, again, to all our emergency service workers. Every day that they put on their uniforms, they risk their lives to protect ours. These people do not act without fear; they act in spite of it. That is why we call them heroes.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is in typically bashful mood, but I still congratulate him on coming top of the private Member’s Bill ballot and on using that coveted position to introduce a Bill on such an important topic. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on her tireless work in championing the “Protect the Protectors” campaign. The public voted in an online poll to support this Bill, and it is therefore important that we deliver it.
As the son of a midwife, I know of the commitment and hard work shown every day by people working in the public sector. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), I know how it feels to grow up knowing that a parent could be attacked in the line of work, doing something they care about and to which they are committed.
Every day, emergency workers across the country show remarkable courage simply in carrying out their duties. They save lives, protect communities and uphold the law. We owe each and every one of them a debt of gratitude, and they deserve the full protection of the law. Introducing tougher sentences for such despicable attacks on emergency workers sends the clearest possible message that this cowardly behaviour will not be tolerated. That is why the Government support the Bill.
Michael Tomlinson
I know my hon. Friend has looked at the issue carefully, and he heard my intervention on the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Sentences seem to be the same for summary offences as for indictable offences, so will he consider whether it is necessary to increase sentences for indictable offences?
Mr Gyimah
My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point, as did my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) and for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). We will work through the detail in Committee, but the Bill deserves its Second Reading today.
I am humbled by the stories of bravery we have heard today. This year our emergency services have faced the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, as well as horrific terrorist attacks. The murder of Police Constable Keith Palmer, outside this very building, is a shocking and tragic reminder to us all of how much our emergency workers do to protect us.
We must not forget that, as well as responding to major incidents, our frontline emergency workers—be they police or prison officers, firefighters, paramedics or other health workers—deal with challenging and unpredictable situations as part of their everyday working lives.
I was asked whether civil nuclear constabulary and Army personnel working in Operation Temperer will be covered by the Bill, and the answer is yes. They are engaged to provide services for police purposes, so the Bill will apply to them.
Although public attention often focuses on paramedics being abused by drunks in city centres, or on heroic police officers tackling violent criminals, behind prison walls our governors and frontline prison officers work daily with some of society’s most dangerous and troubled individuals. I have seen at first hand the courage shown by those committed men and women as they protect society. As with all emergency workers responding to critical situations, prison staff must be able to carry out their duties without fear of assault. They carry out their duties with incredible calmness and professionalism. I often pay tribute to them in this House, and I do so again today. I am pleased that the Bill will apply to them, too.
For some time now, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have been working together, building an evidence base on what is happening on the ground and looking at what more we can do to protect our emergency workers. For the past two years, the Home Office has published provisional statistics on assaults on police officers, and sadly, as has been mentioned, they show that the numbers are increasing. In 2016-17, there were an estimated 24,000 assaults on police officers, which is a 7% increase on the 2015-16 figure. Assaults on prison officers also rose by a third last year and, in the acute hospital and ambulance sectors, physical assaults on staff, where no medical factors are involved, have risen by more than 34% since 2009-10. So the Government could not be clearer: this high number of assaults will not be tolerated, and those who are violent towards our emergency workers must face the full force of the law.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), who has responsibility for courts and justice, and the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service have met the hon. Member for Rhondda several times since July to discuss the contents of this important Bill, and Government officials have assisted in its drafting. We are pleased that we have been able to work collaboratively with him on a Bill that will help to provide the police and courts with the powers they need to punish those who use violence against our emergency workers.
The hon. Gentleman has given an overview of the Bill’s provisions, but I want briefly to mention its specifics. Before doing so, I must stress that, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) made clear, we are not starting from a position where there is no protection for emergency workers or for public sector workers as a whole. Judges can already impose tough sentences for those attacking public sector workers and our courts, rightly, already consider an offence directed against those serving the public as more serious. What this Bill does is focus on supplementing those existing provisions with additional safeguards for emergency workers facing violence, often on a daily basis, simply as a result of carrying out their duties.
Clause 1 creates, in effect, a new form of common assault where the assault is on an emergency worker. An offence committed in these circumstances will have, on indictment, a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment, which is double the current maximum penalty. That will give the courts the power to sentence in a way that reflects the seriousness of the assault. I have to stress though, for those who may think even this new penalty is not sufficient, that we are talking here about common assault, the lowest level of assault, which may not involve any injury and can include as little as a single push. If the assault is more serious, it is likely to become actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm, and those offences already have a five-year maximum penalty. So we are focused here on the lower-level offences, and the maximum penalty has to reflect that.
Clause 2 deals with other more serious assaults: those not covered by the new aggravated version of common assault. For those offences, actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm or even manslaughter, the Bill places a duty on the court to consider such an assault committed against an emergency worker as an aggravating factor in sentencing—that means to consider it as more serious, meriting an increased sentence within the maximum for the offence. The Bill also requires the court to make a finding that the offence was aggravated and to state this in open court. This puts on a statutory basis what we already see in sentencing guidelines. It is, however, a clear and unequivocal requirement on the court to take these offences seriously and to make clear to all concerned that it has done so.
I want briefly to mention the application of the Bill to emergency workers. The Bill, as the hon. Gentleman has said and as its title make clear, is about emergency workers and assaults on them while they are trying to carry out their daily duties. The Bill focuses on providing increased protection for emergency workers. These are people who have routinely to deal with difficult people and difficult situations simply as part of their job. That job exposes them to a degree of risk, and it is only right that we are seeking to strengthen their protection under the law. As we debate the Bill, we must keep our central objective—ensuring that emergency workers can carry out those critically important duties—firmly in mind.
It is important that we retain a focus on emergency workers, but this does not mean that the Government think other assaults are not serious. Our courts already consider the context for offences, and specifically when offences are committed against those serving the public. The current sentencing guidelines used by the courts make it clear that if any offence is
“committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public”,
that should be considered as a factor increasing seriousness, indicating the need for a higher sentence within the maximum penalty. I welcome the work that the Sentencing Council has done and continues to do to make that consideration explicit in sentencing guidelines.
The third provision in the Bill relates to the testing of those who assault emergency workers. During the Committee stage of the Prisons and Courts Bill in the last Parliament, the hon. Member for Halifax raised this important matter. I said at the time that the Government were interested in looking at the issue but had to address some important practical and legal questions. I am happy to say that this Bill provides an opportunity to return to that commitment.
Unfortunately, those emergency workers who are bitten or spat at have to deal not only with the initial disgust and pain; in some cases, there might also be a concern that they have contracted a serious infectious disease. This can cause great distress and worry to the individuals and their families. It is simply not fair that the onus is currently on the emergency worker to have their own blood tested and to then potentially undergo further tests to help medical practitioners to assess whether they will develop a disease.
We therefore support the creation of a specific power for police officers to request blood and saliva samples from offenders in these cases. This will ensure that emergency workers are provided with better information regarding the likelihood that they have caught a disease. It will therefore reduce the number of occasions on which emergency workers themselves have to be tested and subsequently take medicines and endure periods of uncertainty about whether they have a disease. A blood sample will be taken only with consent. However, we agree that creating an offence of refusing to provide a blood sample for this purpose without good reason will help to ensure that offenders comply with these requests.
We want to continue to work with the hon. Member for Rhondda and with the police and other emergency services to ensure that the Bill’s proposals are both practical and affordable. I thank the Police Federation for the work that it has done in this context. We also want to work with our Welsh counterparts as the Bill progresses through Parliament, to ensure that this legislation works effectively in Wales.
Let me conclude by again thanking the hon. Member for Rhondda—he does not get thanks from me very often, so he should accept it on this occasion—for ensuring that this first Friday sitting considering private Members’ Bills has been so well spent. This is not a party political issue; it is an issue that affects us all. We have heard constituency cases from across the House today reflecting that fact. That is why I am pleased that we are working together to protect these key public servants. Introducing tougher sentences for despicable attacks on emergency workers sends the clearest possible message that those attacks will not be tolerated. I commend the many staff associations that have worked hard to push the issues in the Bill to the fore. We look forward to debating the provisions further as the Bill progresses through the House.
Chris Bryant
With the leave of the House, I should like to respond to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and I have received so many congratulations, thanks and tributes today that I feel as though we are now married. This is made even more confusing by the fact that her partner is also called Chris. It would be quite surprising—[Interruption.] All right, calm down! It has been good that nobody has tried to talk the Bill out today or tried to keep the debate going for unnecessary purposes. Every Member who has spoken has done so either because they wanted to pay tribute to the emergency workers in their own constituency, because they had particular stories that they wanted to tell or because they had identified issues that they felt the Bill still needed to address.
I have a short list of the issues that I think we will need to address in Committee. One is the definition of emergency workers, which has been referred to by several people. There is a question of whether we should extend it to include other NHS workers, PCSOs and custody officers, for example. I am keen, however, not to extend it so far that we do not throw a cordon sanitaire, as it were, around our emergency workers specifically.
Secondly, as the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) said, we will need to consider the reference in clause 1 to
“in the exercise of functions as such a worker”.
We will need to make sure that that does not become a loophole or a “get out” clause for those who attack or assault our emergency workers.
The third area to consider is the list of offences that can be aggravated. Members might think it a slightly odd list. There is a rationale for it, but we should perhaps consider other offences, such as those under the Public Order Act, which several hon. Members have referred to. As I have said to several people, I am keen not to make the issue of spitting and biting one that adds stigma in particular to those with HIV. If that were to be an outcome of the Bill, I would not want it on the statute book. I am keen to get that right, so we might need to amend that clause. In addition, as I understand it, the Government have signified that a money resolution, and consequently clause 7, will not be necessary, so we will have to remove that clause in Committee.
I want to tell one brief story. A bit like my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax, a few years ago I was caught up in an incident. It was around the time that the foxhunting legislation was going through Parliament. I had taken quite a strong stance in favour of the legislation, and my house had been attacked many times and all sorts of horrible things scrawled over it—I was quite well known for my position on the legislation. I was going to a fundraising event in Cardiff—my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) was there as well—and as I arrived, there was a large number of foxhunting activists outside the hotel where it was happening. They saw me from a distance and started chasing me, shouting all sorts of obscenities at me. They clearly wanted to—well, I do not think they wanted to have a conversation, let’s put it that way.
I am very grateful to the police, who bundled me into the back of a van and locked the doors. You could not see inside the van from outside and the people chasing me disappeared for a while. Unfortunately, the police forgot they put me in the van. [Laughter.] About two hours later, I managed to get through to 999 to be released from the police van, by which time I was in terrible need of a toilet. [Laughter.] There is a serious point to this story. We then decided to get me into the event through the back door. We created a phalanx of police officers—in front, to the side and behind—with riot shields to get me into the hotel. Incidentally, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East was no use at all—she was not answering her phone.
Anyway, the police were trying to get me in, and one of the police officers was of Chinese background. Suddenly, the demonstrators saw us trying to get in through the back and started throwing stones, bricks and all sorts of things at us. At one point, they started shouting at the police officer I referred to, calling her—not my words—a “Chinky pig” and punching her. I am grateful to the police for getting me in, but what struck me when I was thinking about this last night was that although it was an aggravating factor that the attack on her was racially motivated, it was not an aggravating factor—it would have been had our Bill been law—that she was a police officer. That is all I want to do in the Bill—to put hate crimes and hatred of and assaults on our emergency workers on the same footing.
I am enormously grateful to everybody here today. I know how difficult it is when there are competing constituency events, especially for those from far-flung constituencies, particularly in Wales. I am also grateful for the Minister’s offer to progress the Bill as fast as possible. There are means, if the Government choose to adopt them, to get the Bill on the statute book by Easter next year. Let us see if we cannot do that together.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill
Wednesday 15th November 2017
(7 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 15 November 2017 - (15 Nov 2017)
The Chair
I have a few preliminary announcements. Will hon. Members please ensure that they have switched off or silenced all electronic devices? I remind them that tea and coffee are not allowed in the Committee Room, but removing jackets and ties is fine.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That, if proceedings on the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill are not completed at this day’s sitting, the Committee shall meet on Wednesdays while the House is sitting at 9.30 am.
Ms Ryan, it is a complete and utter desire—[Laughter.] As you know, that is not the case. It has not started well, has it? It is a complete and utter pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Now that you have said that we cannot have tea and coffee, I desperately want some—and because you said we could take our jackets off, I will not. The sittings motion is simply a preliminary that we have to adopt, otherwise we will not be able to meet again next week. I hope that under your brisk chairmanship, Ms Ryan, we will manage to complete our business today, but that is in the Committee’s hands.
Question put and agreed to.
The Chair
The required notice period for amendments in Public Bill Committees is three working days, so amendments should be tabled before the House rises on Fridays for consideration the next Wednesday, but I encourage hon. Members to table them earlier if possible, should our proceedings go beyond today. I advise hon. Members that, as a general rule, I do not intend to select starred amendments that have not been tabled with adequate notice.
Chris Bryant
I beg to move,
That the Bill be considered in the following order, namely, Clause 7, Clauses 1 to 6, Clause 8, new Clauses, new Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill.
I have personally selected members of this Committee who can understand a sentence such as that, so there is no great need to say any more—except that it may seem slightly odd to bother to consider clause 7 first, for a reason that I shall come to in a moment. As Julie Andrews sang,
“Let’s start at the very beginning,
A very good place to start.”
We are not quite going to do that, but none the less I think we will be hearing the sound of music by the end of the day.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 7
Financial provision
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Bryant
I should prefer to move that clause 7 should not stand part of the Bill, but that would be a disorderly motion, as all hon. Members—not least yourself, Ms Ryan—are aware. The only way of making it clear that I do not want the clause to stand part of the Bill is to say so while proposing that it does.
Clause 7 is known as an expenses clause. It was included at the time of the Bill’s publication, because the question of whether the Bill’s cost implications were such as to require a money resolution was not then settled. On the basis of information provided by the Government, the House authorities have now determined that a money resolution will not be necessary, so clause 7 is no longer required. I hope members of the Committee will therefore join me in voting against the question that clause 7 stand part of the Bill.
Question put and negatived.
Clause 7 accordingly disagreed to.
Clause 1
Common assault and battery
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Bryant
We are getting to the meat of the Bill, Ms Ryan. I know that you are completely and utterly impartial, but you did volunteer to be a member of the Committee if you were not chairing it, so I am absolutely delighted that you are in the Chair today. I am grateful to everyone who has come along this morning, not least the two late additions, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove—
Chris Bryant
That sounded like applause for oneself. I would also like to put on record that the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) and for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) were prepared to serve on the Committee. They have gone to great lengths in sucking up to the Government so as to be in the Government and therefore avoid being on the Committee. None the less, I am very grateful for the support that they have given. Before we get much further, I would also like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax, as in a sense I am midwife to, rather than the mother of, today’s Bill.
Clauses 1 and 2 will, in essence, make two new provisions. The first, in clause 1, is for a new offence
“of common assault, or battery, that is committed against an emergency worker acting in the exercise of functions as such a worker.”
Somebody convicted of such an offence on summary conviction could receive up to 12 months, a fine, or both. Somebody convicted on indictment could likewise receive up to 12 months, a fine, or both.
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Gentleman may remember my intervention on Second Reading, in which I raised the same point that I am going to raise now. It seems slightly unusual for an offence on indictment and an offence on summary conviction to have the same sentence. I know the hon. Gentleman will have anticipated this question, which I will also put to the Minister, but I was slightly surprised not to see an amendment to the Bill. Could he explain his reason for that, and perhaps whether there is any comparable legislation where there is exactly the same sentence on summary conviction as on indictment? I should say that I fully support the Bill and am delighted to be a member of the Committee, even though I am a late addition, but I would like him to address that point.
Chris Bryant
When I was re-reading the Second Reading debate last night and remembered that the hon. Gentleman had joined the Committee, I thought it was just as well that he joined very late. Otherwise, he would have tabled an amendment to that effect, we would be debating it this morning, and I would have had to prepare for it.
The exegesis is simply that I was initially hopeful of a two-year maximum sentence on indictment. Obviously, in nearly every—in fact, in all—other cases, the sentence in a magistrates court is six months on summary conviction. That is what I had assumed that we would be proceeding with, but the Government were keener to go to 12 and 12. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer on that point later. I am enormously grateful for the support that the Government have given in making sure that the legislation is in good shape. There have been some tussles along the way, and we may want to return to the issue of sentence length on Report. I think there is still an argument for a maximum of two years for an offence, but others argue that that would be disproportionate when there are other offences that one could be convicted of that would attract sentences of anything between two and five years. Some people are arguing that that might be a more sensible route to go down when seeking to prosecute.
The new offence in clause 1 also applies to those who are off duty when they are performing the functions that they would have been performing if they were on duty. That is an important provision. Legislation in Scotland is similar but is far more complicated and difficult to use in prosecutions, and there have been instances where that has been used effectively as a loophole. It is also important to say that, as with all such legislation, the offence is not retrospective.
The second provision in clause 2 is the new aggravated offence in relation to seven sections of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and manslaughter, kidnapping and ancillary offences. I am glad to say that those ancillary offences cover quite a broad range of those who might be caught. This particular provision has taken the model of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which created an aggravated offence originally in relation to those perpetrating an offence in relation to somebody’s sexual orientation or their disability, and was subsequently amended to include whether the victim was or was presumed to be transgender. That is a good parallel because, although it does not necessarily increase the maximum sentence available, it means that the court has to state the fact that this is an aggravated offence in open court. That will be of some comfort to quite a lot of emergency workers who have gone to court and seen the person get a minimal sentence with no reference to the fact that this was an aggravated offence. Secondly, it means the court has to consider that as increasing the seriousness of the offence.
I have heard people say that the court already has lots of other means of assessing aggravated elements of the seriousness of an offence, but those vary enormously from things such as the time of day to the vulnerability of the person and the venue and so on. It is important that we put this at least on a par with the provisions of the 2003 Act. Again, it would not apply retrospectively.
I hope that all hon. Members will support the inclusion of the two offences.
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)
I join the hon. Member for Rhondda in saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan, I think for the first time in my case. If you will indulge me, may I also place on the record my admiration for the success that the hon. Gentleman has had so far with the Bill? Unfortunately, I could not attend Second Reading, so I could not place on the record my genuine admiration for his work. He is characteristically modest in describing himself as the midwife of the Bill, although I join him in congratulating the hon. Member for Halifax on her tireless work. Her speech on Second Reading was extremely powerful in helping to explain through human anecdote why such a Bill is necessary. I also join the hon. Member for Rhondda in congratulating the other sponsors of the Bill.
Having sat in the hon. Gentleman’s shoes and taken a private Member’s Bill through in my first Parliament, I also congratulate him on how he has managed the process and resisted many temptations and invitations to add baubles to the Christmas tree that is this Bill. The reality of these situations is that the more baubles you add to the tree, the more likely it is to fall over. This tree stands proud before us today because it has the right number of baubles on it, which is in large amount due to the discipline of the hon. Gentleman in seeking to pursue a Bill that is simple and coherent. He has done that and I congratulate him on it. That in large part explains why the Government are pleased to support the Bill, not least because it sends a clear message that assaults on emergency workers will not be tolerated.
As the hon. Gentleman made clear in his remarks, clause 1 creates a new form of common assault where the assault is on an emergency worker. An offence committed under those circumstances will be triable either way and will have on indictment a maximum penalty of 12 months in prison. That is double the current maximum penalty for the existing offence of assault. The new offence provides increased protection under the law for emergency workers who may be assaulted in the course of their day-to-day work.
Such increased protection will also extend to situations where an emergency worker is not at work, but acts as if he or she was—for example, when an off-duty firefighter rescues someone from a burning building. The offence will sit alongside the existing common law offences of assault and battery but will be targeted at assaults against emergency workers. In the case of a more serious assault against such a worker, the existing offences of actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm are likely to apply.
It is worth reiterating why we are creating a new form of common assault when perpetrated against an emergency worker.
Michael Tomlinson
I am sure the Minister heard my intervention. Perhaps he is answering it in his own way by explaining about other offences that sit alongside this one, but I wonder if he would directly address my point. I believe it is unusual for there to be exactly the same length of sentence for an offence that is tried summarily as for one that is tried on indictment. It may be that he is already answering that point, but I would press him slightly further on whether there is a specific explanation why the six-month and two-year sentences initially proposed have not found favour with Her Majesty’s Government.
Mr Hurd
My hon. Friend is too generous; I was not actually answering his question, but I will attempt to do so now. His basic question is why does the maximum penalty seem to be 12 months in both the magistrates court and the Crown court? The maximum penalty is in fact six months in the magistrates court and 12 months if dealt with in the Crown court. The provisions of clause 1(4) make it clear that the provisions should be read as six months, to match the sentencing powers of magistrates. That is a drafting provision to take account of provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that have not been commenced. I hope that gives my hon. Friend some explanation. I am more than happy to tease that out in the Committee and during further proceedings.
I am keen to register the human dimension. The Second Reading debate was incredibly useful in drawing out, constituency by constituency, real human examples of the risks that our emergency workers take on our behalf and intolerable situations they find themselves in. We know those examples instinctively, but it is useful to bring the experiences together in such a debate. That is why the Bill is timely and right. I am sure every single member of the Committee would join me in expressing our gratitude and respect for our emergency workers. The statistics about the number of assaults across the range of emergency workers covered by the Bill are genuinely shocking, and the Second Reading debate brought that through very clearly. It is very clear to me and the Government that emergency workers deserve the full protection of the law. Tougher sentences for assaults on emergency workers send the clearest possible message that that such cowardly and despicable behaviour will not be tolerated.
On Second Reading, we listened to various suggestions for amendments. Concerns were expressed about whether the maximum sentence for the new form of common assault, where the assault is perpetrated against an emergency worker, is harsh enough. An increase for the maximum penalty from six months to 12 months is exclusively for the lowest level of assault, which may not involve any injury, and the act constituting the offence can be as little as a push. The offences of actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm are more likely to be used if the assault is more severe. Both those offences already have a maximum penalty of five years.
Members also raised the issue of which emergency workers were covered by the Bill. The original definition of emergency worker proposed would mean that many people working in or for the NHS, who are at risk of being assaulted because they have face-to-face contact with patients or other members of the public as a regular part of their job, would not be covered by the extra protections provided by the Bill. We want to ensure that all those working in or for our NHS, providing services directly to the public, who suffer an assault either in the course of doing their job or using their skills to provide emergency care to members of the public while off duty, are given equivalent protections to those working on the frontline in our emergency services. That definition will be considered in greater detail, I am sure, during our discussions.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Has the Minister assessed whether it makes sense for the Attorney General’s powers relating to reviewing unduly lenient sentences to have some regard to the new offence? I say that because the new offence runs alongside existing offences. I do not wish to change the drafting of the Bill, but I ask the Minister follow how the offence develops, and in the event that the courts are not sentencing as we would like, perhaps he can look at whether the Attorney General’s power should be enhanced to cover the new offence.
Mr Hurd
I thank my hon. Friend for that thoughtful intervention, which I recall he also made on Second Reading. I certainly undertake to discuss that point with colleagues at the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General himself. My hon. Friend will recognise that what the hon. Member for Rhondda is doing through the Bill, which the Government support, is to put in place new measures that complement the existing legislation and send a strong signal to and through the system that we will not tolerate assaults on emergency workers. We are doing that both through the creation of the new offence and through the aggravating factor, which strengthens the hand of the system.
I was talking about how the scope of the Bill has shifted during the course of the debate. In addition to NHS workers, the original definition of emergency workers included prison officers and persons
“(other than a prison officer) employed or engaged to carry out functions in a custodial institution”,
but it did not cover those working in a situation in which a prisoner is being transported—for example, to court—by someone other than a prison officer. We believe it is important that those individuals are covered by the Bill. We will discuss that when we come to the relevant amendment.
Clause 2 creates an aggravating factor, as I signalled in response to my hon. Friend, which will apply to assaults that are not covered by the new offence of common assault against an emergency worker. The Bill places a duty on the court to consider assaults, which include actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm and manslaughter, committed against an emergency worker as an aggravating factor in sentencing. The offence will therefore be considered more serious and may merit an increased sentence within the maximum allowed for the offence. The sentencing judge must state in open court that the offence is so aggravated. Clause 2 puts the sentencing guidelines on a statutory basis, but with reference to a specific group of people—emergency workers—and for a specific list of assault and assault-related offences.
Chris Bryant
I do not think there is a great need to add to that. One point referred to on Second Reading was whether the complexity of the Scottish Act, in which there is a loophole relating to whether somebody is exercising their functions, would be replicated in this Bill, which will apply to England and Wales. Because of the way the Bill is drafted, I think we can be pretty confident that such a loophole will not exist. I do not think that there are any further issues that need to be addressed.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Meaning of “emergency worker”
Chris Bryant
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 3, page 3, line 24, at end insert—
“() a prisoner custody officer, so far as relating to the exercise of escort functions;
(b) a custody officer, so far as relating to the exercise of escort functions;”
This amendment would broaden the definition of “emergency worker” so as to include those who provide prisoner escort services (which include the delivery of prisoners to court and their custody whilst on court premises) and corresponding services in respect of persons detained in youth detention accommodation.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss:
Amendment 2, in clause 3, page 3, line 29, leave out paragraph (h) and insert—
“(h) a person employed for the purposes of providing, or engaged to provide—
(i) NHS health services, or
(ii) services in the support of the provision of NHS health services, and whose general activities in doing so involve face to face interaction with individuals receiving the services or with other members of the public.”
This amendment would broaden the range of health care workers included within the definition of “emergency worker” so as to include all clinical workers providing NHS services and support workers who have direct interaction with patients or the public more generally.
Amendment 3, in clause 3, page 3, line 34, leave out subsections (3) and (4) and insert—
‘(3) In this section—
“custodial institution” means any of the following—
(a) a prison;
(b) a young offender institution, secure training centre, secure college or remand centre;
(c) a removal centre, a short-term holding facility or pre-departure accommodation, as defined by section 147 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999;
(d) services custody premises, as defined by section 300(7) of the Armed Forces Act 2006;
“custody officer” has the meaning given by section 12(3) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994;
“escort functions”—
(a) in the case of a prisoner custody officer, means the functions specified in section 80(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991;
(b) in the case of a custody officer, means the functions specified in paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994;
“NHS health services” means any kind of health services provided as part of the health service continued under section 1(1) of the National Health Service Act 2006 and under section 1(1) of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006;
“prisoner custody officer” has the meaning given by section 89(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991.”
This amendment is consequential on Amendments 1 and 2.
Chris Bryant
Clause 3 defines an emergency worker. As the Minister has already adumbrated, on Second Reading concerns were expressed about whether the definition had been drawn too tightly. Consequently, amendment 1, which we could call the amendment of the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), because she was the person who raised the issue on Second Reading, would add prison custody officers to the definition of emergency workers. That was supported on Second Reading by the Prisons Minister and subsequently by Justice Ministers and others.
Amendment 1 has to be read in conjunction with amendment 3. I have all the detail, if anybody wants it. I can go into each of the subsections of each of the Acts that we are referring to, but it ends up as quite a spaghetti junction of legislation. Amendment 3 specifies the meaning of the terms custodial institution, custody officer, escort functions and prisoner custody officer, via section 147 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; section 300(7) of the Armed Forces Act 2006; section 81 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991; paragraph (1) of schedule 1 to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994; and section 89(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991.
I do not think anybody would have serious problems with those definitions but if Members would like to quiz me on them, I have all the gubbins ready.
Wendy Morton
Fear not—I support the Bill. While we are discussing the definitions, although I have not tabled an amendment, a couple of specific points were raised in the Chamber on Second Reading about which I want to be absolutely certain. One was whether the Bill would cover the armed forces operating under Operation Temperer. Secondly, my understanding is that PCOs are covered, but I seek clarity on that. It is important to get the definition right. It needs to be tight enough to make the Bill good and workable, but not so tight that some of those other valuable emergency workers are excluded.
The hon. Gentleman might remember that I also talked in the Chamber about refuse collectors. I will not press that today, but in future, if this Bill works, there might be some scope to look further.
Chris Bryant
I thought that was an admirably brief intervention, by my standards. The hon. Lady makes two very good points and one with which I disagree. The two on which I agree are that members of the armed forces effectively operating as emergency workers would be covered by the Bill, as would PCOs. I have no doubt about that.
My anxiety is that, if we extend the Bill to all public sector workers, such as refuse collectors, it would be difficult not to include housing officers and a wide range of others. I felt that the specific problem we have now relates to emergency workers and the dramatic rise in the number of incidents is significant. In addition, there is a moral imperative for us to stand by our emergency workers at such a moment. That is why I have resisted suggestions that we should spread further than what I consider to be emergency workers.
I will own up to the hon. Lady that there is one issue that I am not sure we have yet got right and that is in relation to St John Ambulance workers. Everybody thinks of a St John Ambulance worker as somebody who runs an ambulance service. On occasion they would be covered by the Bill, if it were enacted, because they would be commissioned by the NHS to provide ambulance services, or perhaps search services; however, in the mere provision of first aid services, they would not be covered. That could lead to an odd situation where an NHS ambulance was sitting immediately next to a St John ambulance at a football stadium and one set of people would be covered and the other would not. We may need to return to that. However, I do not want to open up to everybody who provides first aid services on a voluntary basis for every charity in the country because that would water down the provision in the Bill.
Wendy Morton
I will be brief. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that getting the definition and the Bill right will send a strong message to those who are not covered by the definition in the Bill that some of the behaviour we have seen, particularly spitting and biting, is unacceptable?
Chris Bryant
Yes. I know of housing officers who have to make very difficult decisions and they get a great deal of grief and often aggressive—sometimes physically aggressive—behaviour from potential clients in housing offices up and down the land. Of course, I do not condone any of that violence. I am glad to say that my local authority has very strong measures in place to ensure that all its staff are safe.
The Bill will not of itself end all the assaults and inappropriate behaviour. There is a duty of care on all employers, whether that is the police, the NHS, an ambulance trust or whatever, to ensure that their staff are safe. There are always measures they can put in place to ensure that. That is one of the reasons why the trade unions have played such an important role. Broadly speaking, nearly everyone we are talking about in this definition is unionised in some shape or form, although it is not quite the same with the police. The unions can play an active role in ensuring that staff are protected.
I do not know whether the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, who rose at the same time as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, still wants to come in.
Huw Merriman
I did have a further point. I absolutely take into account the need to keep the Bill tight, because otherwise it loses its purpose, but I recall that a key point discussed on Second Reading—I used the statistics myself—was the number of assaults in hospitals, which in four years has risen from 59,000 to slightly over 70,000. What proportion of those 70,000 cases will be covered by the Bill? Those incidents are particularly prevalent in the accident and emergency side, but what about the vast proportion remaining? Would that be something that the Bill could look at in the future to ensure that all NHS staff are protected? Currently they are not.
Chris Bryant
Amendment 2, which I am about to speak to, would help substantially. The truth is that we do not know the precise statistic the hon. Gentleman is seeking. We might stand a better chance if we kept the provision in the NHS that gathers such statistics, but unfortunately that is being abolished, so we will rely merely on staff surveys, which are a less reliable means of obtaining information.
The good news is that amendment 2 would extend the definition of emergency worker to include all those providing NHS health services. Incidentally, I understand that the phrase “national health service health services” is slightly clumsy, but it is the only way that we could make it work. Amendment 3 specifies the provision of NHS health services, so amendments 2 and 3 have to be read together. The National Health Service Act 2006 and the parallel National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006 have a different way of defining NHS services from the one I suggested we would proceed with on Second Reading. I will read the definition from the Welsh version, because it is exactly the same as the English one, apart from the word Wales is used rather than England, and I am Welsh. It states:
“The Welsh Ministers must continue the promotion in Wales of a comprehensive health service designed to secure improvement—
(a) in the physical and mental health of the people of Wales, and
(b) in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness.”
Members will acknowledge that that is a broad definition of the provision of NHS services that brings a large number of people into the ambit of emergency workers. If a nurse is working on a hospital ward and someone has a cardiac arrest, it would be difficult to argue that they should not be covered by the Bill. It is the same for a hospital orderly working in the building, taking someone down to theatre or whatever. I am delighted with the way that the Government have helped redraft the Bill through amendment 2. I hope all Members will support amendments 1, 2 and 3 and ensure that clause 3 remains part of the Bill.
Mr Hurd
The Government not only accept, but welcome clause 3 and the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda.
The clause, as the hon. Gentleman made clear, sets out the definition of emergency worker as it applies to the new offence of assault on an emergency worker and as it applies to the aggravating factor. The clause gives a list of occupations or groups of people, which broadly includes the police, prison officers, fire, rescue and search personnel and services, and those providing healthcare services. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills sought reassurance on police community support officers, and I confirm that the hon. Gentlemen was entirely correct in the reassurance that he gave.
The Bill focuses on people who have to deal with difficult people in difficult situations as part of their day-to-day job. That job exposes them to a degree of risk of assault and the Bill will give them increased protection in the event of such attacks. Although all the workers in clause 3 are defined as emergency workers, there is no requirement in the Bill that they must be responding to a specific emergency when an offence is committed against them.
We accept amendment 1, which brings those who provide prisoner escort services within the Bill’s definition of emergency worker. That will ensure that the people responsible for escorting prisoners between prisons and courts and for guarding prisoners while they are at court are brought within the Bill’s provisions. We believe it is right that they will be covered by the new offence of assault on an emergency worker and by the aggravating factor.
We accept amendment 2, which aims to widen the definition of emergency worker in the health sector for the purposes of the Bill and to ensure that we protect all those working on the NHS frontline. I thank my colleagues at the Department of Health for their co-operation with us. It is completely unacceptable for those providing healthcare in an emergency situation to be assaulted. However, many healthcare workers and those who support them, whose jobs involve regular face-to-face contact with patients, their relatives or other members of the public, are also vulnerable to assault while carrying out their duties. As has been pointed out, the statistics are genuinely shocking. It is only right that all those working on the NHS frontline are afforded the greater protections provided by the Bill.
I will briefly say something about those who work for first aid organisations, such as St John Ambulance, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. As we push the boundaries of the Bill, we get into difficult definitions and choices, which I am sure will be probed by Parliament as the Bill proceeds. Our view is that staff and volunteers who selflessly give up their time should be protected by the Bill if they are assaulted while providing a service under contract to the NHS. They may also fall within the scope of the Bill if the assault occurs while carrying out an activity that can be classed as a rescue. Those are the circumstances that currently we envisage as enabling those staff and volunteers to be protected by the Bill, but I am sure that there will be views expressed on that as it proceeds.
We consider that this new, expanded definition strikes the right balance—balance is inevitable in these situations—and includes those who fit the definition of emergency workers for the Bill’s purpose. However, we will consider any further proposals put forward by the hon. Member for Rhondda.
Chris Bryant
I am very grateful to the Minister for his words at the end. We will look at whether there are further means of tightening this up on Report, but there is not much else that needs to be said on this part of the Bill.
Amendment 1 agreed to.
Amendments made: 2, in clause 3, page 3, line 29, leave out paragraph (h) and insert—
“(h) a person employed for the purposes of providing, or engaged to provide—
(i) NHS health services, or
(ii) services in the support of the provision of NHS health services, and whose general activities in doing so involve face to face interaction with individuals receiving the services or with other members of the public.”
This amendment would broaden the range of health care workers included within the definition of “emergency worker” so as to include all clinical workers providing NHS services and support workers who have direct interaction with patients or the public more generally.
Amendment 3, in clause 3, page 3, line 34, leave out subsections (3) and (4) and insert—
‘(3) In this section—
“custodial institution” means any of the following—
(a) a prison;
(b) a young offender institution, secure training centre, secure college or remand centre;
(c) a removal centre, a short-term holding facility or pre-departure accommodation, as defined by section 147 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999;
(d) services custody premises, as defined by section 300(7) of the Armed Forces Act 2006;
“custody officer” has the meaning given by section 12(3) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994;
“escort functions”—
(a) in the case of a prisoner custody officer, means the functions specified in section 80(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991;
(b) in the case of a custody officer, means the functions specified in paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994;
“NHS health services” means any kind of health services provided as part of the health service continued under section 1(1) of the National Health Service Act 2006 and under section 1(1) of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006;
“prisoner custody officer” has the meaning given by section 89(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991.” —(Chris Bryant.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendments 1 and 2.
Clause 3, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Taking of samples under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Bryant
As I am sure all hon. Members are aware, clauses 4, 5 and 6 relate to spitting and the taking of intimate or non-intimate samples. The reason for the clauses is clear: the incidence of people spitting at emergency workers has risen dramatically. Spitting may seem relatively innocent to some people, but it is perfectly possible to pass on communicable diseases by spitting. Often, an individual who has been spat at will not know for some considerable time whether they have contracted a particular communicable disease and will therefore be put through precautionary medical interventions that they would not otherwise have had to go through. We have all heard stories of false positives for various diseases being given to police and other emergency workers following that process.
Spitting is not just a question of saliva. Sometimes—if someone has been in a fight and lost a couple of teeth, for instance, and there is blood in their mouth—people spit an amount of blood. However, I want to make absolutely clear from the beginning, in case there is any doubt, that I do not believe that that has anything to do with HIV. It is my understanding, from all the medical evidence I have looked at and the advice provided by NHS England, NHS Wales and the World Health Organisation, that spitting does not transmit HIV, including when there is blood in the saliva. There is no evidence that that is the case. There has been some wild talk that it is, but it is not. I remember that there was a similar debate when I was a priest in the Church of England and people were concerned about taking communion wine. In actual fact, the combination of saliva, silver and alcohol was a good way of killing off the HIV virus.
Wendy Morton
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I think he had an inkling that I may raise HIV. I accept his helpful explanation. Does he feel that there is a case for further guidelines to be provided with the Bill, particularly to help prevent unnecessary stigmatisation?
Chris Bryant
One of the delights of the past 20 years for me as a gay man, many of whose friends died in the early years of HIV, is that HIV is no longer seen as a death sentence. It is another medical condition. People have much more rational attitudes to it than they used to. That has been helped by significant senior figures, including in politics, such as Lord Smith—Chris Smith—being able to speak openly about their HIV status, and of course by dramatic changes in medication, which have transformed people’s life chances. There may be some downsides to that in terms of whether people practise safe sex and all the rest of it, but the truth is that there is considerably less stigma than there was. As I said on Second Reading, I would be distraught beyond belief if I thought that the Bill would add to that stigma.
I am open to suggestions about whether there should be specific provision in the Bill to require NHS England or the authorities in Wales to make clear what is appropriate in relation to specific communicable diseases. It may be that we want to return to that on Report, but as I say, I am keen that clauses 4, 5 and 6 remain in the Bill. Our emergency workers should not be spat at, whether it is only saliva, saliva with blood, or whatever—they should not be. It is designed to be an assault, it is designed to be offensive and it is designed to make people fearful about whether they have contracted a communicable disease.
Mr Hurd
I wholly endorse what the hon. Gentleman was saying about the pragmatic approach of the clause. I also congratulate him on the way in which he spoke about the sensitive issue involved. I wholly endorse and associate myself with his comments about the progress we have made as a country in our approach to HIV.
We will proceed with sensitivity on the issue, but the fact remains—the evidence is there in all the testimony, case studies and examples given on Second Reading—that, as well as dealing with the physical and mental aspects of being assaulted, in certain circumstances emergency workers may be concerned that they have contracted a serious infectious disease as a result, especially when those attacking them threaten as much. If exposed to the risk of infection, emergency workers might have to wait for up to six months to find out whether they have been infected.
During such periods of uncertainty, the emergency workers may also be concerned that they are in turn infecting those around them, including their friends and family. One only has to read the speech of the hon. Member for Halifax or the examples given by the hon. Member for Rhondda—I am thinking in particular of PC Bruce and PC O’Shea and the story of what they had to go through—to realise that that is absolutely intolerable. That is why the clause is required.
Emergency workers may also have to take medication that ultimately is not required, some of which may have severe side effects. Such incidents can cause great distress and worry to the individuals and their families, so we are very keen to work with the hon. Member for Rhondda to find ways to protect emergency workers from the worries of unnecessary medication that may result from exposure to infectious disease. We therefore support his proposals in the Bill. However, we will want to work with organisations, including the National AIDS Trust and the Terrence Higgins Trust, further to consider their concerns. We will also continue to work closely with the police and other emergency services to ensure that the Bill’s proposals are practical and affordable. The hon. Gentleman has been extremely pragmatic throughout the course of the Bill. We want to put on the statute book legislation that will actually have some effect, and the Bill is genuinely practical in that respect.
I am reassured to hear the hon. Gentleman say he will continue to work with officials and stakeholders to ensure the Bill is the best it can be. I join him in making it absolutely clear that this Bill should not propagate stigma associated with HIV, which was a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills. It must be noted that there is a very low risk of contracting HIV through biting or spitting blood, and only in very particular circumstances. Alongside creating this power we want to work with the police and emergency workers to ensure there is a better understanding of the risks involved. It is ultimately about supporting our emergency workers and providing peace of mind.
For the sake of consistency we agree that the Bill should extend police powers in the Terrorism Act 2000 to marry up with the extension of powers in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Clause 6 makes further consequential amendments to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, on disclosure, and to the Human Tissue Act 2004. It exempts blood and non-intimate samples from the controls in that Act for health protection purposes following assaults on emergency workers. It also makes provision for a constable to require a person to attend a police station for the purposes of taking a sample.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful for the Minister’s comments. I should put on the record my gratitude to him for the way he has been willing to work with me and to meet and take phone calls at all sorts of strange hours. I should also say that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley has been particularly helpful to me, not least because this is an area of the law that she knows well, in helping draft the legislation and in persuading colleagues that this is a good piece of legislation. She has not got quite as good a name as Hooley, a former MP several years ago, whose campaign slogan was “Hooley for Heeley”. I do not know what the name of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove would be in similar circumstances.
Without further ado, I hope the Committee will support these clauses and the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 5, 6 and 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill
Friday 27th April 2018
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 27 April 2018 - (27 Apr 2018)
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 2—Assaults on police constables (No. 2)—
“In section 89(1) of the Police Act 1996, leave out from ‘offence’ to end of subsection (1) and insert—
‘and liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months, or to a fine, or to both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 24 months, or to a fine, or to both.’”
This new clause would make assaults specifically on police constables carry greater penalties than are currently available to match the new offence and also to ensure that Crown courts have greater powers of sentence for the offence than magistrates’ courts.
New clause 4—Assaults in prison—
“In section 243A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (2) insert—
‘(2A) Subsection (2) does not apply if the prisoner has assaulted any person listed in Section 3 of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving a sentence of less than 12 months who assaulted an emergency worker during that sentence would not be eligible for automatic release.
New clause 5—Assaults in prison (No. 2)—
“In section 244 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (1A) insert—
‘(1B) Subsection (1) does not apply if the prisoner has assaulted any person listed in Section 3 of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving a fixed term sentence of more than 12 months who assaulted an emergency worker during that sentence would not be eligible for automatic release.
New clause 6—Assaults in prison (No. 3)—
“In section 246 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (4)(i) insert—
‘(j) the prisoner has assaulted any person listed in Section 3 of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving a fixed term sentence of more than 12 months who assaulted an emergency worker during that sentence would not be eligible for early release.
New clause 8—Assaults in prison (No. 5)—
“In section 247 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (2) insert—
‘(3) Subsection (2) does not apply if the prisoner has assaulted any person listed in section 3 of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving an extended sentence under sections 227 and 228 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 who assaulted an emergency worker during that sentence would not be eligible for automatic release after the requisite period.
New clause 9—Assaults in prison (No. 6)—
“In section 243A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (2) insert—
‘(2A) Subsection (2) does not apply if the prisoner has assaulted any person listed in section 3(d), (e) or (f) of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving a sentence of less than 12 months who assaulted a prison officer or anyone carrying out the same functions as a prison officer or a prison custody officer during that sentence would not be eligible for automatic release.
New clause 10—Assaults in prison (No. 7)—
“In section 244 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (1A) insert—
‘(1B) Subsection (1) does not apply if the prisoner has assaulted any person listed in section 3(d), (e) or (f) of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving a fixed term sentence of more than 12 months who assaulted a prison officer or anyone carrying out the same functions as a prison officer or a prison custody officer during that sentence would not be eligible for automatic release.
New clause 11—Assaults in prison (No. 8)—
“In section 246 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (4)(i) insert—
‘(j) the prisoner has assaulted any person listed in section 3(d), (e) or (f) of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving a fixed term sentence of more than 12 months who assaulted a prison officer or anyone carrying out the same functions as a prison officer or a prison custody officer during that sentence would not be eligible for early release.
New clause 13—Assaults in prison (No. 10)—
“In section 247 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (2) insert—
‘(3) Subsection (2) does not apply if the prisoner has assaulted any person listed in section 3(d), (e) or (f) of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving an extended sentence under sections 227 and 228 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 who assaulted a prison officer or anyone carrying out the same functions as a prison officer or a prison custody officer during that sentence would not be eligible for automatic release after the requisite period.
New clause 14—Assaults in prison (No. 11)—
“In section 243A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (2) insert—
‘(2A) Subsection (2) does not apply if the prisoner has assaulted a prison officer during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving a sentence of less than 12 months who assaulted a prison officer during that sentence would not be eligible for automatic release.
New clause 15—Assaults in prison (No. 12)—
“In section 244 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (1A) insert—
‘(1B) Subsection (1) does not apply if the prisoner has assaulted a prison officer during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving a fixed term sentence of more than 12 months who assaulted a prison officer during that sentence would not be eligible for automatic release.
New clause 16—Assaults in prison (No. 13)—
“In section 246 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (4)(i) insert—
‘(j) the prisoner has assaulted a prison officer during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving a fixed term sentence of more than 12 months who assaulted a prison officer during that sentence would not be eligible for early release.
New clause 18—Assaults in prison (No. 15)—
“In section 247 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, after subsection (2) insert—
‘(3) Subsection (2) does not apply if the prisoner has assaulted a prison officer during the course of their sentence.’”
This new clause would mean that a prisoner serving an extended sentence under sections 227 and 228 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 who assaulted a prison during that sentence would not be eligible for automatic release after the requisite period.
Amendment 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 3, after “battery” insert “including spitting”.
This makes explicit that this section applies to incidents of assault or battery that are spitting.
Amendment 9, page 1, line 10, leave out “12” and insert “24”.
This amendment would increase the sentence for the new offence from 12 to 24 months in Crown courts to allow for longer sentences and to ensure Crown courts have greater powers of sentence for the offence than magistrates’ courts.
Amendment 3, in clause 2, page 2, line 39, at end insert—
“(aa) an offence under section 3 (sexual assault) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003”.
This causes the fact that the victim was an emergency worker to be an aggravating factor in cases of sexual assault.
Philip Davies
I am delighted to support the Bill today—a Bill that I have supported from the outset. I am pleased to be one of its sponsors. May I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on getting his Bill to this point and on using his customary charm to do so? I also congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who has played an invaluable role in supporting the hon. Gentleman in getting the Bill to where it is today. As we all know, she is a doughty supporter of the police, and I know that they appreciate her support greatly. While I am at it, may I thank the Minister, who has played a crucial role in ensuring that the Bill has got to this stage? We are all very grateful for the constructive way in which Ministers have engaged with the process.
My amendments begin with new clauses 1 and 2. I have quite a few to go through, but I will rattle through them as quickly as possible. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Well, everything is relative. I will also ensure that I do my amendments justice.
New clause 1 would make assaults on police constables carry the same penalty as the new offence in the Bill, not just the six months currently available to the courts. New clause 2, which I will discuss together with new clause 1, would make assaults on police constables carry a greater penalty than the new offence and ensure that Crown courts had greater powers of sentencing for the offence than magistrates courts. The two new clauses are alternatives—people may consider which one they think would do the job. I would be perfectly content with either.
In an ideal world, I would like to see the highest sentences possible given for offences against the police. Assaulting a police officer is currently a summary only offence that cannot usually be dealt with by the Crown court, and certainly no more than a six-month sentence can be given. I appreciate that assaults against police officers can be charged as other non-police offences of violence, but that is another story. It is relevant to the new clauses, but not something I want to dwell on. I believe that if we have an offence of assault against a police officer, it should attract a robust sentence, because in reality a lot of assaults against the police will be charged in this way.
I have been helpfully informed by the West Yorkshire Police Federation of the number of such assaults in West Yorkshire. Perhaps, in passing, I might praise Nick Smart from the West Yorkshire Police Federation, who does a fantastic job of representing the interests of his members. He is absolutely first class and has done a brilliant job in helping with this Bill. He gave me the Home Office figures that had been collated for April 2016 to March 2017, which showed that there were 1,240 recorded assaults on West Yorkshire police officers in one year. Those figures are not deemed 100% accurate, but they certainly give an idea of the number of assaults going on. The West Yorkshire police figures, based on recorded crime, show that there were 1,729 recorded assaults on police officers from April 2017 to March 2018.
I am sure everybody would appreciate that those are very high figures. They mean that nearly five West Yorkshire police officers are assaulted every day. To me, that is completely and utterly unacceptable, and it is one reason why the Bill is so worthy and important.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman talks about recorded cases, but does he accept that in their normal line of duty, there is an acceptance that police officers are roughed up and pushed around? Much of that is not even taken into account.
Philip Davies
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The official figures and the recorded figures are likely to be the tip of an iceberg. Many instances will go unreported and unrecorded. Even though the figures are extremely high, they almost certainly understate the issue.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Are the five assaults a day generally carried out by five separate people or by the same people? If the Bill comes into law and the people committing the offences are imprisoned, will that be a relatively small number of frequent offenders or a large number of people who have done it once?
Philip Davies
As always, my hon. Friend raises a very good point. I hope later to deal with part of that issue, because there are persistent offenders who assault police officers time and time again. Even when they are found to have done it time and time again, the sentences that are imposed can be derisory. If there is more robust sentencing, it is blindingly obvious that the more criminals there are behind bars, the fewer criminals there are out on the streets committing crimes. That would certainly apply here. The more of these characters we can send to prison, the less chance there will be of police officers being assaulted. My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point.
New clause 1 mirrors the Bill with 12-month sentencing powers in magistrates courts and Crown courts. Of course, magistrates do not yet have 12-month sentencing powers for one offence. In reality, they would be left with just the six months they have now. I hope that one day that will change so that magistrates can sentence people to up to 12 months for all the offences we are talking about today.
I say to the Minister that we have promised magistrates for many years that we will increase their sentencing powers to 12 months. The law has been passed; it just has not been brought into effect. The Government have promised magistrates those extra powers for many years, and the Select Committee on Justice has reported on that and said that it should be done straight away. It would certainly help in relation to this Bill. I hope the Minister will reflect on the fact that we need to give magistrates those additional sentencing powers, not least because it is much cheaper to prosecute offences in the magistrates court than to take them to the Crown court.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
I seek a small clarification. When the hon. Gentleman says that “we” have promised magistrates an extension of their sentencing powers for some time, does he mean we the Conservative party, we the Conservative Government, we the coalition Government or we collectively as a Parliament?
Philip Davies
All of the above. Labour introduced this power in legislation, but did not enforce it. The Conservative party has promised it in manifestos and still has not delivered. The previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, promised it to the Magistrates Association personally and still did not deliver it. I hope that at some point somebody, whichever side of the House they are on, keeps the promise they have made to magistrates, because both parties are guilty of promising something and not delivering it.
New clause 2 would—
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Before my hon. Friend moves on to new clause 2, I want to raise a query about new clause 1. My reading of the Bill, particularly clause 3, is that it would cover an assault on a police officer. Does he not believe that prosecutors would look to charge under this Bill? Why is it necessary to amend the old legislation if the Bill will be available to a prosecutor in an appropriate case?
Philip Davies
Because the Police Act 1996 will still be on the statute book, so it will still be possible for people to be prosecuted under that Act. All that I am asking for is a common-sense new clause to even up the law. If we got this Bill, which says that the sentence should be up to 12 months, in statute, why on earth would we keep in law an Act that says that the maximum sentence for assaulting a police officer is six months? It makes no sense at all. My new clause would simply ensure that the law is tidied up. It is an inevitable consequence of passing this Bill, and I would hope that it is not particularly controversial, because it is simply about ensuring that the law is sensible. Otherwise we would have two separate laws, both supposedly dealing with the same thing and carrying different maximum sentences, which is the sort of thing that brings the law into disrepute.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I just want to clarify something. When my hon. Friend talks about an under-charging issue, does he mean that, in the example of an officer’s finger being severed, a more serious charge could have been brought—grievous bodily harm, I would imagine—that would have attracted a much higher sentence? Therefore, it may not be primary legislation that needs to be changed, but simply the charging practices of the Crown Prosecution Service.
Philip Davies
That is all very well in theory, and I am pretty sure that that would do the trick in an academic dissertation, but the problem is what we see in the real world time and again. I would be astonished if any Member could not think of an example of a criminal who had committed a serious offence being under-charged and prosecuted for a lesser offence. The reasons for that are numerous, but the biggest one is as follows.
This country supposedly does not have the American system of plea bargaining, but we do in reality. No matter how much the criminal justice system would deny it, we do have that system. The CPS will say that it is going to charge somebody with a serious offence, and the person will say, “I am going to plead not guilty to that.” The defence solicitor or barrister will no doubt then say, “I’ll tell you what, if you charge them with a lesser offence, my client will plead guilty.” So to avoid a trial or to save time or whatever, the CPS, which often feels overstretched, will say, “Oh, go on then. We will charge them for the lesser offence. It will not be the actual offence that they committed, but it will get them a criminal record and get us a guilty plea. It will tidy up our figures, and we will be able to say that we have brought somebody to justice.” The CPS will then consider that a great success. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the victim of the crime, who presumably is barely even considered in this box-ticking, target-driven agenda, sees the person who committed the offence against them being given a derisory sentence. That is what we see time after time. Anybody who thinks that we do not is not living in the real world, because it happens on a daily basis in the criminal justice system.
Although my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) is right that the responsibility clearly lies with the CPS to charge people appropriately for the offence they have committed—nobody disagrees with that principle—we know that that does not happen in practice. Therefore, even if the CPS does what it seems to do on a regular basis and charges people for a lesser offence, it is beholden upon us to ensure that the judge or magistrate has an appropriate sentence to give out when the most egregious cases come before the courts. In the example that I just gave, a police officer actually lost a finger but the defendant was charged with assaulting a police officer, and we cannot let it stand that the sentence can be just six months, or even just 12 months.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
In that example, my hon. Friend shines a light on the potential issue here. Under the circumstances that he has indicated, there is no doubt that the defendant should be charged with grievous bodily harm with intent, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. If, under my hon. Friend’s new clause, a defendant is charged with the maximum penalty of 12 months and pleads guilty, they will be entitled to a third off the sentence and would serve only half. In any event, the penalty would therefore be far less than he desires. The real issue here is whether the proper charging decision is made, because that is what makes the material difference to the sentence. This is about the difference between whether someone spends two months or three months in custody.
Philip Davies
I am delighted that my hon. Friend seems to be agreeing with amendment 9 and that he thinks that the sentence in the Bill should be more than 12 months, perhaps 24 months. I will take that as support, but I am unsure whether I have accurately deciphered what he was trying to say. However, he is right that the CPS should charge people for the appropriate offence, but the point is that it does not, and I can assure the House that things will be the same after this Bill comes into effect. The CPS will still prosecute people for offences that it knows will get a conviction. When someone goes before the courts for a particular offence, we must ensure that the judge or magistrate has the appropriate sentencing powers to make sure that justice is done properly and is seen to be done properly. At the moment, however, that is not the case.
I wish that my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) was right. I wish that the utopia he describes, in which the CPS accurately prosecutes people for the serious offences that they have committed every single time, was the reality. If that were the case, there would probably be no need for this Bill, but the fact is that the CPS does not do that. We have to deal with the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. My hon. Friend has much more expertise in the criminal justice system than me—[Interruption.] On the right side of it, obviously. I respect my hon. Friend’s opinion, but debates in this House on justice issues can often resemble a lawyer’s dinner party. Things can be very interesting, but most people in the real world do not really give a stuff about that. They want to know about what is happening on the ground, rather than what the legal profession would like us to think is happening, which are two very different things.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman says about the reality of the prosecution system and how it operates on the ground, but this Bill is about a little more than just the legal mechanisms we want the Crown Prosecution Service to follow. It is about the signal we send out. It is about trying to change the culture. Right now, we have a situation in this country in which many people think it is okay to engage in this behaviour. Yes, we need to change the technicalities of the law, but we must send out a stronger signal on what is acceptable in society. There must be a change in culture, as well as in practice.
Philip Davies
I am not sure I agree. To be perfectly frank, I get rather tired of people passing legislation on Fridays just to send a signal. We could send a signal just by saying something, but we are in the business here of passing law. It would be a rather wasted opportunity if all we achieve today is sending a signal from this House that assaulting police officers and other emergency workers is a terrible thing. I do not want us just to send a signal; I want to see people who are guilty of these offences spend longer in prison. That is what I want to see: not a signal but a real, tangible difference. I am not sure that sending a signal will do the job. We will have achieved something when some of these terrible people end up with longer prison sentences, and that is what my amendments are designed to do.
In the case of the woman who caused a police officer to lose her finger, the maximum sentence on a guilty plea, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham intimated, is actually four months, even given the number of offences of assaulting other police officers. Of course, a maximum of only half the sentence would be served. So, actually, two months in prison is the maximum that person could face for assaulting numerous police officers, leading one of them to lose their finger. In this country we should be ashamed that that is the maximum sentence a court can impose on that person. In my opinion, and for many people in this country, that is a sick joke.
Again, as my hon. Friend said, two years is probably too little, but two years is certainly better than six months. Should the Crown Prosecution Service do what it does day in, day out and undercharge people, surely we must all agree that giving the courts the opportunity to sentence a person to two years in prison is better than the current situation. The purpose of my new clauses is to make sure we can guarantee that, by whichever route a person ends up in court for this offence, a more appropriate sentence can be handed out.
Another more recent example of why the amendments could be helpful is the case of Leroy Parry, who was convicted this week of biting a police officer. He was sentenced to 22 weeks in prison, despite having six previous convictions for assaulting police officers among his 42 previous offences. The police officer, who apparently needed blood tests and antibiotics after being bitten, said that the level of violence exhibited by Parry was the worst he had seen in more than 14 years in the police force.
Increasing the sentencing options for this offence would ensure that magistrates and judges can take the offence more seriously, and much bigger sentences could then quite rightly be handed down by the courts. We would no longer be tying the hands of magistrates and judges, who I am sure also feel frustrated when they cannot pass the sentence they would want to pass. It would mean the seriousness of Parliament to ensure higher sentences for those who assault the police would be recognised, and hopefully sentences, overall, would be higher as a consequence.
This is necessary because the figures are incredible. I asked several years ago how many previous convictions for assaulting a police officer someone had managed to rack up without being sent to prison for doing it again, and the answer showed that, in one year, a person with 36 previous convictions for assaulting a police officer had assaulted at least one more officer and still avoided being sent to prison altogether. By anyone’s standards, surely that is completely unbelievable and completely unacceptable. That is what we should aim to tackle with this Bill.
Such sentences do nothing to help the police, do nothing to deter criminals and do nothing to make our streets safer. If one of my amendments were to be accepted, it would at least assist in increasing the likely consequences of assaulting a police officer, which would hopefully deter some people or, at the very least, keep the culprits off our streets for longer.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Michael Tomlinson
I made exactly this point on Second Reading and in Committee. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have not been able to find a single other offence in which the sentence in a magistrates court is exactly the same as the sentence in the Crown court, and I hope to develop that point in due course if I am given the opportunity to make a speech.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As I said, he is an expert in this field. The fact that someone with his expertise cannot think of another offence that carries the same penalty in both courts says a great deal, so why would we do it in this Bill?
I hope the Minister is making profuse notes, because I feel I am scoring some runs here. I do not think many people would disagree if he were to say he is prepared to accept these new clauses. I do not think there would be many Divisions on them. That raises a question: if he will not do that, why does he think that this offence should be unique in the criminal justice system by carrying the same penalty in both the magistrates court and the Crown court, and why does he not believe that the Crown court should have powers for harsher sentencing, which happens, as we have just heard, in respect of every other offence we can think of? I hope the Minister will reflect on that during the debate and perhaps give us a positive response. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) said he mentioned this on Second Reading and the hon. Member for Rhondda said he hoped we would come back to this point on Report, so my amendment seeks to make sure that we do that.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
I am interested in this fascinating speech. Perhaps to prefigure some of the arguments that will be made from the Dispatch Box, let me say that one issue about increasing the sentence to 24 months is that we would, in effect, be saying that somebody who assaults an emergency worker or police officer receives not twice but four times the maximum sentence that would be received were the attack to be on an “ordinary” victim. Is there not a question of proportionality in terms of the relationship between the equality of citizens in general and their right to be protected as victims, and the special status of a uniformed officer, if it is suggested that an increment of four is better than that of two?
Philip Davies
The Minister makes a reasonable point, but he is working on the basis that the existing general sentencing for assault is right and should be the benchmark by which we judge everything else. My argument is that most people would consider that maximum sentence to be derisory, so we would at least be making this one appropriate. If the Minister wants to follow through on his point, he could then increase the maximum sentence for assaults on everybody else. He would be happy, because the approach would be proportionate, and I would be happy because we would have some tougher sentences on the statute book—everyone would be a winner. I hope that he is moving in the right direction. If we passed my new clauses and amendment today and then changed the other sentences, I would be doing cartwheels.
I shall discuss new clauses 4 to 6, 8 to 11, 13 to 16 and 18 together—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I can sense the disappointment in the Chamber; can you, Madam Deputy Speaker?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Just for clarification, no, I cannot sense the disappointment. The hon. Gentleman has just made a very wise statement and he has the House with him.
Philip Davies
As usual, Madam Deputy Speaker.
As I have said until I am blue in the face, I would like all sentences handed down by the courts to be served in full. At the very least, however, offenders should not automatically be released halfway through their sentence. That was a scandal—
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
I understand why the hon. Gentleman has tabled these measures, and particularly new clause 4, because figures released yesterday show that prisoners attacked officers 2,327 times in the last quarter of 2017 alone. A guard is being hit every hour in our prisons.
Philip Davies
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to draw attention to this catastrophe in our prisons. It is appalling that our prison officers have to face that on an almost daily basis. We in this country and in this House should be ashamed of that. We should be ashamed that the people who commit those assaults on prison officers are not properly punished for doing so. When the last Labour Government introduced the law that automatically released every prisoner halfway through their sentence, it was a scandal. You were here then, Madam Deputy Speaker, so you probably recall that the then Conservative Opposition were apoplectic, as they should have been, about the Labour Government introducing automatic release for people who were halfway through their prison sentence.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), the then shadow Justice Secretary, made that particularly clear on Second Reading of the Bill that became the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. He said:
“We have said that there should be a policy of honesty in sentencing. The fight against crime depends on integrity in the criminal justice system and on courts that deliver swift, effective justice, with punishments appropriate to the crime and the criminal. In the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the Government introduced automatic release on licence halfway through the sentence for all determinate sentences of longer than 12 months. Combined with the early release scheme, this means that an offender sentenced to a year in jail is usually out after little more than five months. The policy amounts to a deliberate dishonesty. It damages the trust that victims and wider society place in the courts, and it encourages criminals to hold the system in contempt.”
If this were our Bill, we would introduce provisions to restore honesty in sentencing…We would ensure that convicted criminals served the full sentence handed down to them by the judge.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 79.]
That was magnificent, but since we got into government, there has been absolutely nothing.
We are still presiding over a system in which people who are sent to prison are automatically released halfway through their sentence, irrespective of whether they have assaulted a prison officer or not, of whether they have misbehaved in prison or not, and of whether they are still a threat to the public or not. They have to be released halfway through the sentence and that is an absolute disgrace. It defies belief that we in this House can sit here and allow that to continue. If any Member believes our constituents think that is an acceptable state of affairs, they are in cloud cuckoo land. People need to get out more if they think that that is what the public expect from the criminal justice system—it is an absolute scandal. We should be ashamed of the fact that the House is not doing anything about it. It is a recipe for disaster if early release is not linked to behaviour in our prisons, and it is wrong in principle to let everyone out early, regardless of their behaviour or concerns about their likely reoffending.
Perhaps the Government are not with me on that, despite having stood for this belief in the past, but my proposals would mean that prisoners who assaulted a prison officer would not be eligible for automatic release. That would be a minor consolation prize to offset the joke of our sentencing regime, and it would link release back to behaviour in prison in a small way.
To build on the point made by the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith), I should point out that the House of Commons Library stated last year:
“There were 6,430 assaults on prison staff, 761 of which were serious. This was an 82% rise on the number of assaults on prison staff in 2006 and was a 40% increase from 2015.”
Even more worryingly, the Ministry of Justice’s most recent figures show:
“There were 7,828 assaults on staff, up 22% from the previous year. Serious assaults on staff reached 787 in the 12 months to September 2017, up 3% on the previous period. Assaults on staff in the latest quarter increased by 11%”,
as the hon. Gentleman said. According to the Ministry of Justice, in June 2017, there were 43,403 staff in Her Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service. Not all of them will have even come into contact with prisoners, and 8,758 were in the national probation service, but even taking the staffing figure at its highest, we still see a staggeringly high rate of assaults. The numbers have massively increased in the past 10 years, which coincides with people being automatically released halfway through their sentence irrespective of how badly they behave in prison. Someone does not need to be a rocket scientist to realise that if a criminal sees that they can get away with such behaviour yet still be released halfway through their sentence, it is not surprising that lots of people behave badly in prison.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend see this through the prism of the fact that consideration for early release should be seen as a privilege and that, if someone abuses it, the bottom line is that they should lose it?
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is right. I am perhaps a bit more hardline—[Hon. Members: “No!”] When I was at school, those who behaved would be let out on time, but those who misbehaved would be kept in for longer. It seems to me that our prison system should reflect that. We should expect prisoners to behave well in prison. Those who do should serve the sentence handed out by the courts, but those who misbehave should serve longer. That is what I would like to see and, I think, what most of the public would like to see.
I certainly take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove). If we are to allow people to be released early, that should be conditional on good behaviour in prison, rather than the automatic right that it is at the moment. That automatic right—the figures and the correlation are perfectly clear—is part of the reason behind the increasing number of assaults on prison officers, because there is no consequence for the prisoner.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
I know that my hon. Friend thinks that I am a bit of a lefty on many things, so he might be surprised to hear that I have a great deal of sympathy with many of his points, particularly his last one. Long Lartin Prison is in my constituency. When we say that we want to be tough on prisoners, we are really saying not that we need to be unreasonably tough, but that we are treating them how they should expect to be treated in the light of their behaviour. My hon. Friend is making some valid points.
Philip Davies
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend; this is a red letter day.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
The one issue that the hon. Gentleman missed out is the lack of prison officers. As the POA will tell him, the numbers are insufficient and they are going down because of the problems in our jails. We need to recruit more prison officers.
Philip Davies
Madam Deputy Speaker, you would rightly start to pull me up if I were to go down the rabbit hole that the hon. Gentleman is trying to take me down, as that would not be relevant, particularly to these measures. However, I think that everybody has accepted that there is a shortage of prison officers. To be fair to the Government, they have done a pretty good job of recruiting quite a lot of additional officers over a fairly short timescale. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I would say that his point is one with which everyone agrees, which is why the Government have done something to increase the numbers. Whether or not that is enough is a different question, but we should give the Government credit where it is due.
There are 21 assaults on prison staff each and every day, two of which are serious. Prison officers have a hard and dangerous job, and I am sick of hearing about the pathetic additions to sentences for prisoners who assault them. Members might be as shocked as I was to learn that, in 2015, the average number of extra days given to prisoners who assaulted prison staff was 16— absolutely ridiculous! I believe that if someone assaults a prison officer, they should immediately lose their right to automatic release. Let the message go out that the Government are on the side of prison officers, and that those who assault them can expect to be properly punished, not just given the derisory slap on the wrist that they are given at the moment.
I have spoken to the Minister about this, so I know that he is passionate about protecting our prison officers. If he wants to do something tangible to stop assaults on prison officers, he should accept my proposal, because that will make the biggest single difference to reduce the number of such assaults. It would make an enormous difference if criminals knew that they would no longer be allowed automatic early release.
My new clauses in this group relate to three categories of people. The first set—new clauses 4 to 6 and 8—relates to prisoners assaulting all emergency workers, as defined in the Bill. The second set—new clauses 9 to 11 and 13—relates to all prison officers and those acting in a similar capacity in prisons. The third, which is new clauses 14 to 16 and 18, relates just to prison officers. The measures were designed to give the House the maximum range to choose from so that we could select the most appropriate route. The provisions would stop prisoners from being released automatically or early from various types of prison sentences if they assaulted a relevant person during their sentences.
I think that new clauses 4 to 6 and 8, which cover all emergency workers, fit best with the Bill because, of course, prisoners can come into contact with health professionals and other emergency workers, such as police officers investigating subsequent offences. It seems to me that an assault on those people should also be covered. If Members feel that only assaults on prison staff should be covered, however, they can pick alternative new clauses, and if they think that only assaults on prison officers should be covered, new clauses 14 to 16 and 18 are available.
Any of those approaches would be better than the status quo. They would mean that prisoners serving sentences of less than 12 months in prison could not be released automatically after six months or less if they had perpetrated an assault while in prison against any of the people I have mentioned. Prisoners serving fixed-term sentences of more than 12 months would also not be eligible for automatic release following an assault. Finally, the proposals would stop those who assault a relevant person from being eligible for early release.
In an ideal world, this would all be happening anyway—it would just be a matter of common sense—but I fear that common sense was thrown out of our criminal justice system an awfully long time ago. I understand that those serving life sentences and indeterminate sentences for public protection will already have any assaults and the like considered by the Parole Board before their release. I certainly hope that assaults are treated as a good reason not to release anybody, and that they would be a bar to people being released as early as would otherwise be the case. Otherwise, Parole Board hearings would be a farce, although some might argue that many already are.
If somebody has assaulted a person inside prison, they are perfectly capable of doing so outside prison, which is another thing that the Parole Board must bear in mind before release, and another reason why we should not automatically release such people early. At a time when assaults seem to be on the increase, we need much tougher action to protect those who come into contact with prisoners. Prisoners are clearly in prison for a reason. It is quite hard to be sent to prison these days, so those who are there, especially if they are serving long sentences, either have already committed a significant crime, or are repeat offenders. That is the only way to get incarcerated these days. If such people thought that they would have to serve their full sentence, rather than just a derisory extra 16 days in prison, they might well think twice about assaulting those who work in prisons to look after them and keep order. Anything that would reduce the number of assaults would surely be welcomed, and this would be a very effective deterrent.
I do not intend to speak to the two amendments in the group that were tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda, as I am sure that he will do an excellent job of doing so, but I have added my name to them. They relate to spitting and sexual assault. I think we can all agree that spitting is absolutely disgusting and incredible dangerous, particularly to the emergency workers who face it. I appreciate that spitting already constitutes an assault, but I certainly see no harm in highlighting it separately, as the hon. Gentleman has. The West Yorkshire police federation says that spitting affected 21% of all police officers in the latest year, so the Minister should not underestimate how big a problem it is. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that sexual assault should be covered by the Bill—it would be perverse if it was not. Any assault, including sexual assault, should not be tolerated at all, and making this an aggravating factor is a welcome move. I hope that the Government will accept both the hon. Gentleman’s amendments.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I thought that I was going to follow him a little earlier, not least because he told me on the phone the other night that he was going to speak for 15 minutes, but we have loved every minute of it and inflation—[Interruption.] Yes, we were given a rather longer sentence than we anticipated. He is in favour of longer sentences—and paragraphs, clearly.
I will not go into the whole meaning of the Bill, as we are here today to discuss specific amendments. We are, after all, on Report. Before I go any further, I want to pay tribute to a significant number of Members on both sides of the House, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I feel as if I am carrying the baton over the next stage, because this Bill very much started with her, so I want to pay tribute to her. In fact, there are Members in all parties in the House who support the legislation in broad terms. I hope that, by the end of today, we will have a Bill that is eminently suitable to go to the House of Lords and to be on statute book by the end of this year, preferably by the autumn so that the courts can start taking these matters more seriously. I will pay much fuller tribute later to the Ministers concerned depending on how they behave this morning. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Shipley for referring to my charm earlier; I am not sure whether he entirely carried the whole House at that point.
I want to speak to two amendments in my name. Amendment 2 adds the words, “including spitting” as a way of helping to define the concept of common assault or battery, which is in clause 1. There are three different types of spitting to which the law might refer. The first is at or on a person. The second is at or on property, such as on clothing. This matter has often come before the courts, but the outcomes of such cases tend not to be very satisfactory. None the less, there are instances where spitting on property could constitute criminal damage. The third category is spitting in the street, which was, until 1990, an offence carrying a £5 fine. Incidentally, the local authority in Waltham Forest and one other in, I think, Enfield now have £80 fines for spitting in the street—this is not spitting at anybody, but just spitting in the street. Interestingly, at the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese authorities were very keen to try to prevent this as a matter of good manners, and I think that we would all agree that it would be good to stop that here. However, that is not what this amendment is about. This is about spitting at a person.
It is interesting that the deliberate act of spitting at someone, for instance at a football match, is deemed a threat of further violence, demeaning the sport, and bringing the sport into disrepute. FIFA, for instance, counts it as violent behaviour, which can lead to a player being sent off. The Football Association in the UK expressly includes it as a sending-off offence. Indeed, the West Ham player, Arthur Masuaku, has only just finished a six-month ban for spitting. If Members watch the incident in that match, they will see that it was particularly disgusting and despicable. I think that every supporter of football would agree that the ban was wholly appropriate.
Section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 includes the statutory reference to common assault or battery, but it has no specific definition of what constitutes common assault. It is an old common law offence, which has been brought into statute law. In one sense, that is good, because it means that the courts can take cognisance of precedence and that they can look at a whole variety of different issues, but it does also mean that while the vast majority of people in this country would presume that deliberately spitting at another person constitutes assault, and there might have been some other physical element, which might be battery, it does not expressly say so in law.
By introducing a new offence of common assault or battery on an emergency worker, including all the emergency workers who are later defined in the Bill, we have effectively tried to bring that concept of common assault or battery from the Criminal Justice Act to apply to all spitting at emergency workers. The problem is that, as the statute does not expressly define spitting as being part of the offence of common assault or battery, there is anxiety in some circles that prosecuting authorities do not take the matter very seriously.
The truth is that there is a growing incidence of spitting at emergency workers. The West Midlands police, for instance, reported that in just one year—2016—there were 231 cases of police officers being spat at. Some of the instances are quite horrific. A few years ago, I was supporting legislation to ban foxhunting. There was a fundraising dinner in Cardiff for the Labour party, and many people who opposed foxhunting decided to come and protest outside. When they saw me arrive, from about 300 yards away, they decided to chase me down the street. The police bundled me into the back of a blacked-out van to protect me, and they locked the door. The slightly unfortunate thing was that they forgot that I was in the van and, four hours later, I was not able to get back out of the van. It felt as if I had been given a longer sentence than many others.
Dr Drew
I think I am correct in saying that these were supporters of foxhunting, rather than people who objected to foxhunting. Does my hon. Friend accept that one problem at the moment is the lack of clarity over spit hoods? Some forces have introduced them; others have not. This does not help the situation when arrests are being made. Does he agree with that?
Chris Bryant
Yes, clearly there is an issue. It is entirely appropriate that different police forces should have autonomous powers to be able to take these issues in the direction that they want. Different police forces face different challenges at particular times, then there is the issue of resources as well.
It is absolutely true that this is a growing issue. One problem is that, because police officers may sort of have got used to this behaviour, other emergency workers are now being treated in exactly the same way. Let me read one case from the east midlands last November:
“A man spat at a newly recruited police woman 24 times while under arrest in the back of an ambulance. The handcuffed man laughs as he spits at the officer who warned him he was being recorded on her body camera. He repeatedly targets her face as he sat on the bed next to a paramedic. The police woman was in her first year on the job when she became a victim of the vile attack.”
I think that every single one of us wants to send out an absolutely clear, unambiguous message from this House—I know that the hon. Member for Shipley does not like sending out messages, but sometimes declaratory legislation has an effect as well—that spitting at emergency workers is not on and that the full force of the law should be used against those who do it.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
I agree with the hon. Gentleman: that is exactly what we do want to send from this House today. If he will forgive me, there has to be a slight torsion if I am to get in the point that I want to make, but it does follow the point that he has just made. I had an officer in my constituency who was giving first aid to someone whom he had to arrest, and he was spat at repeatedly while doing so—similar to the circumstances faced by the person to which the hon. Gentleman referred. When the case finally got to court, it was deemed that the officer had not been acting in his capacity as a police officer when he was applying first aid—that was beyond his remit—which seems to be an extraordinary situation to be in. As courts can look at our proceedings, may I invite the hon. Gentleman, as the proposer of this Bill, to confirm for the record that, in clause 2(b), we are seeking a wide interpretation of an emergency worker acting in the exercise of their functions as such a worker, as it is ridiculous that a court could rule on such a basis.
Chris Bryant
To be honest, when the law behaves in such a pernickety way as to be able to provide a ludicrous—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who has some legal expertise, is laughing at the idea of lawyers being pernickety. I know that that is sort of their job, but when we end up with loopholes being abused in such a way, the law ends up looking like an ass. It is therefore incumbent on us sometimes to draw legislation as widely as possible to ensure that all such offences are caught. That has been the deliberate intention of the Bill.
Incidentally, I hope that in drafting the Bill, with the assistance of Government draftspeople and ministerial help, we have managed to land on a piece of legislation that is more effective than the parallel legislation that exists in Scotland. Scotland may, in fact, want to look at our legislation and reshape its own law to reflect this.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the Bill is not intended to be an exhaustive list of the instances where a court can find that aggravating circumstances apply? The last thing that we want is for a court to say that an incident is not covered by the Bill and therefore cannot find it to be an aggravated offence, because the perpetrator might then receive a lesser sentence than they would now.
Chris Bryant
There are two aspects to the Bill. The first is the offence of common assault, which I think is now drawn in such a way that the courts will be able to circumvent some of the arguments that have thus far been used to prevent any kind of successful prosecution. The second aspect relates to the aggravated offence, and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we have not included every single offence in the world. If amendment 3 is accepted this morning, I think that we will have included all offences that could relate to emergency workers.
The Minister was right to say that it is important that we take cognisance of the fact that, with this Bill, we are saying that emergency workers are going to be treated slightly differently in law from the rest of the wider public. It is not that I want to create great hierarchies in society, with some people being more important than others; it is that emergency workers are suffering these attacks and assaults because they are emergency workers, and that places a greater onus on us to ensure that they have the protections that they need.
I return to amendment 2 and the question of whether spitting is common assault. The Sentencing Council has in recent years looked at whether spitting increases the culpability and seriousness of the offence, and it removed spitting from each of those categories in 2012. Quite a lot of magistrates and judges have now started to say that this is one of the primary reasons that there has been a deflation in the number of successful prosecutions and in the sentences that are handed down. I regret the fact that spitting was removed by the Sentencing Council and hope that it will revisit that decision in the near future. I hope that the Minister might also be able to say something about how we can ensure that the courts take spitting seriously as a part of common assault offences.
There is an argument that putting the words “including spitting” in the Bill could mean that there is a danger that the courts in other incidents of common assault might say, “Well, it doesn’t include those words, so Parliament intends that not to include spitting.” I am guessing that the Minister may make that argument. If so, I am quite happy to listen to his point. It may well be that we will not need to divide the House on this, but I want to ensure that the courts are clear that common assault could involve merely spitting.
Alex Chalk
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech, in which he is rightly drawing attention to the heinous act of spitting, which is upsetting and completely unacceptable. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service already can and does charge people with spitting under the offence of common assault. I have prosecuted it myself, and I am aware that there is a case—not ancient—where someone was jailed for 21 weeks for exactly that. We should not gull ourselves into thinking that we do not have that scope already. The key thing is to ensure that this offence is properly prosecuted when it should be.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is always a delight to have a lawyer in the House, but not too many, eh? [Interruption.] I think I have carried the House with that one.
The hon. Gentleman does, however, make a serious point. I tabled the amendment simply so that we could have this debate and the message goes out completely unambiguously from the House that merely spitting—I use the word “merely” legalistically; in other words, spitting alone—can constitute a common assault. That is true of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, and spitting at an emergency worker of any kind should constitute an assault under this Bill.
My other amendment—amendment 3—relates to sexual assault. The major part of the Bill introduces an aggravated offence; that is to say that the Bill lists a series of different offences that, when perpetrated against an emergency worker, will be considered to be aggravated. When I drew up the Bill, I was primarily thinking of physical violence towards emergency workers. But the truth is that, since I have been working on the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax and I have received lots of representations, particularly from health service workers, about the sexual assault of ambulance workers, nurses, mental health nurses, doctors and others. One difficulty, both for the Government and for us, has been that these statistics have never been gathered by NHS Protect, which no longer exists anyway. However, the numbers of such incidents reported by the trade unions working on this matter are quite dramatic, particularly given that the figures show increases.
Since 2012, such incidents are up 143% in the East of England ambulance service; up 40% in London; up 133% in the North West ambulance service; and up 1500% in Northern Ireland. Incidents have increased by 400% in South Central ambulance service since 2013; by 100% in the South East Coast ambulance service since 2015; by 400% in Yorkshire ambulance service since 2013; and by 500% in the West Midlands ambulance service since 2012. I wanted to say that it is true that these are not large numbers, but there have been 238 reported cases of sexual assaults on ambulance workers in the East of England ambulance service. Parliament has to take cognisance of such figures and we have to act.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point. This also happens to female police officers, as graphically described to the all-party parliamentary group on alcohol harm, which did a report on the issue. One senior officer said to us, “If I take a team through a club at night, by the time we have gone from one end of the club to the other, the female officer will have been felt up several times.” That is totally unacceptable.
Chris Bryant
It is totally unacceptable; more than that, think about the effect that it has on emergency workers. It destroys their sense of self-worth, and means that they have to summon up courage when they go to work and often live in fear when they are at work. It also means that additional resources may be needed. Of course we have to deal with this issue.
I have a wider set of concerns around alcoholism. My mother was alcoholic and it killed her in the end. I worry that we sometimes use legislation too readily to deal with such issues. It is depressing that, in 100 years, the only thing that we have really come up with to deal with alcoholism is the 12-step process, which does not work for a lot of people who find it difficult to believe in another being above and beyond them. I hope that we will one day have far, far more significant research into what causes alcoholism and how we help people out of it, but the truth is that we will continually have to address the role of alcohol in fuelling violence and sexual violence, particularly against young women.
Fiona Bruce
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that, because it is correct that alcohol plays a large part in assaults on emergency workers. Does he agree, therefore, that, while welcoming this Bill, we need to look further to address the issue of cheap alcohol as an underlying key cause of many of these assaults?
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. All too often, in some of our towns and villages, it is far too easy to get very cheap alcohol, and vast quantities of it. Under-age people are growing up with the expectation that they will able not just to get half a pint of cider on a Friday night but to get a whole bottle of vodka, doing themselves irreparable damage. I have been doing a bit of work on traumatic brain injury of late, and in particular how it affects the criminal justice system. It is depressing that people who get violent after alcohol will often take enormous risks with their own personal safety or will get violent with others. The brain injuries that can result from alcohol develop especially between the ages of 14 and 21, when the executive function of the brain, which sits largely at the front of it, has not yet fully developed. The damage that is done is then seen in the criminal justice system, because we have thousands and thousands of people in our prisons who have brain injuries that were never properly looked at by medics and dealt with.
As the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said, it would be bizarre not to include sexual assault when we are looking at other areas of assault. I know that the Government have been reluctant about this and have said that we want to treat sexual assault differently, but I think it is better for us to treat it in the same terms. Alcohol Concern recently said that between a third and a half of all emergency service people who responded to their research had suffered sexual harassment or abuse at the hands of intoxicated members of the public. Over half of ambulance service workers reported that they had been the victim of intoxicated sexual harassment or assault, and 41% of police had been sexually harassed by drunken people.
I do not want to pretend that legislation, of itself, solves a problem. That is true of the whole Bill, and I will say a little more about that when we get to Third Reading. After all, if legislation, of itself, ended offending behaviour, we would have no murder, no theft and so on. However, we need to send out a clear message that trying to touch up emergency workers, make inappropriate advances to them, or make even more advanced forms of sexual approach is wholly inappropriate behaviour. It prevents emergency workers from doing their job properly, undermines morale, and makes it more difficult for us to lead a safe life. That is why I very much hope that the Government will signify, first, on amendment 2, that they accept that spitting is part of common assault or battery; and, secondly, that sexual assault should be included as an aggravated offence.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
Let the lawyers’ dinner party commence! It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—I will say a few words about him in a moment—but an even greater pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I fear that he credits me with greater expertise than I possess, but there are real experts in this area in the Chamber—other lawyers. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friends the Members for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Witney (Robert Courts) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster). There may well be others I have not named who have expertise. [Interruption.]
With regard to the hon. Member for Rhondda, who has just shouted across the Chamber from a sedentary position, it is a great pleasure to speak on his Bill. I congratulate him on the work that he has done, as has the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I myself piloted a private Member’s Bill that fell at the final hurdle, Third Reading, so I know how difficult it is to get the balance right in order to ensure that such proposals become law. I therefore pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for all his work behind the scenes and in this place. He put me on the Bill Committee—I think I was a last-minute substitute, or perhaps just the last person to fill a space, but it was a great pleasure to have served on that Committee.
I will not speak at great length, but I want to elaborate on the points that I made on Second Reading and in Committee. In particular, I will speak to new clause 2 and amendment 9. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, because I had tabled an amendment framed in almost identical terms to his in relation to extending the sentence in Crown court from 12 months to 24 months. Very bravely, two weeks later I withdrew that amendment, so I am delighted that he has tabled it and that we have the opportunity to debate it today.
As I said on Second Reading and in Committee, under clause 1(2), a person guilty of an offence could potentially be sentenced to the same amount of custody whether the case is tried in the magistrates court or in the Crown court. The clause says:
“A person guilty of an offence to which this section applied is liable…on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months”
and “on conviction on indictment”—that is, in a trial in a Crown court in front of a judge and jury—is also subject
“to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months”.
That is odd, which is why I raised it. I have done some research into this—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley teed me up—and I cannot find a single example of another Bill that sets out exactly the same sentence for an offence tried in the magistrates courts as in the Crown court. We are breaking new ground, and it is therefore worth questioning whether that is appropriate.
I have challenged myself to find another offence against the person—assault-type—offence where the sentence in the Crown court is only 12 months. This where the expertise of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham comes in. What do we as parliamentarians do when we come into the House of Commons first thing? We go and have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea in the Tea Room, and there I met my hon. Friend and challenged him to come up with another similar offence where the sentence in the Crown court was one of 12 months, and he too could not find one. I found two examples that may be relevant.
Rory Stewart
We have returned to the subject that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) raised. Fundamental to this is not the question of the precedent in the Crown court but the relationship between the maximum sentence that can be imposed for an assault on an ordinary member of the public, who has equal status as a victim, and the maximum sentence that can be imposed for an assault on an emergency worker. At the moment, the Bill proposes that somebody who assaulted an emergency worker could receive a maximum sentence of double the one that would be given in relation to an ordinary victim. Is my hon. Friend really proposing that it is appropriate that somebody should be punished four times as much for assaulting an emergency worker as an ordinary member of the public?
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention, which gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to both him and the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, who have engaged in this legislation and spoken personally to me about this issue.
No, I am not saying that. I am not proposing to press the amendment to a vote or say that the Bill should fall, or fail, merely because it states that the sentence should be 12 months rather than 24 months, 36 months or any other period. I am merely saying that the Bill is breaking new ground. It struck me as curious that we are passing legislation that has a sentence of only 12 months in the Crown court. I welcome the Minister’s intervention and understand entirely what he is saying. He has worked tirelessly to ensure that the Bill passes through this place, and the last thing I would want to do is to put that in jeopardy. That is why I have been determined not to press the amendment. However, it is right to air the matter and debate it on the Floor of the House.
Chris Bryant
Let me explain briefly why we ended up with this process. If we had included only the aggravated offence element of the Bill, then there would have been no greater sentence for common assault. It seems to me that two years for common assault where there has been no lasting physical damage to the person might be thought by many people to be excessive. That is why we ended up with two tools for prosecuting authorities. I am sure that they would usually go for the second where they wanted to get a sentence of more than 12 months.
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. People who know me know that I do not want sentence inflation. In fact, I disagree fundamentally with the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. I do not think we should be locking up ever more people, and that is where I agree fundamentally with Ministers and the hon. Member for Rhondda; I see entirely his thought process. Locking ever more people up is counterproductive. I want to see more people rehabilitated and fewer people committing crimes in the first place. That will help the very victims whom my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley passionately wants to defend.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
My hon. Friend echoes my thoughts exactly on the sentencing of prisoners. It might be helpful for him to look at the marvellous report prepared by the Justice Committee last year on the position of magistrates. I wonder whether magistrates should be given greater sentencing powers and whether we should worry less about differences between different types of court, and instead focus on what the offender has actually done.
Michael Tomlinson
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, as she always does. I look forward to her speech.
Michael Tomlinson
If she is not going to make a speech, I am very disappointed. I look forward to her further interventions and certainly to her further work in the area of justice, because she speaks powerfully for it and is absolutely right in this case.
There are other examples of sentences in the Crown court where there is no penalty of imprisonment, but those fall into a different category. They are generally regulatory offences—exciting offences such as Town and Country Planning Act offences and the like, which get lawyers very excited and passionate, but perhaps no one else. In my research I could find no other equivalent, so it is worth pausing and reflecting on the fact that the Bill breaks new ground in that respect. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham came up with one other example of where there is a sentence of two years—he will probably dwell on that in greater length and with greater expertise than I ever could—in relation to contempt of court and the like, but again, that is slightly different.
We are breaking new ground in the Bill by having the same sentence for the magistrates court and the Crown court. However, in case anyone has not been following closely, I add that clause 1(4) clarifies that until section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 is brought into force, the sentence will be six months rather than 12 months in the magistrates court. I am sure that that is part of the reason for the difference in sentences.
That brings me neatly on to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) made and to new clause 3 and amendment 11. I welcome the opportunity to touch briefly on both. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and I disagree fundamentally on many things about criminal justice and the criminal justice system, but he is right to say that there should be honesty in sentencing—we probably believe that for equal and opposite reasons, to be clear. He is also right to point out that the sections of the 2003 Act that would give magistrates this sentencing power have not been commenced.
One of two things should happen. Either we in this place should say that we want magistrates courts still to have the power to give sentences of six months and no more, or we should say that it is absolutely right to extend magistrates’ sentencing powers from six months to 12 months. If that is the position—from the earlier exchange, I think that respective Governments have held that view—we should get on and do it. I know that some Members in the Chamber who have sat or currently sit on the Justice Committee have looked at that issue, and I want to hear from them in greater detail. New clause 3 is also attractive for that reason, because it draws attention once again to the fact that the law supposedly passed in 2003 is not yet on the statute book. If we think it is the right thing to do, we should get on and do it.
Philip Davies
Does my hon. Friend agree that it seems rather bizarre and pointless for the Government to agree to a piece of legislation that gives magistrates the power to send someone to prison for 12 months for a particular offence and then not give magistrates the power to send someone to prison for 12 months?
Michael Tomlinson
My hon. Friend comes back to his point, I suspect, about being honest and straightforward. We either think it is the right thing to do, in which case we should do it, or we do not, in which case we should say so, not do it and stick with the system we currently have.
I do not want to obstruct the safe passage of the Bill, but I thought it important to raise those issues and potential anomalies, and to acknowledge the fact that this Bill is breaking new ground.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Report stage of this Bill. It is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who has been a friend of this campaign from the very start. He raised a number of interesting points, and I look forward to hearing Ministers’ response. We have greatly benefited from his legal expertise throughout this process, and I am grateful to him for that. I am grateful to Members across the House who have recognised the role that I have played in initiating this campaign, but it has been a tremendous team effort, and I will thank a number of people on Third Reading.
I rise specifically to speak in support of amendment 3, which would add sexual assault to the list of assault charges in clause 2, so that it would become an aggravating factor within sentencing if sexual assault were inflicted on an emergency service worker. Having started this campaign with the Police Federation following the experience I had with a single-crewed police officer—a tale I have shared in the Chamber on several occasions—one of the deciding factors in broadening the campaign to cover more emergency service workers was having met female paramedics who had been subject to sexual assaults while on duty. That is why I am so keen to see this addition made to the Bill.
A very clear pattern emerged of female paramedics having to deal with male patients who are often under the influence of drugs or alcohol, as we have heard, in towns and city centres and predominantly on Friday and Saturday nights. I am grateful to Stacey Booth, an organiser with GMB—which I must declare is my trade union—from West Yorkshire who introduced me to a number of paramedics who recounted their experiences, which were worryingly similar.
One of those women was Sarah Kelly, who I am delighted has joined us in Parliament this morning, after taking the brave decision to share her story in the hope that it would help us to fix the broken system that has let her down. On some occasions, it was a combination of the patient being under the influence of drugs, alcohol or both, with a diminished capacity to determine right from wrong, and they took advantage of the situation, sexually assaulting a lone female paramedic in the back of an ambulance. On other occasions it was even more sinister: sexual predators, who have fine-tuned this approach, engineer a situation where they are alone in an ambulance with a female paramedic, with the specific aim of sexually assaulting them.
The risk to ambulance staff is heightened because, unlike the police, who have access to a certain degree of information about a person’s previous criminal history prior to attending an incident, the ambulance service does not. I have met female paramedics who have been dispatched to the address of someone who has only recently sexually assaulted them, pending a court appearance, which must be against all safeguarding and legal advice.
Sarah has led the way in Yorkshire, seeking to work with her trade union and her employer, the Yorkshire ambulance service, to implement the necessary changes from a grassroots level—to accurately report and record such attacks, follow up with support and advice in order to secure a conviction and to build up the data required to put protections in place so that unnecessary risks do not have to be taken in future. I commend her efforts. As we have reflected on many times over the course of the Bill’s journey, the reason why we have to go that bit further on protections for emergency service workers is that we are the ones who ask them to run towards danger and persevere with individuals who seek to do them harm, because they simply cannot walk away.
Like other paramedics, Sarah, having been sexually assaulted by the perpetrator, had to continue to persevere with him in the back of the ambulance until they arrived at hospital, first and foremost because he needed medical attention, and she could not walk away or escape him. We owe it to Sarah to make this amendment a reality in law. She is not alone in her experience as a paramedic, nor are paramedics the only emergency service workers to be exposed to this particularly vile manifestation of assault, so I urge all colleagues to lend their support to amendment 3 and add it to the Bill.
I also support amendment 2, to which I have added my name, and I will return more specifically to the hideous act of spitting when I speak to amendments 4, 5 and 6. I am also sympathetic to a great deal of the work done by the hon. Member for Shipley, and I agree with a number of the points that he outlined in his new clauses. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the debate.
Alex Chalk
It is such a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). She is a truly passionate defender of the interests of police officers, and she does that with great skill. I pay tribute to her and to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).
I have a few observations, building on the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. In his powerful submission he said that it is important that police officers—I know there are some in the Public Gallery—receive justice, and that that justice is not “a sick joke”. However, we must also ensure that we do not inadvertently replace one sick joke with another.
In my experience as a prosecutor, the biggest injustice for police officers was along the following lines. A police officer attends the scene of a serious robbery, for example, and he or she makes an arrest. During the course of that arrest, the defendant spits at the police officer, in an extremely upsetting and unpleasant incident. The defendant is taken to the police station, where he is subsequently charged with robbery and with assaulting a police constable in the execution of his duty. The case then comes to court, and the defendant says to the prosecutor, through his solicitor, “Alright. I will plead guilty to the robbery”—that is technically a more serious offence and punishable with life imprisonment—“but do me a favour and drop the offence of assaulting a PC.” A lazy prosecutor—this point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley—might say, “Oh for goodness’ sake. Let us carve this up. He is going to get a custodial sentence of two to three years for this unpleasant robbery. Is it really worth proceeding with the charge of assaulting a PC?”
What should happen in those circumstances? A conscientious and decent prosecutor would speak to the officer and say, “This is what is being proposed. What are your thoughts about it?” If in those circumstances the officer says, “I want justice to be done. I want this individual to have on their record not just that they are a robber, but that they have assaulted a police officer”, it would be wrong for the prosecution not to proceed with that charge and for justice not to be done. A prosecutor should already take into account the feelings of the victims, and I suggest that it would be in breach of their duty as a prosecutor not to proceed in such circumstances, and it would be a failed assessment of the public interest. In my experience, where those decisions have gone wrong and a case has been dropped, police officers rightly feel that their interests have not been taken into account.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is speaking specifically about police officers, but there is already an existing offence regarding police officers in the Offences Against the Person Act 1861—a rather elderly piece of legislation. However, there is no similar provision for other emergency workers.
Alex Chalk
That is absolutely right. I was using that example to make a point, but whether we are talking about a police officer or an emergency worker, if this Bill becomes an Act—I would entirely support that—the principal potential for injustice is not the absence of legislation used to arrest, prosecute and convict an individual; it is where a prosecutor might make the wrong decision to drop a charge because, in an erroneous assessment of the public interest, he or she decides that it is not worth the candle. That is critical.
The second potential area of injustice is wrongful or erroneous charging. The example given was of a police officer who attends the scene of an alleged crime and her finger is bitten off. An offence for that already exists—causing grievous bodily harm with intent—and the maximum penalty is life imprisonment. If the defendant was convicted, Sentencing Council guidelines suggest that he or she should receive between nine and 16 years’ imprisonment.
Why do I make that point? Let us suppose the defendant is inexplicably charged with assaulting a PC—maximum sentence six months. Under the current position, the defendant would plead guilty and those six months would be reduced to four, because a third of the sentence would be docked. He would then serve half that sentence, which is two months. That is the maximum penalty. It is vanishingly rare that anyone ever gets the maximum penalty, but let us suppose someone does in this case and receives two months. Under the new regime, he would have a maximum sentence of 12 months, but we take off four because of the guilty plea, so the sentence is down to eight months. He will then serve four months, which is a bit more.
The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley would make the maximum sentence 24 months, but let us look at what would happen in practice. If the defendant pleads guilty, 24 months is reduced to 16 months, and he will then serve half of that. We must be careful about this. The net effect is simply that the sentence would go from a maximum of two months in custody to eight months, even with my hon. Friend’s amendment. The true area of injustice is not the absence of the offence; it is when a prosecutor makes the daft decision not to charge someone with the appropriate offence. Of course I support the Bill, but we must keep our eye on the real areas of injustice, which are upstream.
Finally, in my experience, police officers, and perhaps, in future, emergency workers, will take umbrage at the fact that if a defendant is convicted of , for example, a robbery, even if the court says, “Right. That’s it. Two years for the robbery and four months for assaulting a PC”, those sentences will invariably run concurrently, and a police officer could be left thinking, “What on earth was the point of that?”
Chris Bryant
That is another reason for structuring the Bill in this way. All too often, the courts might have borne in mind the fact that an offence was against an emergency worker when sentencing, but that might be completely unknown to the emergency worker. The mere fact that, because of the Bill that aggravating factor must be stated in court, will be of some comfort to the victims.
Alex Chalk
That is why I am prepared to support the Bill. It sends an important signal that I hope police and emergency workers will welcome. It is right that such an offence should be on that person’s record. My simple note of caution is that, in my experience, the areas of injustice come from wrong charging decisions and the wrongful exercise of discretion on the doorsteps of court.
Michael Tomlinson
At the start of his speech my hon. Friend mentioned the disgrace of sentencing, which he said was a joke or a scandal or whatever. I want to ask about honesty in sentencing—he is coming on to that point. Can we have honesty in sentencing without having ever more inflation in the sentences that are handed down? My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) might be right in saying that we should have honesty in sentencing, but the net result need not be that people are locked up for an ever longer time. We need better communication about what happens with the examples given of a third of a sentence being knocked off and then another half. If the public understood that, they might well get behind such a measure and support it.
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point, and we must ensure credibility, understanding of, and basic confidence in the criminal justice system. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley makes a pertinent point about what people feel if someone gets an eight-year sentence but are out in four years, and probably less. I accept that that causes concern, but it cannot seriously be suggested that we in this country are soft on imprisonment. In the United Kingdom we imprison around 95,000 people, but in Germany the figure is closer to 60,000, as it is in France. Of course there is an issue of perception, but it would be a great mistake for the message to go out from this debate that we are soft on imprisonment because nothing could be further from the truth. The UK imprisons more per capita than any other western European country.
The hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) raised a point about sexual offences, and it is appalling to think that an ambulance technician or paramedic who goes to a nightclub, for example, to try to give first-aid to somebody who has been assaulted on a dance floor, might be sexually assaulted. If she has been sexually assaulted—let us be honest, it is probably a “she”—there is an offence under section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 that has a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. It would be a very curious case if I, as a prosecutor, were faced with those facts—if a defendant put his hand up an ambulance worker’s skirt in a context where she is trying to provide first aid to an individual—and the CPS then said, “Do you know, we have this new offence, so we are not going to bother with the Sexual Offences Act, section 3, which carries the maximum penalty?” There is a risk that that ambulance worker would say, “What on earth is going on here? Why are they going for the easy option?”
Chris Bryant
However, the truth is that now, large numbers of ambulance workers never bother to report an incident because they feel that it will not be taken seriously. All too often, they have a sort of message from society, the law and prosecuting authorities that somehow or other, this is sort of part of their job. That is why it is important that we say, very firmly, “It is not part of their job and there should be prosecutions.”
Alex Chalk
We should say it firmly, and if I may say, no one can say it more firmly and eloquently than the hon. Gentleman. That is great, but we have to be chary of using legislation to send a message. I do not have any difficulty with doing it—we are doing that and it is absolutely fine—but there is a risk of one sick joke being replaced by another. I would feel very aggrieved if my daughter, say, was an ambulance worker, and a defendant was charged with what might be perceived to be an easier and lesser offence in circumstances where if the same thing happened, for the sake of argument, to one of the nightclub’s patrons who was not an emergency worker, the defendant might be charged under section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act. We rely on prosecutors using their judgment, and I am sure that they will continue to do so, but my simple point is that this has the greatest scope for injustice, and it should not be allowed to happen.
Kevin Foster
I am finding my hon. Friend’s speech very interesting and thought-provoking. Does he agree that Parliament can make its intentions clear on this subject by making this an aggravating factor in the offences that he refers to, and not by looking to incorporate it as such into this offence? Of course, the intention may well be common assault, but this is about making it an aggravating factor in existing sexual offences and not about saying to prosecutors, “You went for this offence when you should have gone for the offence under the 2003 legislation.”
Alex Chalk
I take that point entirely.
My final point is about the issue of grievous bodily harm with intent, which most right-thinking people would think is the appropriate offence to charge someone with who had bitten a police officer’s finger, but a middle ground exists between grievous bodily harm with intent and common assault, which currently has a maximum sentence of six months—that is, assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Why do I mention that? As has been intimated, common assault is for offences that leave no mark at all. If any offence leaves a mark that, in the language of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, is more than merely transient or trifling—in plain English, that is reddening of the skin—the defendant can be charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, whether the victim is an emergency worker or not, with a maximum penalty of five years. That would mean, once the discount for an early guilty plea is taken off, that someone could be inside for 20 months maximum.
This is my central point: let us support this Bill and let us send out the message that attacks on our emergency workers are heinous, that they are not to be tolerated and that the law should come down like a ton of bricks. However, let us also not forget that getting justice means selecting the offence so that the punishment will fit the crime—
Alex Chalk
Just before I finish my peroration, I give way to the hon. Lady.
Holly Lynch
The hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly powerful speech and raising some really interesting issues. For me, when we are looking at how we can make a difference in this area, our role as legislators means that we are in some ways limited in how we intervene in the other areas of injustice that he has raised. My question to him, using his legal background and expertise, is this: once we have done our bit by amending the legislation—that will go some way to addressing this problem—how do we appropriately intervene to address the other areas of injustice that he also outlined?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. It would be a very dark day indeed if Members of Parliament in this place were effectively directing independent prosecutors how to exercise their discretion—I know she is not suggesting that for a second—so we have to tread extremely carefully. Ultimately, when a prosecutor decides which charge to choose, they will have to weigh two things: first, sufficiency of evidence—is there sufficient evidence to make it more likely than not that a jury properly directed would convict?—and secondly, is it in the public interest? They have to weigh certain factors in considering the public interest, ranging from the likely sentence at the end of a conviction to protection of the public, and all sorts of things. What we say in this Chamber, however, is capable of forming part of that public interest. If we send the message out that we expect condign punishment, to use a faintly pretentious expression, to be visited on those who assault our emergency workers, that factor can properly be weighed into the mix when prosecutors decide—in the circumstances of the emergency worker who attends the nightclub or the police officer who has their finger bitten off—what offence to choose. The message will ring out from this Chamber that we expect our protectors to be protected.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
It is a great honour to speak in this important debate and it has been nice to hear legal experts making some very important points.
In March, I received a letter from the Bedfordshire police and crime commissioner explaining why the Bill is so important to protect our emergency workers. In Bedfordshire, a police officer who has been assaulted is contacted by a member of the senior team within 72 hours of the assault. Sadly, such calls are a weekly event. Some 24,000 police officers were assaulted in 2016-17, as were more than 70,000 NHS workers and staff in England alone. Assaults on emergency workers should not be viewed as an occupational hazard. While some judges will add an additional penalty if an assault on an officer is proven in court, that is not automatic. CPS judges have historically viewed an assault in the course of arrest as to some extent just part of the job. We must not tolerate that any longer.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very good speech and important points. He is right that some people seem to accept the situation, so as well as this being a matter for legislation, do we not also need to change the whole culture?
Mohammad Yasin
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We need to change the culture in this country because it is currently not acceptable.
We must put legislation in place to guarantee that a tough line will be taken on anyone who assaults an emergency worker. This must extend to spitting—a disgusting and aggressive attack—and sexual assault. The regional Crown prosecutor for Bedfordshire advises officers and staff to give the same amount of attention to their own witness statements as to those of other victims, and to provide personal impact statements to the court. The chief constable of Bedfordshire police has agreed to supply a supplementary personal statement in the event of any serious assault, detailing its impact on the force and colleagues, to add weight to the argument for the maximum penalty. However, such good practice is weakened if there is not legislation to back it up. That is why this Bill is so important and why I support it.
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this very important debate and to follow so many knowledgeable and impassioned speeches. I join every other Member in paying tribute to the hon. Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who have campaigned for so long to bring forward this Bill, which I entirely support.
I will in due course speak to some of the amendments and new clauses, but I wonder whether I might be permitted to say a few words about my general support for the Bill, simply because I have not yet had the opportunity to address this matter. I simply would like to say—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has explicitly told the House what he is about to say. He would probably have got away with it if he had not been so explicit—since we are in this dinner party of lawyers atmosphere, I had better be careful, too, to live up to the name of lawyer. He cannot be general at the moment—he can be so on Third Reading—but this group does, of course, cover an enormous range of matters, and I am quite sure he will be in order in addressing them.
Robert Courts
I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you rightly said, had I simply said what I intended to say—that we all owe a debt of gratitude to our emergency workers in the police, the ambulance service and everywhere else, and that it is important that they have the full weight of the law behind them—without preannouncing it, I would perhaps have finished that part of my speech by now.
As others have pointed out, there are some anomalies in the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) said, its sentencing provisions are unusual. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), I have prosecuted these offences and others like it, and it is strange to have the same sentence on indictment as for summary offences. Broadly put, anyone charged with an either-way offence can choose between a summary trial, which is quicker and relatively straightforward and carries the prospect of a lesser sentence, and a jury trial in a Crown court, which takes longer, with the trade-off being that if they are convicted, they face the prospect of a greater sentence. There is therefore an important tactical consideration for those who advise clients and defendants but, strangely, the Bill entirely removes that.
As I understand the Bill, it contains little to compel anybody to opt for trial on summary jurisdiction—everybody would go for trial by jury. That is fine, in that trial by jury is the gold standard—we are rightly proud of trial by jury in this country—but the difficulty is that there is a big backlog of such cases. The vast majority of cases in this country are dealt with on summary jurisdiction, and if we encourage people to opt for trial by jury, we will simply increase the backlog. I therefore have some difficulty with how the Bill is phrased.
I understand the reasons behind new clause 1, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), and the basis for the Government’s opposition, as I understand it, to his new clauses generally—it would be disproportionate to increase the maximum sentence on indictment by so much—but as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole said, we ought to consider this anomaly, because it militates against the tactical concern that any lawyer will have when advising a client. There would be nothing to lose by going for a trial on indictment in front of a jury, which seems strange. It is also anomalous to have a 12-month sentence in a magistrates court, when, absent section 154 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 being brought into force, most other offences brought before a magistrates court carry a six-month sentence. That is odd. As I say, I support the Bill, so I take nothing away from what it seeks to achieve, but those points ought to be made quite clear.
It is important that we are clear about what we are seeking to do in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham made an excellent point that I would like to emphasise. There is a danger of legislating for the sake of doing something. We have had innumerable criminal justice Acts over the last few years. For those of us who have practised in the magistrates and Crown courts, it can be very difficult to keep up to date with the latest criminal justice sentencing Acts, in particular, and with the guidelines, which keep changing. There is a danger that in seeking to address a wrong, we legislate to do so, rather than simply insisting that the correct charging decisions are made, which is the point that my hon. Friend made. I understand the point about how we do that, which the hon. Member for Halifax made. There is no quick, easy answer. It is partly a matter of criminal justice guidelines being toughened in appropriate circumstances, and partly of the CPS working with its lawyers and training them to ensure that the correct decisions are made. It would be peculiar if, in the example given, when a police officer’s finger was bitten off, that was not charged as a GBH offence, which it clearly is.
Robert Courts
I am not familiar with the background of the case. Perhaps there was a good reason; perhaps there was not. I simply make the point that we need to be careful not to complicate the statute book by introducing offences that cover every precise situation, rather than simply using the more serious offences that already exist. Such a point was also well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham with regard to the Sexual Offences Act.
Kevin Foster
My hon. Friend is making an interesting and thought-provoking speech. He says that this is about sending out a message, but does he agree that this is actually about giving prosecutors an extra tool in their box by way of a new offence to deal with the problem? That offence could be enhanced by the measure on spitting.
Robert Courts
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and I am grateful to him for making that point. I was simply seeking to make it clear that while an offence that carries a greater sentence might exist for some cases, we should still have this offence, because it sends a message. As he said, an offence does not already exist for some cases, so it is right that we address that.
I wish to make a few comments about spitting, on which the hon. Member for Rhondda has tabled his amendment 1, with which I entirely agree. Spitting is a revolting act that I have both prosecuted and defended innumerable times. It seems to have become more prevalent over the past few years and is now a greater part of people’s behaviour when they are faced with emergency workers. It is disgusting, and people who work in the police force or the ambulance service, for example, ought not to have to put up with it.
That is quite right, but it is more important than that, because spitting is deliberately intended to cause worry and to add a psychological wound to one that otherwise is relatively short-lived, because it is not a physical injury. It is right that we mark that because, as I have seen at first hand several times, the act causes immense worry to those in the emergency services, who are understandably extremely distressed far beyond the duration of the relatively short-lived incident. The worry about any contamination that might occur as a result of spitting lasts for weeks and sometimes months. That is what we are seeking to address, which is why I wholeheartedly support amendment 1.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
I am pleased to be able to make a contribution to this debate on dealing with assaults on emergency workers. Hon. Members might be pleased to know that I stand here not as a lawyer. I have been listening to the lawyers with great interest, because they put such a different perspective on things that I perhaps do not see, and I hope that I have learned a bit from them today. I wholeheartedly congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on stewarding the Bill to this stage. I should also like to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on the work she has done on protecting police officers, even before the Bill was introduced. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) on his diligence and his commitment to this important Bill. He has taken a great deal of time to look into the details and to table a range of new clauses. I welcome the spirit of his new clauses 1 and 2 in particular, and his focus on police officers, but all Members will recognise the wide range of emergency workers whom we have a duty to protect through legislation to ensure that appropriate sentencing is applied for everyone. That is where I have some issues with the new clauses, in that I think they might be segmenting out certain emergency workers.
I have also listened to the arguments for the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda, and to the arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who demonstrated great insight into the Bill as it stands and the possible impact of the new clauses. I will take those views into account, along with the responses of the Minister, when considering what will really work in practice. What we want from the Bill is legislation that really works. We have a duty to our emergency workers to ensure that we have a really practical Bill that will lead to fantastic results. I will expand on my arguments about the new clauses in due course.
I am delighted to stand with emergency workers in Erewash and across the whole United Kingdom as we unite in the Chamber today in condemning those who attack our brave emergency workers, many of whom are regularly prepared to put their own lives at risk so that we can go about our daily lives in a safe and peaceful manner. I pay particular tribute to the emergency workers in my constituency, including the great team of police officers whom I meet on a regular basis. Just last Friday, I visited one of my acute hospitals, the Royal Derby Hospital, where I met people in A&E and saw all the different aspects of their work. I met the ambulance people who work in conjunction with them, and I also went to the pathology department, but one of the great delights of my visit was to stand on the helipad on top of the hospital and look out all around Derbyshire. That was an amazing experience. We must also take account of emergency workers who go out in helicopters as we must ensure that we protect everybody.
I also have Ilkeston Community Hospital in my constituency. Tomorrow it is organising a bed-push to raise funds through its league of friends. That bed-push will be on the high street, but the high street is on a hill, so once again our emergency workers are going above and beyond. There will be teams from the fire service, the ambulance service, Rotary, the Co-op and Tesco, as well as a team from the hospital itself. Nurses will be giving up their free time to help to raise extra funds. All our emergency workers, whether on or off duty, are very committed, and we have a duty to protect them in whatever way we can.
With the support of the Government—in particular the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), and the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice—and the support of the whole House, I am certain that following today’s debate and the Bill’s safe passage through the other place, we will have achieved a practical piece of legislation that will afford our emergency workers the legal protection they so rightly deserve. However, while I commend the scope and principle of the Bill, once it receives Royal Assent, as I fully expect that it will, we should not view this simply as “job done”. Instead, the Bill should become a catalyst for wider public debate—perhaps leading to further legislation—about how we best protect all those in public-facing roles who provide vital services to society.
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley for standing up for police officers through the tabling of his new clauses, but we need to consider emergency workers, and indeed all public-facing workers, as a whole. Many of the offences under the Bill are already criminal offences in existing law, as the lawyers among us have explained. This Bill differs by giving specific protections to emergency workers. I know that the hon. Member for Rhondda explored this earlier, but I must ask how I am supposed to console other public service workers in my constituency, such as the train conductor, the social worker, the teacher or even my own caseworker, whose contributions to society are just as vital but will not be afforded the same status or protection that emergency workers will receive under the Bill. That is something that we need to look at, and this is why I have some concerns about the new clauses.
I have spoken to countless people who carry out such public roles, and I am sure that all other Members have also done so in their time, both as MPs and during their previous careers. We know that they face many challenges from people who engage in unacceptable and abusive behaviour. All too often they find themselves in potentially dangerous situations, but they will be without the protection that the Bill gives to the emergency workers that it specifies. I think that we need to ensure that the Bill covers all those who have put themselves forward as public servants. The House should acknowledge that, and examine the issue more closely to establish whether further action, including further legislation, is required. A failure to do so would leave us open to the accusation that we have prioritised the safety and the protection of one group of public workers over another.
This long-overdue piece of legislation will serve to protect our protectors. When emergency personnel have been attacked, we as politicians have been all too quick to respond with kind words and the promise of action, but no one has ever been comforted—or, for that matter, convicted—by rhetoric alone. Today we can finally deliver on that promise of action by passing practical measures that will make a real difference to our fantastic emergency workers on the ground, while also signalling the extent of our respect, support and admiration for the vital work that they all do.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
I rise to speak very briefly in support of the efforts of my hon. Friends the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch) in introducing the Bill and piloting it through Committee. It is clear from all the evidence that has been presented by many Members on both sides of the House over the past two and a half hours or so that it has the overwhelming support of the whole House, although Ministers may question some of the nuances and some of the amendments.
As Members will know, I spent 23 years in the London fire brigade. There are several former firefighters in the House: the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), and me. The fire service has not featured much in the statistics that we have heard this morning, but that is because it is a much smaller service than the others, so there are fewer incidences of assaults. It has, to an extent, a different culture. None the less, firefighters have been victims of assault on a number of occasions.
More than 20 years ago in Shadwell, which is in my constituency, malicious youths were setting fires or issuing malicious false alarms to get the fire crews to turn out, then took great delight in attacking them. As a result, the local fire station introduced an intervention scheme whereby young people, including some troublemakers, attended a five-day intensive course to enhance their skills and confidence. The young people were referred to the scheme by the police, the local authority referral service and others. Over the past 20 years we have seen fire and police cadets adding to the great work done by the sea, air and Army cadets. It is important that the service has that interventionist arm to prevent kids from going down the wrong road and getting into trouble. However, the purpose of the Bill is to deal with circumstances in which people cross that line.
Spitting is one of the problems. East London has been a tuberculosis hotspot for many years, and at one point during the past 20 years it was the ninth highest TB hotspot in the world—a stunning statistic. Airborne diseases can be transmitted in that way, and aerial transmission of TB is a considerable risk. In Tower Hamlets and Newham, “No Spitting” signs have been introduced in recent years. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda referred to London councils that have reintroduced penalty charges to act as a deterrent. He also mentioned Masuaku, a member of the football team that I support, who incurred a six-match ban—not a six-month ban—for spitting. That demonstrates how seriously the football authorities take it, because such a ban is one of the heaviest punishments that can be meted out against professional footballers. The behaviour was completely unacceptable, and was deprecated by all concerned.
The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda that we do not want to send signals; we want action. I think he was being a little churlish, because he knows how important signalling is and how important signalling our intention is. However, he is right that it has to be backed up by action.
Tom Pursglove
It is always a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who brings an awful lot of experience to the debate from his time employed in the fire service. I was interested to hear what he had to say.
I, too, put on the record my thanks and appreciation to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He is an effective and tenacious campaigner in this House and has pursued this issue with great vigour, alongside the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). They have done their constituents and the country proud by bringing the Bill forward and getting it to this stage, and by working constructively with Ministers to get it right and reach agreement.
I was delighted to serve on the Bill Committee, where we managed to get through the Bill reasonably rapidly, because there is such support for it across the House. I will not repeat the points that I made on Second Reading, even though they are relevant to the amendments we are considering.
I would argue that a number of the points my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) made about his amendments—and I have heard all the scholarly and learned arguments that have been made by esteemed colleagues—were underpinned by quite a big dollop of common sense. I welcome much of the sentiment he has expressed through his amendments.
I would certainly support extending more opportunities and powers to magistrates, because that is something we have pledged to do as a Government. Not only is it right to empower magistrates and dispense justice as close to the people as possible; it is a cost-effective way of delivering justice and of doing so speedily. In Northamptonshire, we have had issues over the past few years with the streamlining of the magistrates bench. I therefore think that magistrates in Corby and east Northamptonshire would be very pleased to have additional opportunities and powers extended to them, so that they can uphold justice in our community effectively.
I know that all Members of the House have significant concerns about assaults, particularly on prison officers. This is a pressing issue. A very close family friend of mine is a prison officer, and he and his family are very concerned about this issue. I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley to make the point that, whatever one thinks about the rights and wrongs of early release, it must be seen through the prism of early release being a privilege, not a right. I think that if someone assaults a prison officer, they should lose that privilege. It is as simple as that. My hon. Friend made the case for that robustly. I think the case speaks for itself, because there is no starker deterrent for a prisoner than knowing that if they do it, there will be consequences. That should be the bottom line.
If the public were polled on that proposition, I know what the numbers would look like. Opinion polls can be taken with a pinch of salt, but the vast majority of people in this country would think that that was right and proper. We should send the clear message that assaults on prison officers will not be tolerated. Finally, it is my view that it is right to be really clear about sexual assault. It is right to amend the Bill along the lines that the hon. Member for Rhondda has set out. It should be an aggravating factor, and amendment 3 would deliver that.
I made a point on Second Reading that relates to these amendments and new clauses and which was about the racial or verbal abuse of, for example, a police officer within a home. There is nothing that can be done about that at the moment, which worries me greatly. A dedicated officer in Corby, Candy Liverpool, was verbally abused in somebody’s house, but nothing could be done about it. I am grateful to the Policing Minister for the interest that he has shown in the issue. He is willing to consider where the law could be tightened up to deal with that, which is the right thing to do. I would be interested to hear whether he will touch on that in his summing up to let us know how he is getting on.
In conclusion, it is important that this House sends a message, it is important that those who are prosecuting take the necessary steps, and it is right that the law takes such matters seriously. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) said, that is not the end of the story, and we must continue to keep matters under review. We have to send a clear signal not just from this House, but as a society that we will not tolerate the abuse of the people who are ultimately trying to keep us safe.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) and, indeed, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). He and I are members of a cross-party group on the IRA-Libyan terrorist issue, which I became my involved in because I have a constituent whose sister was a WPC who was murdered in the Harrods bombing many years ago, and I am always struck by the thought of anyone who is cut down in the line of duty after being called out. The crimes that relate to new clause 2, which is what I will address, are far less serious than that, but the principle is that we should support those who are serving us on the frontline and are attacked, abused, spat at or assaulted in the process. Like everyone else, I the support the Bill’s principle. This is the first time I have spoken on it, and I commend the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for his efforts and thank the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). Indeed, when I met representatives of the Suffolk Police Federation, they specifically wanted me to pass on my best wishes to her for the “Protect the Protectors” campaign.
This debate is timely for me, and the reason why I wanted to refer to the clauses that relate specifically to the constabulary is that, while we are concerned about assaults on anybody and on all emergency staff, Suffolk has seen a great spike in assaults on police officers of late. In fact, the number of incidents increased from 193 in 2016 to 281 in 2017, and there has been a 265% increase over the past few years. Assaults with injury reported to Suffolk constabulary’s health and safety department involving broken bones, cuts, deep lacerations and black eyes more than tripled from 34 in 2014 to 124 last year. Those significant increases have caused a great deal of concern in the county and in my constituency.
I said that this debate is timely, and the headline in today’s East Anglian Daily Times is “Concern over sharp rise in violent crime”. We have seen a 29% increase in violent crime in Suffolk. We are talking about assaults on police officers, and I have been worried by an obvious, at least anecdotally, increase in violent crime, which has now been confirmed by the statistics. There were many ram raids in my constituency over the winter, particularly targeting Co-ops and other similar village shops. We had two ram raids on cashpoints in the same week in the historic village of Lavenham, and people are unsettled because many such attacks have occurred in the rural villages of my constituency. I mention that to add some context, because it seems to me that we may be entering more violent times.
The amendments and new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) are effectively deterrents. In any policy that is seeking to tighten up sentencing, deterrents should be the priority. We do not want to prosecute people for offences; we want to deter people from carrying them out in the first place. Suffolk Police Federation told me that it wants the Bill to contain greater deterrents, so that the message sent out is not just that we quite rightly condemn such attacks, but that if people commit such offences, they will suffer the appropriate penalty and will not get off lightly for serious offences.
It comes down to causality. We talk about deterrence because if criminals think they can get away with it, they will continue to carry out these offences. I have looked at this issue to try to understand why we are seeing more offences—we do not yet have any academic studies or other expertise—and I asked local police whether there is a link with the growth in county lines: the drugs traffic coming out of London that is starting to hit rural areas. As hon. Members know, when the drugs trade becomes more competitive it becomes more violent. As drug gangs fight for territory, they tend to mark their territory with the greater use of force and a battle for who is, to be blunt, scarier. We have to increase deterrence in response.
Inspector Danny Cooper, who is in charge of Sudbury police, told me he cannot say for certain whether there is a link with the growth in county lines, although the most recent assault of a police officer in Sudbury, two days ago, was by a drug dealer. What assessment have Ministers made of the causes of what is happening? Is it linked to the drugs trade? Is it because of an increase in intoxication?
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) spoke about alcohol. The East Anglian Daily Times ran a story about the spate of police assaults over the Christmas period in Suffolk, with eight police officers being injured. One of the most serious incidents followed a robbery, and when the officer concerned was asked why he thought there were more assaults on officers, he said that intoxication was certainly one of the key factors. We know more people drink during the Christmas period.
When we talk about crime, I always want to try to understand the trends. Obviously there are people who make political points, which may be valid, about funding, police numbers and so on, although I cannot help but feel that, when crime was falling sharply some years ago, police numbers were also falling. We have to try to understand why that was the case.
When I was first elected, I asked the then deputy chief constable what was responsible for the trend. Obviously we would like to take great political credit, but he pointed to certain societal trends, such as fewer people going out to pubs after the crash. There was therefore less violence and disorder at clubs and nightspots, and more crimes arising in the home and online, and so on, as people were spending more time at home.
My priority is to find out why this is happening so we can try to deal with it. I support the Bill, and I have only one modest concern. We heard earlier about the great dinner party conversation of our scholarly and learned friends. I am proud to sit with many people who have real-world experience they can bring to bear in adding value to these debates. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) said that we need to understand that there are other offences that cover serious crimes against emergency service workers. We have to be sure that the message we send is not purely a gesture but is meaningful in law and adds to the array of punishments and tools that can be used so that we tighten up the available punishments and send a message of deterrence.
I do not say that politically. Our police and crime commissioner is coming to Westminster next week to meet Suffolk MPs. He is doing all he can and is going to increase his precept to provide more resources to the frontline, but these are worrying times in Suffolk and there is no point beating round the bush. We are seeing an increase in violent crime and we are seeing more assaults on police officers. I want to understand why, then I want to see the Government take effective action. If they need stronger legislation and stronger sentencing, I will be one of the first to support them. In principle, I support this Bill and I congratulate all the hon. Members who have helped its passage.
Nigel Huddleston
If I may use the phraseology of my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), let me say that it is a pleasure to follow the dollop of common sense that is my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). [Interruption.] It is a positive thing. I also wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is far from being a dollop in any way imaginable, on introducing the Bill and, most importantly, on the constructive tone he has taken in advancing it, working on a cross-party basis. That speaks volumes about his approach and the degree of respect in which he is held across the whole House.
Jeremy Quin
I am delighted to hear what my hon. Friend is saying about his local PCC. I have spoken about this Bill to my PCC, the excellent Katy Bourne, and I know that both she and the local police federation are keen to see it progress and be put on the statute book. Like in his area of rural Worcestershire, in my district we think of ourselves as being in a very law-abiding and civilised place, but we had 28 assaults on police officers in 2016-17. He is highlighting that this is not just an urban concern; there are concerns about the safety of emergency workers right across the UK. Obviously the Bill does not deal with the whole of the UK, but it covers England and Wales, and I very much hope that he will continue to support the Bill and that we will get it on to the statute book in due course.
Nigel Huddleston
I agree completely with my hon. Friend. One challenge we face in this place is that sometimes those of us who represent the more rural areas are perceived as representing some sort of rural idyll, where there are no problems and no concerns. That is far from the case, and we need to make sure rural areas are covered adequately too.
I will not try your patience much longer, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to say in conclusion that it is my hope and that of many others in this House that the passage of the Bill will send a clear message to emergency service workers about how deeply they are valued, and provide some reassurance that they do not need to tolerate abuse and assault while carrying out their duties. I hope too that the Bill’s passage will send a message to the public that emergency service workers are protected by legislation and that those who are violent towards them will face the full force of the law.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I am delighted to speak in this debate, and I thank all Members who have contributed, particularly those who have tabled amendments. I have listened carefully, and I sympathise with many of the points that have been raised, particularly on extra support for police officers and the issue of spitting. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.
I am sure that we all agree that assault on anyone in any situation is awful, but to attack someone who is trying to help another person in an emergency is callous, heinous and totally unacceptable. Punishment for such assaults on emergency workers should fit the crime, and I believe that it is right and fair to give a judge the ability to take them into consideration as an aggravating factor in determining a sentence.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on introducing the Bill and add my support for amendment 3, which is a sensible addition. I also thank all the other Members who have put work into the Bill, particularly the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). As we have heard, it takes quite a bit of work to get a Bill to this stage, and this is an important Bill.
Emergency workers are courageous and dedicated. Moreover, they are selfless in their endeavour to help people. There can be few more noble callings and no more worthwhile purpose. I see that clearly during my regular visits to the George Eliot Hospital, which serves my community in North Warwickshire and Bedworth and the surrounding area so well. I see it each time I meet local police across the constituency, never more so than recently when they responded professionally and decisively to the case of a hostage situation at a bowling alley. I have seen it when I had the pleasure to meet the North Warwickshire community first responders, volunteers ably led by Samantha Hall who give up their time because they want to help save lives. I know North Warwickshire is particularly proud of them, as am I. Samantha got married to her partner Graham a few weeks ago, and I pass on my congratulations to them, and I am sure that colleagues here today will join me in wishing them the very best for the future—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
The responders are volunteer members of our community, trained by the ambulance service to respond to emergency calls through the 999 system. They provide immediate care to patients and are mobilised by ambulance control. They are a part of their local community, serving an area of approximately 3 miles in radius from their base, which can be their home or place of work, so they can attend the scene of a medical emergency in a very short time, often arriving within a few minutes of the call and sometimes while the caller is still on the phone.
The team are trained to provide emergency life support and to treat patients suffering from a range of conditions. On the arrival of an ambulance, they form part of the team treating the patient. It is my understanding that the Bill will protect emergency workers including volunteers such as the North Warwickshire community first responders, as they are contracted to provide a service by the NHS, but I would be grateful if clarity can be provided on that point, as they certainly deserve the additional protection that this Bill will give to emergency workers.
It is repulsive to imagine any emergency service worker being attacked in the line of duty while saving and protecting, as their name makes clear, those most in need. However, this happens on an all too regular basis across the country. I was shocked to learn that NHS staff—those who are treating sick or injured people—recorded more than 70,000 physical assaults during the year 2015-16. It is worth dwelling on that figure for a moment, as it is the equivalent of 53 assaults per 1,000 members of staff. I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members will agree that that is 53 assaults too many.
In our prisons, officer assaults have risen by more than 30% to more than 7,000 in the past year. However, I am encouraged by the fact that the Government are taking action to increase the number of prison officers. They have recruited 3,100 new officers, many of whom will be in place by the summer, which will help to reduce the figure. None the less, I can see the sense in new clauses 4 and 9 in providing greater protection for prison officers. As I said, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on that.
The Police Federation states that the latest welfare survey data
“suggest that there were potentially more than two million…unarmed physical assaults on officers over a 12 month period, and a further 302,842 assaults using a deadly weapon during the same period.”
It estimates that an assault on a police officer happens every four minutes. Those statistics are shocking and make it clear that action needs to be taken.
This crucial change in the law will send a clear message that attacks on emergency workers will not be tolerated. I welcome the cross-party work that is being done to ensure that those who are violent face the full force of the law. I draw parallels here with our armed forces, and I have previously said in this House that, to enable them to do their job and, more importantly, to give them our backing, we cannot allow spurious legal cases to linger in their minds, as that can reduce recruitment, morale and retention, and, critically, prevent them from doing the job that they have been so highly trained to do.
Similarly, we must guarantee that our emergency workers—those who are in the frontline of responding to life or death situations, or upholding the law—have full protection while carrying out their duties. Those personnel, from ambulance paramedics who are first on the scene to dedicated nurses who care for the sick and firefighters who run into burning buildings, have called for greater protection, and it is right that we deliver it for them. In February 2017, the Police Federation’s campaign “Protect the Protectors” called for a change in legislation leading to tougher sentences for those who assault emergency service workers and more welfare support.
As I said at the start of my remarks, there is no excuse for assault of any kind, but an assault on an emergency worker, who is acting in the line of duty, simply cannot be tolerated. Shamefully, such occurrences are not uncommon and are happening every single day while people are performing their duties in protecting and saving our constituents.
This Bill may not deter every criminal from assaulting an emergency worker who is carrying out their duty, but the new offence will provide increased protection under the law for emergency workers who are assaulted in the course of their day-to-day work. Encouragingly, that increased protection will also extend to situations where an emergency worker is not at work, but is acting as if he or she were—for example, when an off-duty firefighter rescues someone from a burning building. I warmly support the reasoning behind the Bill and the improvements that it will bring in protecting those who dedicate their careers and lives to helping and protecting us.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
It is a delight to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey). I echo the gratitude that has been expressed to the hon. Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for all their sterling work on the Bill and their work with the Government to get us here today, and I hope that the whole House will support them.
I support the Bill, and I also support amendment 3 in particular, which I will talk about later. I also echo the support of some Members for the sentiment expressed my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). He raised some very good points regarding automatic release, but that is a broader debate that we should have in a wider realm, as it would have many ramifications. We should look at that matter separately, rather than diluting and potentially destroying the Bill. Without these amendments and new clauses, the Bill will send a strong message to emergency workers that the actions we are discussing will not be tolerated, and it will give prosecutors powerful tools. That is the message that has come from the emergency workers across my own constituency. They have spoken to me about their own ordeals and about how they recognise the importance of our passing the Bill today.
It is true that attacking a person serving the public is already an aggravating factor in sentencing guidelines, but this Bill will put on a statutory basis a specific requirement to consider assault on emergency workers as aggravated. We have heard many stories today in the Chamber of heroes and heroines whose brave acts to protect us have basically been a part of their everyday jobs and lives, yet they have faced assaults for simply trying to do their job of helping others. That has happened in the Chippenham constituency, but it also happens up and down the country every year. It is only right that we stand up for our emergency service workers in the way they stand up for us. I hope that the Bill will help us to do that. The fact that it has cross-party support sends a message to emergency workers that we are supporting them and standing up for them. It is time for us to protect the protectors—a phrase used throughout the debate today—and ensure that they have the full protection of the law in carrying out their duties. The Police Federation used that apt phrase when it launched its own campaign.
Maggie Throup
I am aware of incidents where police officers have been attacked and those attacks have not just affected them for five years; their career has been curtailed completely. Such incidents have a huge impact on emergency workers’ ambitions and family life.
Michelle Donelan
Indeed. The other point that I was going to make is that these incidents can encourage people to leave their profession, because they are so distressed and every day is a dark reminder of the ordeal that they have been through. That is dreadful, because we need our emergency workers. If we continue to lose them because of these incidents, it will only lead to further shortages of people who play an invaluable role in society. Time is also lost when emergency workers are in hospital or when they take respite leave after an incident. Attacks on police officers between 2016 and 2017 were estimated to have caused six days of lost time on average.
Assaults on emergency workers also create an additional cost for the taxpayer. The annual estimated cost to the NHS of healthcare-related violence is £69 million, which is equivalent to the salary of 4,500 nurses. We could do a lot more with this money. A survey by the Royal College of Nursing found that 47% of its members who had been physically assaulted would not recommend a nursing career. That is the last thing we need when we are looking to recruit more nurses and doctors. A survey of violence against frontline NHS staff reported that 2% of workers a year in England hand in their notice or change their job because they have been physically assaulted.
I congratulate the Bill Committee on its work and the amendments it made, which broadened the scope of who is considered to be an emergency worker. I am delighted by that, because for too long we have forgotten or overlooked people who are on the frontline and are serving to protect and assist us every day. The provisions will now cover prison escort services and those working on the NHS frontline, and staff and volunteers will protected by the Bill if assaulted while providing a service under contract from the NHS. As we have heard, the Bill will also cover those who are working off duty but are performing their roles. A firefighter is still a firefighter if they are assisting in a fire but not actually doing their day job.
We owe a debt of gratitude and respect to our emergency workers for the courage, commitment and dedication that they demonstrate in carrying out their duties. I am proud to support the Bill and amendment 3. Together, they will ensure that we stand up for those who stand up and protect us.
Kevin Foster
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch) in getting this Bill to Report stage. Having taken a private Member’s Bill through the House myself, I know that, even when the wind is fairly behind it, it is still quite a challenge to make sure that one gets something that can enjoy wider support.
It has been interesting to listen to the thoughtful speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) and for Witney (Robert Courts), who applied their usual level of legal analysis to the Bill and helped to shape my understanding of some of the amendments.
It was particularly interesting, though, to sit through the, as always, robust speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who brought his own sense of common sense to this debate and to his new clauses and amendments. Sadly, however, I will have to express queries and concerns about one or two of his proposals. I will be interested to hear what the Minister says in response to them.
In my intervention on my hon. Friend on his new clause 1, I said that this Bill creates a new offence that we would expect prosecutors to look to in prosecuting common assault on emergency services workers. I accept that the thrust of the new clause is the idea of having different sentencing regimes for an older offence dating from 1996 as opposed to the new offence created by the Bill. I am not persuaded that it is the best idea to alter the old piece of legislation as well, because that gets us into a debate about whether we should be reviewing or removing certain provisions. It would be more useful to see what happens when the new offence comes in. We would rightly expect prosecutors to see the intention of Parliament in passing this specific new offence that covers assaults on emergency workers and look to use it rather than the old one. I would be tempted to look to see whether the old offence becomes redundant in future. Rightly, prosecutors will look to give the courts the sentencing powers available for this offence and consider the fact that Parliament has passed a new and more up-to-date piece of legislation. I was not persuaded by the arguments on new clause 1, but I will be interested to hear the Minister’s comments.
Philip Davies
We have heard from some of our learned colleagues about how the Crown Prosecution Service sometimes makes mistakes when charging people. Would it not be absurd if it were to charge somebody under the wrong offence—the old offence of 1996 and not this one—and when it went before the court, the court could not give the person the appropriate sentence that this House thinks they should get because it will be working to an old piece of legislation? Surely it would make sense to even up the sentence for both, and then whichever offence they were charged with, the judge or the magistrate could do the job.
Kevin Foster
I thank my hon. Friend for his, as always, interesting intervention. I think it would make sense to see how the new law works out in practice. It would be quite bizarre if we saw a trend towards charging under the old offence rather than the new one. This is not about removing the ability to charge more serious offences. We need to be clear that this is about giving prosecutors an additional tool to deal with these issues. It is not about removing other offences. If someone attempts to murder a police offer, they clearly should be charged with attempted murder. If someone commits a serious assault on a police officer, they should be charged with ABH or GBH. This is about covering those who behave in a completely unacceptable manner towards an emergency services worker but do not trigger those types of offence, and we must be clear that Parliament’s intent is not for this to become a catch-all offence.
Perhaps in future there will be an appropriate time for a review. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley will, as always, dutifully pursue the statistics on the use of this new offence, to ensure that prosecutors and courts have the powers to deal with those involved.
I sympathise with the call to up the sentence to a maximum of two years. I was interested to hear the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole on that point, and particularly on the issue of either-way offences. Normally, trial on indictment in the Crown court carries a higher penalty than a summary trial in the magistrates court.
The only thing I did not find particularly persuasive was the reference my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley made to the proposed five-year sentence for animal cruelty. It is worth saying that that is the only charge available if someone has exhibited violence to an animal. We think of cases where animals have literally been tortured to death. At the moment, the effective maximum is about six months in jail, whereas this is not a catch-all offence. We are looking for more serious offences to sit alongside less serious ones.
I know from my experience last year of supporting Bills on that issue that my hon. Friend is a very strong supporter of appropriate sentences for animal cruelty. A sick thug who tortures a living creature to death should not be walking out of a court a free person; they should be heading down to the cells for a significant period of imprisonment. I just feel it appropriate to be clear that our intention is not for this to become a catch-all for a range of offences. For animal cruelty, that is the offence someone is charged with, and the court then reflects the seriousness of that offence in the sentencing.
Kevin Foster
I see my hon. Friend nodding his head.
New clause 3 suggests a review after two years. I am interested to hear from the Minister what proposals the Government have to monitor this new offence and its use once it comes into effect. I am rarely persuaded that putting a requirement for a specific review into legislation is the best thing to do, not least given the abilities of Members of the House to question Ministers, have debates, look for information and commission research from the Library. I am interested to hear how the Government propose to deal with that.
On new clauses 4 to 8, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, I am probably more of the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan); there is a debate to be had around the early release scheme. I certainly sympathise with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) that this should not be seen as a right, but should be based on the fact that someone has behaved appropriately. Similarly, if someone comes out of prison on licence, it should be a licence on their behaviour, and if they breach the terms of that licence, the remainder of their sentence awaits them back in prison.
The one slight concern I have is what supervision and requirements there are of people after they are released, having gone back to complete their full sentence or having completed their full sentence in prison. That was highlighted to me recently in a case in my constituency where someone had been released from jail on licence and had then breached the terms of that licence. They were recalled to prison to complete their sentence, and once they had done so, probation had no role on release. There is very little restriction on what they do, unless they are on the sex offenders register, which has certain restrictions. Likewise, some of the support mechanisms and things that are available to those on licence are, ironically, not available to those who have been required to complete their whole sentence.
Philip Davies
It was very lucky that the person concerned went back to serve their whole sentence, because we now have fixed-term recalls, as my hon. Friend will know. Usually, when someone commits an offence when they have been released halfway through the sentence, they do not serve the remainder of their sentence; they serve only 28 days or sometimes 14 days of the sentence. Not only are they being automatically released halfway through, but if they breach the terms of their licence, they go back in for only 14 or 28 days. The whole thing is a scandal.
Kevin Foster
I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful intervention. I agree that if someone who has been sent to prison for an offence breaches the terms of their parole, that is a good indication that they are unlikely to be taking seriously their responsibility as a citizen to follow the law. My example is of a person who came to the end of their sentence and was released, but found that no support was available. It was a bizarre situation. They were trying to access some support and found it difficult, but had they not breached their licence, support and monitoring to keep them from offending would have been in place. Perhaps this discussion is not for today, as it would require more fundamental changes to how we operate the recall to prison system, licensing, and what we do with those completing their whole sentence. Nevertheless, it flagged up to me a requirement to ensure at least a minimum period of monitoring after someone comes out of prison, whether they have been released on licence or because they have completed their whole sentence.
I welcome the inclusion of spitting in amendment 2, but it is important to send the message that Parliament does not intend to exclude spitting from the traditional offence of common assault. The amendment is to clarify that spitting is included in the initial offence. I am clear that in my constituency the use of spit hoods is a matter for the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, and if he believes that that is the right way to protect his officers, he should take that approach. I take the same view on issuing firearms and other protections to officers—it is for the chief constable to make an operational decision on the basis of the needs of policing and the safety of his officers. It should not be a political policy decision. Including spitting in the Bill gives a clear legal basis for an offence that carries up to a year in jail, but that can be prevented by the use of a spit hood. If someone is busy spitting at a police officer, that offence already carries a year’s imprisonment. There is a strong basis, beyond the protection of officers, for why it is right and proportionate to use a spit hood if someone is trying to spit at an officer, using the last way they can attack that officer once they have been restrained by other means.
I am conscious of time, Mr Deputy Speaker, and since I support the Bill I have no intention of trying to talk it out. I also welcome making a sexual assault on an emergency worker an aggravating factor in other sexual offences. We must be clear that Parliament’s intention—certainly my intention, and I see other hon. Members nodding—is not to say, “This is the offence to use for a serious sexual assault”. Someone who sexually assaults an emergency worker would still be charged under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, particularly given the things that come with that, such as registration and monitoring, which are so vital when dealing with this issue. The amendment would mean that a court will consider that someone has abused the good will and position of someone who came to their aid, particularly medical staff in the NHS, and that is an abuse of trust. The amendment is therefore perfectly sensible, as it makes it clear that such an offence is an aggravating factor, not a replacement offence.
I am conscious that we want to hear the Minister’s response so I will draw my remarks to a close. As always, I welcome the dogged determination of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley to ensure that wrongdoers get their just desserts, that the Bill receives the scrutiny it rightly deserves, and that our courts and prosecutors know exactly what Parliament intended in passing this Bill today—intentions that I completely support.
Rory Stewart
It has been a great pleasure to sit on the Benches during this debate, and I begin by paying tribute to the extraordinary contributions that we have heard. This has been a very high-quality debate, with perhaps even more vigour and more interest than Second Reading.
I pay tribute to the strenuous, challenging empiricism of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies); the precision, energy and charm—to return to the word “charm”—of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant); the imagination, sincerity and courage of the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch); the precision and learning of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson); the rigour, eloquence and intelligence of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who is no longer in his seat; the empathy of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin); the principled application of my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts); the emphasis on widening the circle of compassion from my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup); the emphasis on the medical and epidemiological aspects of the case from the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick); the emphasis that my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) put on the symbolic charge of the Bill; the emphasis that my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) put on the broader themes of violence in society; the pragmatism and hard-won experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston); the focus from my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) on the particular obligations that we owe public servants; the compassion and indeed, the concern for public finances that was expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan); and finally, the courtesy to other colleagues and dignity displayed by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster).
This is a powerful Bill and we in the Government agree strongly with the principles underlying it. Nearly 20 separate amendments and new clauses have been proposed. Having listened carefully to the debate, we will be accepting one of those amendments but respectfully requesting that the other new clauses and amendments are withdrawn or not moved. That is not because we disagree in any way with the Bill’s underlying principles, which should be clear to the whole House. They are that an assault on any individual or citizen in our society is a terrible thing, but that an assault on an emergency worker is an assault on us all. These people are our constituted representatives. They protect society and deliver services on our behalf. Therefore, an attack on them is an attack on us and on the state, and it should be punished more severely than an attack simply on an individual victim.
There is also strong agreement with the spirit underlying the new clauses and amendments. It should be absolutely clear that spitting is included within common assault —it is a particularly disgusting form of common assault. It should also be entirely clear that it is completely unacceptable to attack a police officer, a fire service officer, an ambulance worker, a prison officer or anybody in the emergency services—or indeed, any emergency worker as defined in the Bill—and that sexual assault should be included in the Bill. That is the amendment that we propose to accept, having listened carefully to the debate. It has been pushed very hard by Opposition Members and should be included as one of the things for which an assault on an emergency worker should be considered an aggravating offence.
Let me move specifically and relatively rapidly through the almost 20 new clauses and amendments that have been proposed to explain why the Government believe that it would be better to withdraw some amendments and new clauses to leave the Bill in a state more similar to that from which it emerged from Committee. I will take them in turn. Essentially, these new clauses and amendments try to do three things. They try to make the offence of common assault more specific—to specify the ingredients of common assault—or they attempt to further increase the penalty for common assault on an emergency worker, or finally, they attempt to widen the scope of the things that are dealt with through the Bill. I will deal with them in that sequence.
Amendment 2 seeks to make the offence of common assault more specific by putting on the face of the Bill that spitting should be included under common assault. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham made clear in his learned speech, we can already prosecute spitting under common assault. This month, in fact, there was a successful prosecution of 23 weeks for an individual who spat at a police officer. Including it in the Bill, although an admirable intention, runs the risk of casting doubt on other cases of common assault. An ingenious lawyer might argue that the House of Commons, by saying that common assault on an emergency worker includes spitting, is implying that common assault on somebody else should not be considered to include spitting, and that therefore someone spitting on an ordinary member of the public could not be charged with common assault.
Chris Bryant
I hate the idea of an ingenious lawyer, but the Minister is right—I accept that there is a danger of that. Are there other things that the Government could do to ensure that the prosecuting authorities take spitting as common assault very seriously?
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. In return for the hon. Gentleman’s sense and solidarity in not pressing the amendment, we will focus on making sure that the relevant authorities, particularly the CPS, are clearly instructed to consider spitting as included under common assault. I hope that in a small way this speech in the House of Commons will re-emphasise, in case anyone is in any doubt, that it is Parliament’s intention that spitting should always be included within the offence of common assault.
That brings us to the amendment and various new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, which would further increase the penalty for assaulting emergency workers, police officers and prison officers. This is a complex set of new clauses. New clauses 1 and 2 relate to the existing law—in particular the Police Act 1996, as it relates to a police officer in the execution of their duty—and seek to do two things. The first is to increase the maximum penalty from six months to 12 months. On that, we respectfully argue that if the Bill passes today, we will have already increased to 12 months the maximum penalty for such an assault on a police officer in the exercise of their functions. It would therefore be unnecessary to further amend the Police Act.
The aim of new clause 2 and amendment 9 is to double the maximum penalty from 12 months to 24 months either by amending the Police Act or dealing with the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The Government wish to resist this approach because we have to weigh up two principles. On the one hand, we believe very strongly that emergency workers are entitled to a particular form of respect and protection because they work on our behalf—they provide services to us; they represent us. The police officer courageously confronting the criminal and the prison officer courageously confronting an offender in a prison are both acting on our behalf, and an assault on them is an assault on us. On those grounds, it is absolutely valid that the maximum penalty for such an assault be doubled. This is an important moment in English law.
There is, however, a second important principle in English common law: we are all equal, and victims are equal. The victim of sexual assault should be remembered above all as a victim of sexual assault, not on the basis of their profession or occupation, or of the function they were engaged in at the moment of the assault. That is why we believe that the proper indication of our respect for public servants should be to double the maximum penalty, but to move beyond that and quadruple it would begin to create the kind of situation that exists in Russia, which I hope will never exist in the UK, whereby uniformed officers become a caste apart and go into a category of a superior form of human being with an entitlement to a quite separate form of protection. On those grounds, we think that moderation and proportionality would require us to stick at 12 months, not 24, and we courteously request that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley withdraws new clause 1, and does not press new clause 2 and amendment 9.
Jeremy Quin
I realise that this is a sensitive point. I have spoken to police officers who would like to have a higher tariff in these circumstances, but what the Minister is saying has pith, because there are other people—be they council workers, social workers or clergy—who go out of their way as part of their duty to do things in our communities that put them in a vulnerable situation. We would be sending the wrong message if we were to draw too big a distinction between our valued emergency workers and other members of society who also conduct incredibly valuable tasks.
Rory Stewart
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many people who do things on behalf of the public in their daily lives are entitled to protection, but not all of them are covered by the Bill. There is a more fundamental point that relates particularly to sexual assault. We want to make it absolutely clear that what really matters in such circumstances is the brutal, undignified nature of that assault on anyone, regardless of their profession. That is why we have to get the balance right in sentencing.
This brings me to new clauses 4 to 18, which relate to assaults on prison officers. As a Justice Minister, I have strong empathy with the intention behind the new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. Prison officers operate in an environment that the public are rarely allowed into. They have a dangerous and stressful job—I will touch on that a little more in my closing speech—and are entitled to a much higher degree of protection, but too often they do not receive it. We therefore think it absolutely right for them to be included among the emergency workers and for the maximum penalty for an assault on a prison officer to be increased from six months to 12 months. Beyond that, we want to do more to protect prison officers, including through the use of protective equipment and the devices they carry. We want to encourage the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to bring more prosecutions for assaults on prison officers. However, for two reasons, we do not think that this particular ingenious proposal—that someone assaulting a prison officer should have to serve twice the length of the sentence currently set out under the Criminal Justice Act 2003—represents an appropriate response.
The first reason, which is philosophical, is that if an individual has been put in prison for their original offence, they should be punished for that offence, with a subsequent offence judged and punished separately. For example, if an individual has been put in jail for 12 years for the importation of a class A drug, their punishment has been designed to fit that crime. If they then assault a prison officer, they need to be punished for assaulting a prison officer. Their initial crime of importing class A drugs should not be used to punish them for assaulting a prison officer.
The second reason, which is practical rather than philosophical, is that under the new clauses, someone who has been put in jail for 12 years would automatically get a further six years in jail if they assaulted a prison officer. However, someone who had been put in jail for six months would, under my hon. Friend’s proposals, get a further three months in jail, yet the assault that those two individuals had committed would be exactly the same.
Philip Davies
I think that the Minister might have slightly misunderstood my proposal, or perhaps he is not doing it justice. Much as I would like people to serve the whole of the rest of their sentence in full, that is not the actual proposal. I propose that they should not get automatic release halfway through their sentence, but it does not necessarily follow that they would have to serve their whole sentence. They just would not be automatically released halfway through their sentence, so they would have to spend a bit longer in prison, but that length of time would be determined by the Parole Board. I am not proposing that they would have to serve the whole of the remainder of their sentence, as the Minister seems to suggest.
Rory Stewart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification. Nevertheless, the fundamental point remains that the individual committing an assault should be punished for that common assault. They should be prosecuted, judged and sentenced in accordance with that assault. They should not be punished for that crime by the extension of a sentence designed for a separate crime.
That brings me back to the question of widening the scope of the Bill to take account of sexual assault, as is proposed in amendment 3. We have resisted such an amendment in the past because of our concern to have an emphasis on the sexual assault and the equality of all victims of sexual assault, regardless of the functions they were undertaking. However, having listened carefully to the arguments advanced, in particular by the hon. Members for Rhondda and for Halifax, both today and over the preceding weeks, we as a Government are now convinced that it would be correct to insert sexual assault into the parts of the Bill that deal with cases in which an offence against an emergency worker would be an aggravating factor, especially given the astonishing increase in the number of sexual assaults on emergency workers. As the hon. Member for Rhondda pointed out, between a third and half of all emergency workers currently appear to be reporting such assaults. On those grounds, while respectfully requesting Members not to press the other amendments and new clauses, the Government are willing to accept amendment 3.
Let me end by paying a huge tribute to everyone who has spoken today for the statement that they have made to a wider culture, as public representatives—representatives of us as a Parliament, us as the public, and us as the state.
Philip Davies
This very good debate has featured a great deal of expertise, which I have welcomed.
I am delighted that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) persuaded the Minister of his case in relation to sexual assault. He also spoke about spitting, as did the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). When my dad—remarkably, unbelievably—became the elected Mayor of Doncaster, he introduced a penalty for spitting, and I should like to think that more local authorities would do the same. I am sorry that we could not persuade the Minister on that issue, but an acceptance rate of 50% for the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda is certainly better than my track record. The rule is, I think, that those who want the Government to agree to something should come at it from a left-wing perspective, as that usually gives them a better chance of success than the approach of coming from a more conservative perspective. That is something I have learned over many years.
I was grateful for the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) about the sentencing powers of magistrates, and for what he said about our breaking new ground and the possibility that, as I argued, the Crown courts should be given bigger sentencing options. I commend the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for her support for my new clauses: she proved herself, again, to be a doughty supporter of police officers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) made an excellent speech, although he let himself down somewhat by saying that we in the UK send lots of people to prison, which is a myth that is constantly propagated by the liberal elite. Just for the record, the fact is that for every 1,000 crimes committed in this country, we send 17 people to prison. That is one of the lowest ratios anywhere in the world. I challenge my hon. Friends to find any country that sends fewer than 17 people per 1,000 crimes committed to prison. They will struggle to find many, although there are some— [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) is part of the liberal metropolitan elite. I repeat the fact—it came from the House of Commons Library, so I am sure she will not deny it— that for every 1,000 crimes committed, we send 17 people to prison. That is a fact. My hon. Friend may think that the proportion is too high; I rather think that it is too low.
Philip Davies
No, because I think we want to press on.
I was also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who made the same point about the sentencing powers of Crown courts and magistrates. The Minister did not really explain why we are giving them the same powers.
Rory Stewart
I will answer that point very briefly. The process-led point that is being made about the difference between the magistrates and Crown courts is concealing the bigger issue, which is that we do not believe the sentence in respect of emergency workers should be quadruple that in respect of other citizens. It is the quadrupling rather than doubling that leads us to reject that argument.
Philip Davies
I do the Minister a disservice—he did make that point and I apologise.
As well as talking about spitting, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse mentioned the fire service. I was pleased that he did, because that allows us not only to thank him for the service he gave for many years in the fire service, but to highlight the number of assaults that firefighters face, which he rightly spoke about. That number is massively on the increase in West Yorkshire, which is appalling. His contribution allows us to highlight the fact that firefighters are included in this legislation, and rightly so.
I was heartened by the support I received from my colleagues, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Corby (Tom Pursglove), for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey), for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster), on my point about automatic early release, even if they did not all think that we should deal with it here and now in the Bill. I fear that the Minister has been slightly got at regarding this point either by his officials at the Ministry of Justice—they never want to send anyone to prison from what I can see, and certainly do not want any more people in prison—or by the Treasury. I cannot work out which, and perhaps it is both, but I hope, in all seriousness, that he will look at the issue again.
The Minister ought to be able to detect that there is widespread support in the House for not allowing people who assault prison officers to get automatic early release. If he will not do something about it as a Government Minister, I will certainly do what I did when the Prisons and Courts Bill was passing through the House before the last election and table an amendment to that effect. The Labour party kindly indicated that it would have supported that amendment, but we never got to it because of the election. The SNP kindly said that they would support that amendment to protect prison officers. I suspect that if the Government do not act on this, they will find themselves defeated if any such amendment is tabled to future legislation. I hope they will reflect on the strength of feeling that has been shown on both sides of the House to say that people should not be released from prison early if they assault prison officers. I hope he will go away and look at that issue again.
Finally, on new clause 1, which I am formally obliged to either press or withdraw, I am disappointed that the Minister has decided to leave on the statute book two pieces of law that have the same effect but carry two different sentences. He says there is no need for the new clause, but there is certainly no reason not to make the change to put both pieces of legislation in line and tidy up the law. I am sorry that he resisted such a modest proposal. Like other Members, however, I do not want to do anything to undermine the chances of the Bill getting through. It is a fantastic piece of legislation that I support wholeheartedly. With those reservations, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2
Aggravating factor
Amendment made: 3, page 2, line 39, at end insert—
“(aa) an offence under section 3 (sexual assault) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003”.—(Chris Bryant.)
This causes the fact that the victim was an emergency worker to be an aggravating factor in cases of sexual assault.
Clause 4
Taking of samples under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
Chris Bryant
I beg to move amendment 4, page 4, line 23, leave out clause 4.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 5, page 6, line 6, leave out clause 5.
Amendment 6, page 8, line 14, leave out clause 6.
Amendment 7, in clause 7, page 9, line 37, leave out from “only,” to end of line 38.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 5.
Amendment 8, in title, line 3, leave out from “duty;” to “and” in line 6.
This amendment is consequential on Amendments 4 to 6.
Chris Bryant
I will not delay the House long on these amendments, but I should explain why I tabled them. They would take three clauses out of the Bill, which I am fairly confident will have the support of the whole House.
Although these clauses are about the taking of samples, in particular when an emergency worker is in danger of contracting an infectious disease by virtue of being spat at or through some other means, the aim of the Bill was never to take samples. The aim of the Bill was always to stop spitting. Thanks to the Minister’s earlier interventions, and to today’s debate more generally, I think we have had a clear statement from Parliament that spitting is included as part of common assault or battery.
Holly Lynch
I will rattle through my speech, as I know we are pushed for time. I entirely appreciate and sympathise with amendments 4 to 6 and, following our discussions with Ministers, I understand the practical challenges of clauses 4 to 6, but I want to push a little further. If we remove these clauses, what else can we do to mitigate some of the outstanding anxieties that will still persist?
As the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has outlined, spitting makes up 21% of all assaults on police officers in West Yorkshire. For that reason, it is important we get this right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, certain organisations advocate vaccination as one option to protect against some communicable diseases. Although I endorse that as part of the solution, there are two problems with it. First, I am uncomfortable that vaccination removes responsibility from the spitter not to spit in the first place, and on to the 999 responder to take precautions in preparation for being spat at. That is part of the reason why I am so supportive of amendment 2, which I am pleased was fully discussed in the previous group of amendments.
My second problem is that, as the Minister will know, most forces have an immunisation programme to vaccinate against hepatitis B. However, due to the global shortage of hepatitis B vaccines, forces have had to follow Government advice to suspend those programmes, which means people in roles identified as at increased risk, such as police officers, special constables, detention officers, PCSOs and crime scene investigators, are already going without this level of cover.
I am pleased that stocks of the vaccine are starting to become available again, but there is a backlog of immunisations. Some officers are particularly vulnerable during this window, making the types of mitigation we are now exploring all the more pertinent if we are to abandon clauses 4 to 6.
I also have concerns that the support and advice received by emergency service workers who have been spat at varies greatly. I would like the advice and support to be standardised for all those defined as emergency service workers, as per the definition in the Bill, so they can access the very best specialist medical advice within hours, allowing them to make informed decisions. That will restore the power balance and their dignity, which the spitter has sought to take from them.
Another criticism of these clauses is that the rates of transmission, and therefore the risks, are so low that there simply is not the evidence to warrant testing in the first place, yet we know that is not what is happening in practice. On Second Reading I told the story of PC Mike Bruce and PC Alan O’Shea of West Midlands police, who both had blood spat in their face as they tried to arrest a violent offender. They both received medical advice recommending that they undergo antiviral treatments, and they faced a six-month wait to find out whether the treatment had been successful.
As I explained on Second Reading and repeat now to reinforce the point, during that time PC O’Shea’s brother was undergoing treatment for cancer. Because medical professionals deemed that the risk of passing on an infection was too high, should he have contracted a disease, PC O’Shea was advised not to see his brother throughout the intervening period. He was also advised not to see his parents, because they were in such regular contact with his brother. PC Bruce had a false positive result for hepatitis B and his young family were also then tested and faced a six-month wait for conclusive test results, which confirmed that they all had the all-clear.
Although those experiences are two of the most anxious and prolonged I have come across, they are not uncommon. I need to be able to look those two officers in the eye and say to them that we have not given up on making sure that no officer has to go through the same experience, rather that we are simply taking another approach. I look to the Government to work with us on making that happen, beyond the Bill, if we are to remove clauses 4 to 6.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making a powerful point. Does she agree that the clauses on spitting were some of the most popular measures in the Bill, as originally drafted, when we discussed it with constituents who are emergency workers, so if we are going to drop them, we need a strong statement from Ministers today on what more can be done to tackle this problem, which she clearly highlights?
Holly Lynch
I agree entirely with that point, and I am reassured by what the Minister said about seeking to toughen up deterrence in respect of the language contained in an earlier provision in the Bill. In the event that spitting does not cease with immediate effect, we will still have to ensure that we offer those protections relating to dealing with those anxieties, and offering clarity and support. The right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) is quite right: that is what I am looking to see from Ministers today.
Alex Chalk
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, just at this last moment. What was striking about the point she made was that in the instance that she cited a police officer was given medical advice that there was a risk, yet that medical advice appears, statistically, to run entirely counter to the statistics that were provided by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). So part of resolving this, and giving clear protection and advice to officers, is about ensuring that consistent medical advice is given—does the hon. Lady agree?
Holly Lynch
I entirely agree. That goes back to the earlier point that we cannot fix everything through legislation. I agree entirely that where there are shortcomings with this legislative approach, even if we withdraw it, we will not fix the problem. So what alternatives—the hon. Gentleman has rightly reflected on those—do we need to put in place? I am open to any and all suggestions—but without that legislation I am looking for alternatives.
Rory Stewart
First, I very much welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has proposed that these clauses be removed from the Bill. To answer directly the case made by the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), let me say that at the core of this problem is a problem of anxiety. The individual who is spitting blood at the police officer is exploiting a myth—they are exploiting something that simply is not true. Public Health England is absolutely clear that the chances of contracting a blood-borne disease through somebody spitting at you is close to zero. This is unbelievably important, because the most significant way we can prevent this epidemic of spitting, is by making it clear to the people doing the spitting that the terror they are trying to communicate is a joke—it is absurd. These people are, in the traditional sense of the word, “terrorists”; their intention is to spread terror. What they are trying to do is psychological.
Putting into the Bill something that reconfirms the psychological fallacy that someone can communicate a blood-borne disease through spitting will simply encourage these people to spit even more. What they are trying to do by spitting, in some deranged way, is to make a death threat. They are trying to say, “By spitting at you with blood, I am giving you a terminal disease”, but they cannot do that. The best response to someone who is attempting to produce a fiction or magic, and is trying to intimidate you through magic, is to say, “This is nonsense. What you have done to me is disgusting. I’ve got a gob load of spit on me, but there is absolutely no way you’ve harmed my health by doing this.”
That needs to be made absolutely clear, because there are two separate problems involved in this. One relates to the risk of transmission and the second relates to the nature of these tests. The risk of transmission of a blood-borne disease through spitting is, as Public Health England says, close to zero. The second problem is with these tests. The hon. Member for Halifax gave an example of a false positive, but there are also many examples of false negatives, and these tests are not timely—they cannot communicate an early transmission. Consequently, the only way in which a medical professional should respond to these cases is by focusing not on a test result, which is irrelevant because it is not reliable, but on the mode of transmission. In other words, if somebody has been spat at there should not be any post-exposure prophylaxis treatment given, regardless of an apparent result of a test.
If, on the other hand, someone has been injected with a needle, in almost every case PEP should be allocated, again regardless of the result of the test as that result might show up too late for the PEP to be effective. The proper medical procedure is therefore to focus on the mode, not the test. That means that in this case it would not be of significant use to test somebody, it would not be strictly necessary, and it would not be proportionate in balancing the benefit and the cost. The right to know would therefore not trump the right to privacy in this case.
Chris Bryant
As the Minister has mentioned, there are many fallacies and the biggest area of fallacy is that surrounding HIV infection. I think many people still have in their mind the images of tombstones and the advertising campaign run by the then Government way back when, and they fail to recognise that today HIV is a very different disease. Nowadays, the viral load of the vast majority of people who have had an HIV positive test will be so low because of the good medication that they will not be infectious at all. We need to abolish the stigma, as I said on Second Reading, so I hope that all hon. Members will be happy to remove the clauses from the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Amendment 4 agreed to.
Clause 5
Taking of samples under the Terrorism Act 2000
Amendment made: 5, page 6, line 6, leave out Clause 5.—(Chris Bryant.)
Clause 6
Taking of samples: related amendments
Amendment made: 6, page 8, line 14, leave out Clause 6.—(Chris Bryant.)
Clause 7
Extent, commencement and short title
Amendment made: 7, page 9, line 37, leave out from “only,” to end of line 38.—(Chris Bryant.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 5.
Title
Amendment made: 8, in line 3, leave out from “duty;” to “and” in line 6.—(Chris Bryant.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendments 4 to 6.
Third Reading
Chris Bryant
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I was in Morrisons in Porth in the Rhondda last Wednesday, and the chap behind me in the queue was saying “Shouldn’t you be in Westminster?” I said no, that there were no votes and so I was in the constituency, and then I started packing up my stuff, having paid, and I overheard the woman on the checkout say to the man behind me, “So, who is he? Is he someone important?” He said, “That’s Chris Bryant, he’s the MP for the Rhondda,” and she said, “Oh, not very important then.”
For the most part, we are not very important, but we do have an important power as MPs, which is to introduce legislation. I am and have been conscious in introducing this Bill that introducing a new offence should only be done after long and serious consideration. We do not want to fill up the statute book endlessly with new bits and pieces of offences, and when new offences are unnecessary one should not proceed.
I am very conscious that there have been an awful lot of lawyers in the Chamber today, and it is only a sadness that Henry IV’s injunction from 1404 that no members of the law should be allowed to come to Parliament has not been maintained ever since—[Interruption.] I think the lawyers called it the Parliament of Dunces, so perhaps we would be dunces without the lawyers. I am genuinely grateful to those who have spoken today.
Yesterday, the Minister tweeted:
“1870 Declaration of the National Prison Association of the United States…‘It is the judgment of this congress, that repeated short sentences for minor criminals are worse than useless; that, in fact, they rather stimulate than repress transgression.’”
I completely agree with him, and several hon. Members have made similar points today. The aim of this Bill is not primarily to send lots more minor criminals to prison for short periods. What we want to do is send out a very clear message that assaulting an emergency worker is not a minor offence but a serious offence, and that we in Parliament take it seriously and expect the prosecuting authorities to take it equally seriously.
Why? Well, apart from anything else, there has been a very significant rise in the number of assaults in recent years. When there is a rising tide, the people’s representatives should take cognisance of that and take action. Too often, magistrates I have heard tell of have said, or implied, that somehow policing involves a bit of rough and tumble and that police officers should just get over it. That is not the view of this House, and it should not be the view of our magistrates or our judges. That kind of mentality has all too often in recent years infected people’s understanding for other emergency workers as well. There is a sort of assumption that a mental health nurse should put up with a certain amount of physical violence. I simply do not accept that.
I was in the mental health unit of the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, Llantrisant, last month. Staff told me that they had had quite a few assaults recently where the police had refused to take any kind of action, even though a doctor had certified that the person concerned—the perpetrator of the assault—knew perfectly well the distinction between right and wrong and that there was no issue of mental incapacity. We want the whole of the criminal justice system to take these issues seriously.
I fully understand that just changing the law will not change the situation overnight. As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) made very clear, there are real issues around the decisions that are made at the point of charge, and subsequently when it comes to discussions between either side just before coming to court. If passing a law, or creating a new offence, stopped offensive and offending behaviour, then the world would see no murders or thefts.
However, this Bill will have a tangible effect: the courts will give more appropriate sentences; the prosecuting authorities will have another tool in their box to deal with this issue; and the victims—the emergency workers themselves—will hear in court that the fact that they are an emergency worker has made a difference to the sentence that is passed down.
Of course we have to do more. Understaffing in some of our emergency services certainly does not help. When those services are under excessive pressure, it makes it more difficult to protect staff. We will have to keep a very close watch on the statistics as they develop, because, with NHS Protect having disappeared, it will be more difficult to ensure that the work that we have done has some effect.
I wish to thank some hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I have spent so much time with her over the past few years that I feel as if I am sort of married to her. I do not think that she wants to marry me. [Interruption.] I am a practising homosexual—one day I will be quite good at it! Well, my husband hopes so anyway.
I also thank the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I have his telephone number now, so I expect that we will be co-operating—[Interruption.] I will not tell my husband that. Obviously, we will be co-operating on more pieces of legislation. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), because he has been a very strong supporter of this Bill. I am only sorry that he is somewhat incapacitated today; he is too old to be playing rugby now and he should stop. I pay tribute, too, to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who has played a really important part in making sure that the Labour party is fully behind the measures in this Bill.
There are many organisations that I wish to thank, including Alcohol Concern, the GMB, which is my trade union, Unison, Unite, the Police Federation, and the British Medical Association. I also wish to thank the Welsh Assembly for bringing forward the legislative consent motion in plenty of time for this Bill to have full effect in Wales as it will in England.
I also thank the Ministers, particularly the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, who is an admirably splendid chap. I know that he wants to do his best by the police, and that he has had many conversations with the Police Federation about how we can make sure that some of the things in this Bill are fully implemented. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), who is not now the Minister in charge of this legislation, was very helpful in getting the Bill to Second Reading and through the Committee stages, and I am grateful for that.
I also pay tribute to the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart). We have disagreed in meetings on occasions, but we have managed to come to a very good accommodation today. I hope that this Bill is now in a state that means it will be able to go through the House of Lords at some speed, and I am grateful for all the support that he has provided through his officials. I also thank the Clerks of the House, who of course are always magnificent.
I could not finish without mentioning Erasure—a popular beat combo, m’lud, from your youth. “A Little Respect” was a great song, but more importantly, a little respect goes a long way in politics. All we are seeking to achieve with this Bill is a little respect for our emergency workers. It has also been a delight for us to be able to show a little respect for those on different sides of the House. I think that our constituents would, on the whole, prefer it if we were able to develop common solutions to common problems through legislation and other means, rather than by always shouting at one another. But I am not going to get too pious about that, because I do quite like shouting at Government Members.
This Bill is about saying to every single police constable, prison officer, custody officer, paramedic, nurse, fire officer, doctor, A&E consultant, lifeboat officer, A&E porter, ambulance driver and mines rescue officer, “We stand with you. We will protect our protectors.”
David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)
It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) in the closing stages of this important and significant Bill.
We are also coming towards the closing stages of the parliamentary day. Hon. Members will be scurrying back to their many and various constituencies, and we will turn ourselves from parliamentary thoughts to constituency matters. Later tonight and over the weekend, Members up and down the country will no doubt be running around their patch and connecting with real people who do real jobs. I am sure there is not a single Member who does not, from time to time, meet those whose mission it is to put themselves in harm’s way or to intervene in a crisis, including our ambulance service, nurses, NHS staff, police and firefighters. These emergency workers are exactly that: the people who turn up and are on hand when there is an emergency.
I cannot speak for others, but I have to say that when I meet such people on a regular basis, I am filled with what can only be described as a deep sense of personal unworthiness. That is not just because my day job is pretty insignificant—squalid even—but because I really do not think that I could do what they do. People who run towards, rather than away from, an emergency are special. We need them, and we need to protect them.
I have been delighted to watch the progress of the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, and I join others in paying tribute to him and the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for bringing it forward. The House will know the hon. Gentleman as an experienced, astute, often entertaining and charming—I heard him called that today—parliamentarian. I have no doubt that those skills will allow him to take this Bill through Parliament and on to the statute book.
The issue is far larger than we might expect. Whichever figures we use—Police Federation or Home Office figures, or somewhere in between—it is true that an astounding number of assaults on police officers take place every year. There may be hundreds or more each day. Every day also sees something like 20 assaults—one an hour, we heard today—on prison staff and nearly 200 assaults on NHS staff. That is indeed shocking. Although we have to tackle and drill down into the reasons why such appalling behaviour exists towards those who are working in difficult conditions to help us, it is essential that there is a clear message that this is not something that our society is prepared to tolerate. In fact, the Bill will not only send a message; it will have a tangible effect on anyone wanting to test the limits of acceptable behaviour. It will mean that they can expect some increase in the sentence they are likely to get.
I am delighted to see genuine cross-party support for the Bill; it is always a joy to see that. We are showing a unanimous front for those who protect us. Raising the bar in the way that the Bill will is nothing less than a step towards a greater civilising of us all. Recognising the special place inhabited by emergency workers can set the balance a little more in the right direction—a little more in their favour.
I am sad to say that this year, because of rising incident numbers, Avon and Somerset police introduced spit guards for trained officers for use in situations where someone has already spat, is going to spit, or has threatened to spit at an officer. We have heard about a lot of incidents like that. It is, to me, utterly shocking behaviour, not just because of the particularly distressing and disgusting nature of the act itself, but because of what is implied by the act about the relationship between the aggressor and people who are there to support and protect—and also, most shockingly, because it is sometimes used by those who know they are infected, or affect to be infected, as a weapon to frighten people. Barbarism of this sort cannot be accepted, even though, as we have heard, its effects are minimal or infinitesimal—almost non-existent. I cannot find words to describe how I feel about it, other than to say that there really must be a greater deterrent and more consequences.
With regard to assaults on NHS staff, again, words fail me. I am sure that many if not most of the attacks come from people who are a little over-refreshed, but that is not any kind of excuse and certainly no justification. Again, the police and the courts must be provided with the powers they need to deal properly with such incidents. While courts currently have the option to consider attacking an emergency worker to be an aggravating factor in sentencing, the Bill will put that on a statutory basis, making it a specific requirement to consider such assaults to be aggravated. Similarly, by extension, those thinking about assaulting an emergency worker might currently consider the fact that their target is an emergency worker, but should this Bill succeed, they will have no option but to consider that fact when they are looking down the barrel of the sentence they will receive.
There is no debate to be had about the debt we all owe to those who work to protect us. As Members of this House, we all meet our local NHS staff, our local police and our firefighters—all those who put themselves on the frontline when the chips are down—and we are all in awe of the work they do for the rest of us. We must give them our support and our protection. That is, after all, nothing more than they give us every day: their support and their protection.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for his work on the Bill so far, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch).
I know that time is short, but I wanted to share with the House my own experience. Last year, I joined West Yorkshire fire and rescue service and West Yorkshire police the night before bonfire night, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax and the chair of West Yorkshire fire and rescue service, Councillor Judith Hughes. I was first placed in a pump and then moved to a fire car. The fire car is the unit that responds first to reports of incidents so that those attending can judge whether a pump is needed. We were also checking that bonfires on public land were not causing a hazard. We received many reports over the evening and checked quite a number of neighbourhood bonfires, where we were welcomed.
But there were two incidents where I saw at first hand the danger from attack that our firefighters and police officers face. The first such incident was when we were called to a fire where a mattress had been set alight against the wall of an end-terrace house. The house was down a narrow back road, with access restricted to a single line of traffic, and row after row of houses criss-crossed by unlit back alleys. Attending the incident, I saw the professionalism of our firefighters in assessing the situation. I also saw, when we were on our way back to the car, an officer shine his torch down a dark alley where a number of masked people were moving towards us with what I can only describe as malicious intent. It is not uncommon for a fire to be set with the intention of luring firefighters and police officers into dangerous situations in order to ambush them. That appalling fact will shock us all, and it is a vivid reminder of just how necessary the Bill is.
The second incident occurred when we attended a neighbourhood bonfire. Instead of a bonfire, we found what can only be described as a community burning of rubbish that coincided with bonfire night. There were mattresses, plastic sofas and other hazardous items all set on fire. Stood around the fire were about 20 young people. We were chatting to them, and then when someone threw a firework into the fire, I was promptly ordered back into the car. While we were walking away, we were fired at with rockets placed in plastic tubing. The officer I was with sustained burn injuries across his head. The rockets continued to be launched at us in the car. We escaped without any further injuries, but the situation could have been so much worse.
I was shocked and scared, but that is an everyday occurrence for our firefighters, police officers and emergency workers. In West Yorkshire alone, there were 95 attacks on operational fire crews last year, up from 65 the year before—a shocking 50% increase. West Yorkshire police recorded nearly 2,000 assaults on employees, and there were 840 incidents of verbal and physical abuse against Yorkshire ambulance service staff.
One firefighter told me that his wife never sleeps when he works nights. I asked him what the worst thing that had ever been thrown at him was, and he told me he had once been attacked by youths throwing excrement in glass jars at him and the crew. These, I remind the House, are firefighters—firefighters who have no power of arrest; who time after time run into danger to save lives and protect the public; and who, as the campaign is aptly named, are more than a uniform and deserve our utmost respect and the full protection of our laws. These laws need to be strengthened so that our firefighters and all other emergency workers are properly protected from the attacks they face in the course of their duties, and so that those responsible are brought to justice. I am proud to support the Bill.
Stephen Crabb
Thank you for letting me make this speech from a sedentary position, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will not keep the House long, and I am sorry that I was not able to participate in the earlier proceedings as fully as I wanted to.
As a sponsor of the Bill, I want to put on record how pleased I am to see it reach this point. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is a good friend and a great parliamentarian. When he took on the task of bringing this issue back to the House to put it on the statute book, building on the excellent foundational work of the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), I was never in any doubt that he would be successful, because he would be working with the spirit of Back Benchers on both sides of the House. We knew from when the hon. Member for Halifax brought the issue to this place that there was a lot of support on both sides of the House for increasing penalties and seeing our emergency workers get the respect on the statute book that they deserve.
I would like to commend and congratulate the Ministers, without whom we would not be at this stage. Right from the very start, they were committed to seeing the Bill get through the House successfully. They have worked with the hon. Member for Rhondda and others across the House in an intelligent and pragmatic way, and they deserve an awful lot of credit for bringing the Bill to this point.
My constituency, Preseli Pembrokeshire, is in the Dyfed-Powys police force area, which is geographically the largest police force area in England and Wales. Statistically it is also the safest part of the United Kingdom in terms of crime rates. Nevertheless, I have been staggered over the last six to nine months, since we embarked on the passage of the Bill, by the number of personal testimonies that I have received from serving police officers in the Dyfed-Powys police force area, PCSOs, firefighters and others about their experiences while they are out there serving their communities on the frontline as emergency workers.
A number of colleagues have made the point that the Bill is not perfect. It will not answer the totality of the issue of the assaults that these workers face, the personal trauma they go through and the psychological impact on them and their families—of course it will not, but it is a really significant step forward.
Probably the biggest thing I have learned from conversations with police officers and PCSOs, and from emails I have read, is the enormous psychological impact of incidents such as these on an emergency worker. Just because a police officer or firefighter is tough and strong does not mean that the impact on their mental health and emotional wellbeing is any less—quite the opposite on occasion.
The Bill sends a powerful message and signal. On Report my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said that he wants legislation to do more than just send a signal, and I agree. We do not just pass symbolic legislation in this place, and the Bill will be more than symbolic. Yes, it will send out a powerful statement, but it will make a solid practical contribution to a better statute book for our emergency workers. It makes it clear that assaults, whether violent physical assaults, verbal assaults or the disgusting act of spitting, are not acceptable in our society. Our emergency workers deserve every bit of credit, respect and esteem that we can give them, and supporting this Bill is a practical way of showing that.
Holly Lynch
It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb). He has been a fantastic supporter of this campaign from the start, which I and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) have appreciated.
I start by paying tribute to my partner in crime fighting, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, for his work in getting us here today. He is always incredibly generous in crediting me with starting this campaign, but the truth is that without his tenacity, his leadership, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of how this place works, we simply would not have made it this far. I know that blue-light responders, NHS workers, and prison officers all over the country are truly grateful to him.
For all our political differences in this place, and what can often seem like the glacial pace of delivering change in Westminster, to go from a harrowing experience in my constituency when out with West Yorkshire police in summer 2016, to being here today, just two years later, at Third Reading for a Bill that will create a new offence of assaulting an emergency service worker, is a showcase of Parliament at its best. That does not mean that getting here was easy, and unusually the journey between Committee stage and Report was the most trying period of the Bill’s passage. It is not entirely the Bill that I hoped it would be for the reasons we explored on Report, but it is a massive step in the right direction.
We know that only a package of measures—legislative and otherwise—will bring about the societal change we want. That will involve working with the Crown Prosecution Service, the judiciary, employers, offenders, and emergency service workers to promote the reporting of such acts, ensure that appropriate support is provided, and that the consequences that follow reflect the seriousness of the crime.
It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to PC Craig Gallant, the single-crewed officer who I shadowed on that fateful evening in Halifax. Not only did he narrowly escape potentially serious or even life-threatening injuries at the hands of an angry mob, but nothing quite prepared him for the trauma of me thrusting him into the spotlight as the face of a national campaign to protect emergency service workers, and the merciless ribbing that he took from his colleagues as a result. Thank you PC Gallant for allowing me to tell that story. I know that your colleagues understand and appreciate that they will be better protected in future because of it.
I also thank Lambeth police because, ironically and infuriatingly, during Second Reading my flat in London was broken into and robbed. When the police came to investigate, they told me that they would normally ask for more information about my whereabouts during the time the robbery took place, but that they knew exactly where I was because they had been following the debate. Fingers crossed that my flat is still intact when I return to it this evening. If not I will be joining the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and revisiting sentencing guidelines across the board.
My biggest regret is that we could not agree on more concrete proposals to address the fears and anxieties of a 999 responder who has been spat at by an offender. I understand the practical problems with the clauses as originally drafted, and the limitations of testing, yet unless we establish evidence-based best practice that extends to all those covered by the Bill, I fear that the problems we are trying to overcome will persist. I want to ensure that those who have had either blood or saliva spat at them receive the best possible medical advice from a specialist, within hours of the incident. I am hopeful of that becoming a reality, based on earlier conversations and the contribution from the Minister at the Dispatch Box, and I hope for firmer proposals before the Bill completes its journey through both Houses. I am grateful to the trade unions representing emergency service workers that have been with us all the way on this journey—Unison, the GMB, the Prison Officers Association and the Police Federation. Again, I join the hon. Member for Shipley in paying particular tribute to Chief Inspector Nick Smart, the chair of the West Yorkshire Police Federation. He has been incredibly important in helping us to turn one incident into a national campaign for change.
We have had a good, constructive dialogue with the Government throughout this process. While we have encountered practical challenges and differences of opinion, I am pleased that we have been able to work through the vast majority of those in as collaborative a way as possible. I am grateful to both the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, the right hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) for that relationship. I also thank the shadow Policing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who has made a series of speeches on the Bill from the Dispatch Box. Characteristically, she always got the tone and content absolutely right.
I say to all who have shared their stories with me, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and other MPs who have supported the Bill, often when there was a difficult tale to tell, that those experiences have assisted with the shaping and fine-tuning of these law changes, and emergency service workers, NHS workers and prison officers, now and in the future, will be better protected because of it.
Jeremy Quin
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who has done so much to push this cause over the last two years. I congratulate her on that and wish her well on her return to her flat—I trust it will be in good order when she gets back.
It was also a pleasure to hear the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), on Third Reading. He speculated about whether he was important to his constituents, but he is certainly important to this place, and he has done important work today. It is a pleasure to be here to support him, as it was to support him on Second Reading back on 20 October. In replying to the debate, the hon. Gentleman regaled the House with his story of being locked in a police van for his own protection by the police, who then unaccountably forgot about him. All I can assume is that no policeman will ever be so remiss again following the work done by him, the Ministers and all the House in helping to progress the Bill on to the statute book.
I am delighted that the Bill has made so much progress. The measure is supported firmly by my local police federation and by my excellent police and crime commissioner, Katy Bourne. Earlier, I did my district an injustice when I said that there had been 28 assaults on police officers in Horsham in 2016-17—there were 21. However, even one assault is one too many and we are sending a clear message this afternoon.
My interest in this issue was sparked before the debate came to this House by a constituent—a police officer—who wrote to me. He had responded to a call from a man who had been stabbed. On locating him, he found him with stab injuries in the neck, face and head. My constituent provided life-saving first aid, and while he was administering it, he was spat at, as was his colleague. My constituent was in full uniform—it was clear that he was a police officer—and he wrote to me, saying that due to the man’s
“aggressive nature and the risk of injury he had to be handcuffed so we could…administer first aid.”
It is a disgrace that anyone has to go through that, and we are sending a message today that such behaviour is never, ever acceptable.
I thought it was iniquitous that after that assault, although the assailant could go home from hospital, my constituent had to wait for weeks for tests to be taken and results to come in. I was sorry that clause 6 had to be withdrawn, but I understand why the hon. Member for Rhondda said that that was the case. I urge the Government to do all they can with education or vaccines to ease the situation for all our emergency workers who face these circumstances, but with that one proviso, I wish the Bill Godspeed.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
This is the first time that I have spoken in today’s debate, not because of a lack of support for the Bill, but to make sure that it receives its speedy passage through the House of Commons. I reiterate my thanks and congratulations to my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who have run an absolutely fantastic, speedy campaign since my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax first introduced this through a ten-minute rule Bill last year. In that time, she has brought together the House of Commons, and the shadow Minister and Ministers, which is rarely done, in supporting this legislation. Hopefully today we will see the Bill pass through—amended, but all the better for it.
We have had a fantastic debate today, conducted in a comradely and collegiate spirit, with some real expertise on all elements of the criminal justice system. All have been united in the objective of getting this right and delivering protection for the people who go out every day and risk their lives to keep all of us safe.
Throughout the passage of the Bill, the most common comment I have heard from countless police officers and emergency service workers, to whom we have all spoken, is that over the years assault and sexual assault have come to be accepted and seen as the norm within the police and NHS. While this debate has been going on, the assistant chief constable of Devon and Cornwall police, Jim Colwell, has tweeted that overnight there were 10 assaults on the officers under his care, including kicks, punches, headbutts and spitting. He asks, how the public feel about this and whether they accept it. The House is saying today that it is absolutely unacceptable. It is not part of the job that he and his colleagues do. We as parliamentarians are saying that society has zero tolerance for anyone who assaults our emergency service workers.
The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has made some important points, particularly about early release and behaviour, but in all his examples, as explained by colleagues, the CPS made the wrong charging decision. I accept the principle behind his amendments, but, as we have heard today, the CPS needs to be more accountable for what the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) described as lazy prosecutorial decisions, and that applies equally when the CPS decides to charge someone when it should not have. A constituent of mine was recently charged and taken to court, but the magistrates threw the case out immediately because the decision to take it forward had been so ridiculous. The CPS should be held responsible and accountable for that decision, just as the police are held accountable, and rightly so, for the decisions they make that have serious consequences for the people they protect or charge. That is another point the House has made today. I hope the Minister will say how we can hold the CPS and prosecutors to account for their charging decisions.
I must comment briefly on the strain that our emergency services are under and which has played a part in the rise in the number of assaults. Very rarely have our police and emergency services been under more pressure. The job is getting harder, and for those on the frontline it is becoming overwhelming. Our emergency services are increasingly relied upon not just as the service of last resort but as the service of first resort, as the gaps between the services that make up our social safety net and on which our communities rely get wider. The NHS is under unbelievable pressure and is struggling to cope with limited resources. Waiting times for A&E are up. Ambulance services across the country simply cannot meet demand. The police are increasingly single-crewed or inappropriately dispatched—for example, female officers being dispatched to incidents of serious and violent sexual assault. Our emergency services are increasingly dealing with people suffering from mental health issues unable to access the services they need.
In that climate, nobody would suggest that the Bill is a panacea for our emergency services. The strain, stress and complex range of factors behind this increasingly difficult climate will not be solved easily, but the Bill is important, and it is vital that it be passed today, because the right to go to work and feel safe is a right that has been too easily cast aside. Our emergency services are increasingly finding themselves in vulnerable situations, and all too often security at work is far from a reality. The offences and examples we have heard today are, as the Minister said, not just crimes against the person but crimes against our society. We ask these dedicated individuals to go out and serve our communities on our behalf, and the least we can do is afford them the protection that makes it clear that society views their being assaulted in the course of their duties with the utmost seriousness.
In conclusion, I again thank and congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda and for Halifax. The Opposition are delighted to support the Bill and to see it pass safely through its Third Reading today.
Philip Davies
I will be brief, because I think we all want the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) to be able to speak to her Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on bringing forward this Bill and on the way he has gone about achieving success with it. I must say in passing that if anyone is thinking of bringing forward a private Member’s Bill, I would advise them to go and speak to the hon. Gentleman, because he has produced a perfect template for how such a Bill should be brought forward in such a way as to ensure that we have a good piece of legislation on the statute book, rather than simply producing a good idea that ends up being bad legislation. This has been a first-class example of that.
The hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) deserves equal praise, because she has shown that she is a doughty supporter of all the emergency services but particularly of the police, not just in word but in deed, and I know how much they appreciate that. I also want to thank the two Ministers, the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) and the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart). They might not have gone as far as I would have liked—they seldom do—but without their constructive approach to the Bill, we would not be here today. We should not underestimate the role that they have played in ensuring that that has happened. I should also like to praise my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). He does an awful lot of work in ensuring that Bills such as these get to this stage. He usually works under the radar and he does not get the credit he deserves, but I know that he does an awful lot to ensure that these Bills get through.
Our emergency services are incredibly important to all of us. They put themselves in harm’s way every single day, and we are all troubled by the rising tide of assaults that they face as they carry out their jobs. This legislation sends a signal that we support them, but it does more than that. I will celebrate every time a criminal who assaults an emergency worker gets a longer prison sentence as a result of this Bill. That is the reality of how this legislation will benefit people. It will ensure a longer prison sentence for those criminals who deserve to go to prison for longer, and that is a great outcome. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda on the way in which he has brought about this legislation.
Robert Courts
At this very moment, in all our constituencies, the emergency services are working hard to protect us. We owe them our gratitude, and we also have a duty to protect them. I have seen for myself the excellent work that the police do when I have been out on the streets of west Oxfordshire following them on the beat and visiting hospitals. On the late night shifts, I have seen some of the people they have to deal with, some of whom are drunk or violent. It is simply unacceptable that our emergency services should be treated with anything less than the highest respect.
In 2015, there were 800 assaults on NHS staff in Oxfordshire, with a conviction rate of only approximately 1%. We in this House cannot automatically control violence, but we can control some of the legislation that relates to it. It is important that we should provide that little extra protection to ensure that our emergency services know that they are being treated with the highest respect.
Kevin Foster
This is a welcome Bill, and it will make a difference. The tweet that was referred to by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) is absolutely right. The assistant chief constable, Jim Colwell, has highlighted the assaults that officers in Devon and Cornwall are facing today. I hope that each of those officers will see, through their ACC highlighting that and it being mentioned today, that their experience has made some difference to changing the law to deal with those who think our emergency services workers are their target rather than people they should respect. This is a fantastic Bill and I look forward to it passing its Third Reading.
Rory Stewart
I have very limited time—less than seven minutes—and I hope that hon. Members will take the comments that I made on Report as a proper tribute to the extraordinary work that has been done by the hon. Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch). Wonderful speeches have also been made by other Members today. I hope that all members of the emergency services feel strongly the passion and support in this House for their work. In this limited time, I will be unable to pay as full a tribute as I would like to the extraordinary work that is done day in and day out by the police, the fire service, our NHS workers and other members of the emergency services. I would, however, like to focus on one service that has not received as much attention as it might have done in this debate, and I refer of course to the Prison Service.
Prison officers operate out of sight of society. They have the most extraordinarily challenging profession. It requires unbelievable resilience for a prison officer to walk into a cell knowing that, on many days, the individual in that cell might have self-harmed or even killed themselves. It takes astonishing courage for a prison officer to confront a prisoner who is coming at them with a broken broom or with a toothbrush in which are embedded nine blades. It takes astonishing decisiveness day in, day out, for a prison officer to deal with the crises and emergencies that happen in our prisons. It also takes great moral authority to act as a mentor, a teacher and in some ways a friend to help prisoners on the path to reformation. Yet these people are now being attacked more than 8,000 times a year. Their jaws are being broken, and they are being sent to hospital. They must be protected. That is why we welcome the Bill on behalf of all the other emergency services, but particularly on behalf of prison officers.
Let me say this, in the few minutes that I have left. An attack on a prison officer is an attack on the state. An attack on a prison officer is an attack on us. When an individual is attacked, it affects the entire operation of the prison. It affects that individual’s willingness to take risks—to unlock a prison door, and to allow prisoners to engage in education or purposeful activity.
The response that we now have to such attacks, as a society, is much more limited than it once was. In the past, prison officers were able to depend on penalties that we would no longer want to introduce, for very good reasons. Corporal punishment has, of course, been removed. Solitary confinement has been removed. Restrictions on family visits have now been removed. The only serious sanction that remains when a prisoner assaults a prison officer is the law that we are discussing today, which is why we want to encourage the police to work with us to prosecute prisoners who assault prison officers. We have heard today that very successful cases are being brought against people who spit at police officers, but almost no cases are being brought against prisoners who spit at prison officers. Too often, I am afraid, those in other parts of the criminal justice system seem to think it acceptable to assault a prison officer, although they would not think it acceptable to be assaulted themselves.
Let the House therefore be clear that we respect prison officers for their courage, for their decisiveness and for their moral example. Let the House be clear that all our progressive liberal instincts on reforming prisoners must be accompanied by respect for basic order and discipline. We should not be ashamed to say that prison officers ought to be able to exercise order and control, and that we will need a whole package of measures if our actions are to lead to purposeful activity. That package will include proper searches at the prison gates to ensure that drugs and weapons are not getting into the prisons, and a clean and decent environment in which the windows are not broken and the floors are kept clean.
We must make it absolutely clear that we respect the safety of prison officers, through the measures that we are taking in terms of protective equipment, the right kind of restraints, and the piloting of pelargonic acid vanillylamide and pepper spray. Everyone must understand that safety, security and decency do not get in the way of education or purposeful activity, but constitute the foundation without which purposeful activity cannot take place.
If we are to work with prisoners and if we are to reduce reoffending, we must ensure that, through this legislation, we show that we respect the honour and dignity of prison officers and members of other emergency services as public servants, and appreciate the service that they provide on our behalf; that we express the deep gratitude that we feel for everything that they do; and that we demonstrate through every single action that we take—this important Bill will double the maximum sentence for an attack on our emergency service officers—that an attack on them is an attack on us. That applies to an attack on the police, an attack on members of the fire service, an attack on health workers and, above all, an attack on prison officers, whose service is all too often forgotten but who do such extraordinary work on behalf of the public.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill
Monday 30th April 2018
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 27 April 2018 - (27 Apr 2018)
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill
Friday 29th June 2018
(6 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 27 April 2018 - (27 Apr 2018)
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, it is my privilege to move the Second Reading of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill. The Bill had a successful passage through the Commons and I pay tribute to all those MPs who participated in the debates. In particular, I thank Chris Bryant MP, who sponsored the Bill, and Holly Lynch MP, who had previously tried to put through a 10-minute rule Bill on the same subject. They have done a considerable amount of work and it has been subject to considerable scrutiny in the Commons.
The Bill would create a new aggravated offence of assaulting an emergency worker. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that as a former president of the TUC and chair of ACAS, I think that no worker should be attacked in the course of their duties. Any increase in violence and sexual assault against staff is unacceptable. However, emergency workers—police, firefighters, doctors, nurses and paramedics, prison officers or people assisting these professions in the execution of their duties—put themselves on the line to protect the public. Members in both Houses spend a considerable amount of time praising the bravery of emergency services in some of the most appalling tragedies. This is our chance to help protect the protectors and help stem the tide of the alarming increases in assaults on emergency workers.
The Labour Party made a manifesto commitment in 2017 to make it an aggravated criminal offence to attack NHS staff. The Bill will help fulfil this objective. I am also grateful to the Government for allowing time for this debate and for making clear their support for the Bill. On a personal level, I was president of NALGO, one of the forerunners of UNISON, which has recently published a report on assaults in the health service.
Turning to the contents of the Bill, Clause 1 would create a new triable offence of assault or battery committed against an emergency worker either,
“acting in the exercise of functions as such a worker”,
or where they were not at work but,
“carrying out functions which, if done in work time, would have been in the exercise of functions as an emergency worker”.
The offence would be punishable by up to six months and/or a fine in a magistrates’ court and up to 12 months in a Crown Court. I will say a little more about sentencing later.
Clause 2 would create a statutory aggravating factor which would increase the seriousness of the offence, including certain offences under the Offences against the Person Act 1861; an offence committed under Section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003; certain common-law offences, including manslaughter and kidnapping; and ancillary offences relating to the ones already mentioned.
Clause 3 defines an emergency worker and Clause 4 relates to general matters, including that the Bill extends to England and Wales. I am grateful to the Welsh Assembly for bringing forward the legislative consent Motion in a timely manner.
I should make clear what the Bill is not about. It is not intended to cover the impact of public expenditure cuts or the accuracy of current statistics and the need to take steps to ensure their accuracy. It is not about overall sentencing policy in the courts. It is not intended to take away any responsibilities from employers for ensuring the safety of their employees and the need for adequate training to deal with the challenging circumstances in which emergency workers undertake their duties. It is also not my intention to comment on recent ministerial statements on sentencing. However, in Clause 1, there is a reference to magistrates being able to sentence up to six months and up to 12 months when Section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 comes into force. If noble Lords note the age of this Act, it becomes clear that three, if not four, Governments have been and gone without this section being enacted. So my question to the Minister is: bearing in mind that this would make a considerable difference to the Bill, will this section be enacted by the present Administration?
The Bill is supported by all the trade unions representing emergency workers. I thank them for their briefings and for the presence of members of the Police Federation in the Gallery today. Research by the Health Service Journal and UNISON has found an absolute increase of 9.7% in violent attacks on NHS hospital staff between 2015-16 and 2016-17. Some 75% of trusts responded to a request for information and the total number of physical assaults on NHS staff was 56,435. An RCN report revealed 70,555 assaults on healthcare workers in 2015-16. Home Office figures report 24,000 assaults on police officers across all forces, whereas Police Federation statistics point to an assault every four minutes. There are at least 20 assaults a day on prison staff. In West Yorkshire alone there were 95 attacks on operational fire crews last year—a 50% increase compared to the previous year. These figures will not be completely accurate but one thing we can be sure of is that they underestimate the true figures.
As if the thousands of attacks, and the fact that they are on the increase, are not horrifying enough, there is also a serious problem of underreporting. Some emergency workers do not believe anything will be done about an attack and, even if they do report an incident, the chances are that the perpetrator will receive a suspended sentence. This leads to a lack of faith in the criminal justice system to deliver proportionate sentencing and to cynicism against the employer. I saw a parallel in the construction industry when I conducted a report into construction fatalities. There is serious underreporting of comparatively minor injuries, leading to insufficient preparation against major injuries and fatalities. Reading about the experiences of some emergency workers is harrowing and in many cases the experience has led to post-traumatic stress and life-changing symptoms. Because of the sheer number, I do not wish to pick out individual cases, except to thank a paramedic, Sarah Kelly, who was sexually assaulted in an ambulance and had the courage to report the issue and be willing to take part in public campaigns.
In conclusion, I am from a generation which struggles to accept how the people who are looking after us should be under such concerted attack. We must act. I really hope that the Bill will be on the statute book by the end of the year. I look forward to the debate and to the Minister’s reply. I beg to move.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, I am happy to support the Bill and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for adopting it for its passage through this House. I thank the Minister for giving me some time to clear up any areas of confusion or concern I might have had. I think this will be my shortest Second Reading speech ever. The Bill is almost perfectly formed. I shall concentrate on NHS workers but of course the principles apply to all emergency workers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, said, all workers should feel safe in their work environment.
Over 10 years ago, I was a chair of a primary care trust and I would visit various health settings. I was continually horrified at some of the treatment meted out to ambulance and A&E teams, and to staff on wards. There are many areas within the NHS where staff are vulnerable: lone workers visiting patients with mental illness in crisis; minor injuries unit staff working late at night; and out-of-hours GPs visiting patients in an emergency. As employers, NHS trusts have improved quite a lot in their attitude. Violence should never be seen as part of what goes with the job. Those who are violent towards emergency workers must be punished and the Bill goes some considerable way towards achieving that.
The Bill gives emergency workers a right: the right to carry out their job without fear of being assaulted. I hope that as a result of it, and generally anyway, employers will see it as a responsibility to support their employees, particularly when they have been assaulted. They should also not condone such treatment by their own staff towards a member of the public, unless it is a last resort. This applies particularly to police services and mental health services. I am sure your Lordships could find other examples. An assaulted worker should be able to count on the support of their employer in bringing the charge and, where necessary, they should expect counselling to help them deal with any trauma.
Yesterday I had a useful briefing from the London Ambulance Service trust, which put all this into context and evidenced some of the points I am making. In London last year, a total of 534 physical assaults on ambulance staff were recorded—an increase on the previous year of 21.6%. It does not take us very long to work out that if this grows at the same rate, by 2020 there will be 1,000 physical assaults recorded annually against ambulance staff. This is just not acceptable. On average, one staff member is assaulted daily and staff working in the control room regularly experience verbal abuse while taking emergency calls. The trust offers training and support to its staff. All front-line staff receive training in how to report an assault and what to do in potentially confrontational situations. They are offered counselling and support following an assault. Each individual is different and the level of support required varies, according to need. MIND also runs a Blue Light Programme, which provides mental health support for emergency services workers. The London Ambulance Service uses that, too. It is also the only ambulance service in England to issue stab vests to all front-line staff. Although I applaud that, I am really sad that ambulance workers feel the need to wear a stab vest in their daily work.
It is also important to remember that the Bill should apply to settings where someone is carrying out their duty as an NHS employee but not in an NHS setting. This could be in a prison or a care home. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified whether the Bill also applies to volunteers, whether in the regular services, the police service or the voluntary sector, such as St John Ambulance, the coastguard service or the RNLI.
This Private Member’s Bill has also highlighted that violence is often the result of excess usage of drugs or alcohol. The Institute of Alcohol Studies report on alcohol’s impact on emergency services highlighted the proportion of front-line personnel who have been injured while dealing with a drunk member of the public: 76% of police, 50% of ambulance workers, 43% of A&E consultants and 10% of fire officers. This is just unacceptable. The Bill addresses this issue and, once enacted, I am sure that it will be dealt with. Many have tried to address the issue of alcohol and drugs but it is outside the scope of the Bill. I note that the usage of alcohol and drugs should never be seen as an excuse for somebody behaving in a violent way.
This is a well-crafted Bill, which should achieve what it is designed to do. I do not propose to lay any amendments in Committee and I wish it a speedy passage.
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as the elected police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire and Rutland, and it is in that role that I unreservedly support the Bill and hope that it reaches the statute book as soon as possible. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Donaghy on agreeing to take the Bill through your Lordships’ House and on her opening speech this morning, and like her, I congratulate Holly Lynch and Chris Bryant on taking the Bill through the other place.
As a police and crime commissioner, I know how lucky Leicestershire police are in having such an excellent Police Federation branch, led by its chair, Tiff Lynch, and its secretary, Matt Robinson, both of whom were recently re-elected without contest to their important posts. It is a pleasure working with the Fed, even on the rather sadder and more disgraceful issues, such as the widow of a police officer who was killed in the line of duty not being allowed her pension. I was particularly delighted when I was approached to support the Bill, a long time ago now, before it was introduced in the other place.
Why do I support the Bill? Basically, because it just sounds, is and seems right. One reason is that every Monday morning when I meet the chief constable and his chief officer team, I hear about the assaults committed on police officers, on specials and on PCSOs over the course of the weekend. I also know that I do not hear of every assault or even a majority of them. I hear about very few, for a number of reasons. One is that police officers do not always report what has happened to them, for the best of reasons, but I think they should. One of my hopes for the Bill is that it will act as an incentive for police officers to report more because, as I am sure the House will agree, it is always entirely unacceptable for police officers to be assaulted when they are doing their lawful duty and protecting all the rest of us.
The published national figures are clearly wrong and absurdly low. To give credit, that has been admitted. The reality is, I think, frighteningly large not just for the police but for emergency services generally. It is perhaps worth repeating from the very helpful document that the authorities in this House have prepared for the Bill that the Police Federation has suggested that a much,
“higher number of assaults were committed against officers”,
during 2016-17 and that:
“According to the Federation, data from its latest welfare survey suggest that there were ‘more than two million unarmed physical assaults on [police] officers over twelve months’”,
and nearly a further 303,000 assaults using a deadly weapon during that period. My strong belief is that while it is impossible for there to be absolutely accurate figures, the position is probably a good deal worse than we want to believe.
As a police and crime commissioner, I see how every day the police work with the other emergency services, be it the fire service, the ambulance service, the Prison Service or, of course, the health service in all its aspects. As emergency workers, they are individually and together a crucial part of what makes our society civilised. Just imagine a day without them. Every one of them is vulnerable every day to physical assault and sometimes to sexual assault as well. The message in this Bill—the most important thing about it, for me—is that society must protect those who protect society. I see this Bill as something of a wake-up call. As a society we have perhaps become just a little too tolerant of behaviour which is actually intolerable. Some seem to think that emergency workers, wherever they are, somehow sign up to being assaulted when they take their job. The message of this Bill is loud and clear: no, they do not. It seems to me that a cultural shift is needed, and this Bill points the way.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
My Lords, in common, I have no doubt, with all noble Lords, I have a great regard for our emergency workers and a great regret that they appear to be ever more frequently subjected to assaults and other violent offences. I also share with many others the greatest admiration for the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, who is sponsoring this Bill in your Lordships’ House.
Popular, no doubt, as this Bill is, and as well-nigh certain, I suspect, it is to pass, I fear that I cannot support it. Let me at once make clear that my central objection is not with its core objective—plainly, the discouragement of these deplorable offences by more severe punishment of those who commit them—and still less with its detailed drafting. Rather, it is with the inevitable consequence of all Bills of this kind, which is, in short, prison sentence inflation—that upward spiral leading inexorably to the ratcheting-up of sentences across the board, and thus an ever-increasing prison population, with all the several dire consequences that follow from that, all of which were the subject of a very full debate on prison overcrowding in your Lordships’ House which I had the privilege of securing and opening.
Of course I understand the public’s and, in turn, Parliament’s instinctive reaction to any and all spates of fresh or increased offending and fresh areas of concern about criminal behaviour: “Lock ’em up, throw away the key, or at the very least raise the statutory maximum for the offence”. Thus it was that in 2014, the maximum sentence under the Dangerous Dogs Act was increased from two years to 14 years; in 2015, minimum custodial sentences were introduced for carrying knives; and last year, the maximum sentence for stalking and harassment offences was doubled from five years to 10 years, and in aggravated cases from seven to 14 years. More recently still, the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving was increased from 14 years to life. In 2005, under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, IPP sentences were notoriously introduced, increasing the number of indeterminate sentence prisoners by 5,000 in the first three years. Of course, under Schedule 21 to that 2003 Act the minimum terms to be served by mandatory life prisoners were increased, and have twice since been raised still higher, so that they have risen steadily from an average of 12.5 years in 2003 to more than 21 years now. The Sentencing Council is, of course, loyally responsive to all these demonstrations of Parliament’s will, so as a result, guideline sentences have been progressively longer so as to maintain some sort of coherence across the entire spectrum of criminal offending. So it will be consequent on this Bill.
I repeat that I too would love to reduce the number of assaults on our emergency workers, but as the Government—the Ministry of Justice and its Minister—originally said in response to the public petition for this Bill before they surrendered to the popular call for increased sentences, all these offences are already criminalised, and, indeed, they are treated more seriously, as aggravated offences, when committed against public sector workers, so that in fact merely increasing the maximum sentences will not realistically provide additional protection.
There are, for example, some 7,000 assaults annually in our prisons against prison staff—I think there are about 40,000 assaults including assaults against other prisoners. That, realistically, is not the result of there being insufficient penalties available. Rather, it is the consequence of prison overcrowding, a problem that this Bill can only further exacerbate. On Wednesday this week, the Times recorded the Ministry of Justice’s new building programme and its plan for the prison population to rise within the next few years by about 10,000 to some 93,000. Mr Rory Stewart, the Prisons Minister, expressly envisages public demands for ever-longer and “more brutal” sentences, with increasing focus on victims. He said:
“We can see this already in people coming forward all the time with more legislation”.
This is just such a Bill, and for my part, I regret it.
Lord Wasserman (Con)
My Lords, I do not intend to detain the House very long on this glorious Friday morning, but this past week I have been inundated by emails and other messages from police and crime commissioners around the country urging me to show up in the Chamber this morning to support this Bill, and I am delighted to do so. I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for agreeing to steer this short but very significant Bill through your Lordships’ House.
As I say, I have had a large number of messages from police and crime commissioners telling me how strongly they support this Bill, and how important they believe it to be. I am not saying that PCCs are happy with the Bill. Indeed, most of them have gone out of their way to make the point that they are not happy with it because they do not believe that it goes far enough in protecting emergency workers from assault while in the process of carrying out their duties. According to one PCC, the provisions in this Bill,
“are still derisory but better than nothing”.
I think it is fair to say that that reflects the tone of most of the messages I have received.
I must confess that I had not quite realised the extent of the problem until I began preparing for this debate. I was stunned to learn from representatives of the Police Federation that, as has already been mentioned, there were some 2.4 million assaults on police officers in the last 12 months. As other noble Lords have already made abundantly clear, the problem is by no means confined to police officers and those, such as police community support officers, who work alongside them. Firefighters, prison officers, doctors, paramedics, nurses and others who assist these professionals in dealing with emergencies are regularly subject to assault as they go about their business of serving us.
For noble Lords who want examples of the kinds of assaults which the Bill is aimed to tackle, I suggest that they resort to Twitter under the hashtag “protecttheprotector”. They will find countless examples of what we are talking about this morning. There can be no doubt that there is a serious problem out there which needs addressing, and the Bill is aimed to do so. For this reason, I strongly support it and welcome the Government’s support for it.
I must admit that two aspects of the Bill cause me some unease. The first relates to the whole idea of using prison to solve social problems of this kind, as the previous speaker mentioned. As the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, pointed out in her excellent article on the Bill in the 25 June edition of the House magazine, many of those who engage in assaulting emergency workers in the course of carrying out their duties are either drunk or under the influence of drugs.
I am not convinced that putting such people in prison for six or even 12 months would do them—or the rest of us—any good. I have always thought that prison should be a last resort and that we should think first of other forms of punishment, such as community sentences. In this context, I was delighted to read in yesterday’s Times another reference to Rory Stewart, the Minister for Prison Operations and Reform, who apparently shares this view. According to the report, he goes even further than I and believes that short sentences should be scrapped.
“The best way of protecting the public”,
he is quoted as saying,
“is to significantly reduce, if not eliminate, the under 12-month prison population, because people on community sentences are less likely to reoffend than people put in prison”.
However, I recognise that this is very much a minority view in the emergency services community, and do not intend to say any more about it this morning.
Another aspect of the Bill upsets me which I believe is much more important. It has already been touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly. That is what the introduction of the Bill tells us about our society. What kind of community do we live in where those who serve us, those who put their very lives on the line each day in order that we, our loved ones and fellow citizens can be safe and sound, are subject to assaults of the most unpleasant, degrading, painful and even life-changing kind while they are in the very act of helping their fellow men and women? How sad that it should be thought necessary to resort to the statute book and, even more significantly, to prison sentences, to deal with such antisocial behaviour. What a terrible reflection this is on the fundamental, underlying values of our society.
This is not the time or place to discuss why we find ourselves in this situation, but it raises a number of issues which require urgent consideration if we are to reverse present trends and build a civilised community for our children and grandchildren. The Jewish tradition, in which I was raised, is very clear about service to the community. The rabbis taught that acts of kindness to others are as important as every other law in the Bible. Yet the fact is that in Britain in 2018, we are having to amend our statute book to strengthen the sanctions available to the courts, including longer prison sentences, to punish individuals who have assaulted emergency workers who are in the very act of helping them, such as putting out fires in their homes or transporting them to hospital in an ambulance for urgent medical treatment. It is therefore with much sadness and no joy that I strongly support giving the Bill a Second Reading.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman. I agree with many of his observations and will try not to repeat the points that have already been made in the debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Donaghy on introducing the Bill and pay tribute to her for the clarity with which she has explained the legislation and set out the arguments for it, not just in her speech today but otherwise in briefings and articles. I also record my thanks and congratulations to Holly Lynch and Chris Bryant, the more so because the Bill appears destined to make it to the statute book, which is no mean feat for a Private Member’s Bill—particularly as, in its original form, it faced the opposition of the Government. It is good to see a Bill get another chance, and I support it and wish it speedy passage. However, like others, I have reservations about the efficacy of what we are doing, and I intend to draw on that for the points I want to make.
It is more than 20 years since I practised law in Scotland. For the vast majority of that time, I served a community that was a microcosm of Scotland, and then went on to represent those same people as their Member of Parliament, so I knew the community well and knew the emerging trends in behaviour. During my time in the law, I confess that, like many others who work in the justice system, I was a stern critic of the tendency of politicians to seek solutions for emerging or increasing social problems by isolating particular trends in behaviour and legislating for a specific offence. Practitioners were universally of the view that this behaviour was already sufficiently covered by the provisions of the criminal law, and the problem lay with protecting people, enforcement or the increasing failure of sentencing to have a deterrent effect on people’s behaviour. Actually, they were reinforcing impunity by doing what they were in the community that I knew very well. We need to be concerned about that.
The former position, as explained by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, is exactly where the Government were originally: that there was already sufficient provision in law. Of course, by the same token, the Government held the responsibility for ensuring that that law was properly enforced or having the intended deterrent effect. They have changed their collective mind, for whatever reason, and I, too, have been persuaded, despite my reservations, that a special offence is appropriate in this case, although I recognise that it can become a problem if you are persuaded by each individual case rather than addressing the issue that lies at the heart of the matter.
I read the Official Report of the Bill’s passage through the other place. I am also cognisant of our role as the secondary Chamber in this environment, and there appears to be unanimity in the other place that the legislation is part of the answer to the problem. What impressed me most was the argument made by my noble friend Lady Donaghy about the special nature of the work that we are asking these people to do. In her recent article in the House magazine, she rightly highlighted that while all cases of assault are to be abhorred and are difficult for the victim, emergency service workers are in the particular position where, in many cases, they cannot remove themselves from the situation. Not only can they not remove themselves from the physical scene, they often cannot remove themselves from the presence of and must be as near as possible to the perpetrator, because the perpetrator often requires continuing emergency attention. That puts people who do this work in a very particular situation and at particular risk.
I will be pleased to see the Bill becoming law, but we should not mislead ourselves that this is the job done. We have all received briefings from various places, and I am grateful for all of them, but I received an interesting briefing yesterday from the London Ambulance Service. I was struck by one point in all these briefings. As my noble friend Lady Donaghy said, there is undoubtedly an alarming increase. The statistics that the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, gave us of assaults on police officers were extremely alarming. This means that every police officer on the streets of our communities could expect to be assaulted every fortnight, by my calculation. These are extremely alarming statistics.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Bach that it is impossible to have what you would call accurate statistics about this. But what is not impossible is to have reliable statistics, and I was struck as I read all these statistics by the degree to which they were always qualified about their reliability. In the absence of those data, there is a problem for us in what we are trying to do here. Does not our duty of care to those public servants whom we expose to this risk include at least the obligation, in this day and age, when people are handling data in very imaginative ways for all sorts of things, to provide some methodology for collecting data about risk and incident that is reliable? That would allow us to appreciate not just the generic but the specific scale of the problem, and to understand the trends. That is where our business lies—in changing trends—and it is important to have data that allow us to know, over the course of time, whether what we do here is just symbolic, or whether it actually makes a difference.
That leads me to a couple of points that I want to make, drawing on experience otherwise on these islands. We have the Scottish experience with this particular legislation, over a decade of it. I am obliged and grateful to the Law Society of Scotland, which I encouraged to have a look at this legislation and which produced very quickly, with minimal resources, this helpful briefing, which we all received. I am grateful to it for a number of things. I got it yesterday, so I have not had a chance to go into it in detail, but it is a distillation of some information over a decade of experience of a piece of legislation like this, in a jurisdiction which proportionately should reflect one to 10, and usually does.
The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 contains similar legislative provisions, was passed in 2005 and amended in 2008. Scotland has over a decade of laws like these. So what does it tell us? Table 1 on page 7 of the briefing has figures that demonstrate the rate of prosecution, although it does not demonstrate the rate of conviction—but it indicates to me that, after 10 years or more of this legislation, there have been approximately 250 to 300 concluded prosecutions in Scotland per year. So it does not seem to me to have made a significant impact on what must be the scale of the incidence of this sort of behaviour. I shall not do anything more than draw your Lordships’ attention to that, but it deserves some other study. I shall try between now and other stages of this Bill, if it proceeds from here, to have a look at what those other data reveal—because there are data from other places—and maybe draw some conclusions from that.
My final point is also drawn from the Scottish experience—and I make this short point to my noble friend and the Government. I acknowledge the positive revision that was made to the original version of this Bill in the other place, where additional workers were added. Scotland came back to this in 2008 and added mental health workers, social workers and, interestingly, members of Her Majesty’s Coastguard. So unless this Bill applies as an Act to members of Her Majesty’s Coastguard, we will be in the interesting situation whereby, for a UK service, if you serve in Scotland and are under that jurisdiction you have protection, but if you serve elsewhere, you will not have protection. That may be something that needs to be addressed.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for sponsoring this Bill, and am pleased to contribute to the debate today, taking the welfare of our public service staff seriously.
I understand that in Committee the definition of emergency worker has been extended from its original remit to include all NHS workers and support staff and to prisoner custody officers. The Royal College of Nursing highlights that nursing is an occupational group with a high risk of experiencing work-related violence, which can occur across a variety of settings: emergency departments, prisons, mental health units and the community. The literature tells us that there are 200 attacks on NHS staff daily, and 23 assaults on prison officers every day. However, in reality, as others have said, the figures are likely to be far in excess of those reported.
Others have rightly highlighted the role of alcohol in violence against NHS staff, particularly in the other place, and against paramedics and accident and emergency staff. I would like to expand the discussion to consider drugs—in particular, synthetic cannabinoids, commonly called Spice or Mamba. Following the Psychoactive Substances Act, which outlawed so-called legal highs, the numbers of people using Spice throughout the UK appear to have dropped. However, this is not the case in prisons, where the problem continues to intensify and has been described in media reports as endemic.
Many nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals provide input into prisons, which are increasingly becoming challenging environments in which to work. One psychiatrist I have spoken to, who has worked in both prisons and mental health hospitals, told me of the devastating effects Spice intoxication can have on those who consume it. Many prisoners use Spice for the first time on entering prison. She described a number of cases in which young men who had consumed Spice behaved bizarrely, including throwing themselves on to the netting, assaulted staff and even committed self-harm. Some young men developed psychotic symptoms related to Spice—that is to say, experiencing hallucinations and having paranoid beliefs. These can last for weeks at a time. The physical effects can be frightening; seizures, collapses and vomiting are all common emergency situations that clinical staff are asked to respond to in prison. Staff who are the first responders—often prison officers, nurses and GPs—have been the victim of serious assaults, which often do not lead to prosecution. Staff are also breathing in toxic fumes, and there are numerous examples in the media highlighting staff themselves becoming unwell due to secondary inhalation of smoke.
The Royal College of Nursing highlighted its concerns just last month by writing to Michael Spurr, the chief executive officer of HM Prison and Probation Service, calling on prison bosses to do more to protect nurses and other health workers, whose health is put at risk each day from both direct and indirect effects of the drug. In April, nursing staff were pulled out of Holme House prison due to the risks posed by Spice inhalation. Spice is comparatively cheap in the prison system and is available as a chemical that can be sprayed on to letters and pictures sent via the post. There are still difficulties in detecting it without specially trained sniffer dogs, and standard drug testing does not necessarily pick up all strains.
A holistic approach is needed. In addition to legislating for penalties for those who assault emergency workers, which this Bill sets out, focus also needs to be on recovery-oriented and integrated substance misuse services to young people and prisoners, coupled with support on release. It is vital that criminal sanctions go hand in hand with violence prevention. There must be robust systems for screening and violence reduction. It should be incorporated into training and development; staff should be equipped with the skills and confidence to de-escalate situations where violence may occur and know how to break away if an incident regrettably happens and they need to protect themselves.
What happens after a violent event to staff in terms of reporting incidents of violence and the support given to victims of violence in these situations? As others have mentioned, assaults are underreported, and there are many reasons for this. Research has indicated that there are many barriers to reporting, including high workload and little time, frequent occurrence of violent events, and ethical conflicts about reporting a patient.
Worryingly, there is also evidence that staff are concerned about a blame culture in which they will be seen as provoking the violence and an endemic view that violence is “just part of the job”. Employers’ responsibility to support employees in such circumstances cannot be overemphasised. I am fully supportive of the Bill, but also ask whether a better long-term solution would be to have mental health services accessible to many of the perpetrators much more quickly. We should recognise that we do not even hold waiting lists for most mental health problems.
This Bill is about respect for emergency workers and this is highly commendable. However, I want to emphasise that, in a climate where the UK is calling out for health professionals and we are struggling to recruit and retain staff, there needs to be adequate training and robust support for NHS staff and other emergency workers when an incident occurs. Do the Government plan to introduce a duty on the employer to assist employees who are going to give evidence in court against their assailants, which is often a time of anxiety for victims? Why are they so often left on their own, with only union support? I am also concerned that, should an assault occur, assailants should be held responsible for their actions and not be able to lay blame on service inadequacies by saying that they were not appropriately dealt with and thus not accountable for their actions. Will the Government re-emphasise to the Department of Health that there is a duty on employers to ensure that staff have the relevant CPD to prevent aggression; to provide safe environments for those who they care for; and to provide support for staff when violence occurs, having first taken every possible preventative measure?
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I too echo the thanks of the House to my noble friend Lady Donaghy for bringing forward this Bill and to my honourable friends Chris Bryant and Holly Lynch for their work on these measures in the House of Commons. I remind the House of my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Policing and Security; my chairmanship of the National Crime Agency’s Independent Reference Group; and my past close association with the Metropolitan Police service. Some 20 years ago, I was also a non-executive director of the London Ambulance Service.
This is a timely and important Bill. With, perhaps, one exception, it has had general support around the House. It is not another example of grade inflation in court sentences; it recognises that a gap in the law exists. That is what we want to see addressed. I recently looked at some citations of those who have been nominated for the police bravery awards which will be given out in a couple of weeks’ time. I will pick out two of them at random, because they spell out what we expect from our police officers. The first is about Sergeant Richard Pettican of South Yorkshire Police:
“As he tried to apprehend a car theft suspect, he was repeatedly punched in the head. He fell to the ground and tried to grab the man, but a scuffle ensued and he was assaulted again. The man took the officer’s handcuffs and used them as a knuckle duster to repeatedly hit Sgt Pettican’s head while he tried to get up to detain the thug. Other officers arrived but not before Sgt Pettican had been repeatedly hit by the offender. Sgt Pettican received several deep cuts and bumps to his head and body which were swollen, with the cuts needing staples to close them”.
Another is Police Constable David Bull of Derbyshire Police. He spotted a man who was wanted for murder in a secluded alleyway, and gave chase:
“Once caught, the man struggled violently—
—perhaps not surprisingly—
“and threw PC Bull’s radio to stop him requesting help. PC Bull was then assaulted, causing him to fall to the floor injuring his wrist and knee … PC Bull was determined to keep hold of the suspect. He realised that his only chance of getting help would be to pull the man into a garden and hope he could be heard. He managed this and fortunately someone came to his aid … recovering PC Bull’s radio so he could raise assistance”.
The significant point is that:
“Despite his many injuries PC Bull returned for duty the following day, bandaged and bruised”.
Those are just two examples of exceptional police officers doing what we expect them to do: tackling violent criminals and trying to arrest them, doing what we expect them to do; running towards danger, and doing what we expect them to do.
Those were obviously higher-risk situations, but I am concerned that assaults against emergency workers are almost routine. Statistics from the Metropolitan Police show that last year there were some 2,000 physical injuries as a result of assault. That is about five per 1,000 police officers. Over 40 of those injuries were sufficiently significant to be reported to the Health and Safety Executive. The statistic which sums up why this legislation fills the gap between the more serious assaults and others which might not otherwise come before the courts is the 232 incidents last year when officers were spat at. These are, of course, only the incidents where the officers reported being spat at and it is recorded, rather than it being seen, alas, as all too routine.
I am not convinced that this is a new phenomenon, nor one that is necessarily rising. I was recently shown what purports to be—I am assured it is authentic—an 1829 recruitment leaflet for the Metropolitan Police, which states:
“You must be aged 23 to 40 years of age … You will be paid 17 shillings per week …Your working hours will be eight, ten or twelve hour shifts, seven days a week. No rest days are allowed and only one week holiday per annum, unpaid”.
While I understand the pressure that police officers are under today, it is not quite of that order, although in some instances I am aware of extraordinary sacrifices. I was also interested in this statement:
“Every encouragement will be given to grow beards, as shaving is regarded as unhealthy. However, beards must not exceed two inches in length”.
Apart from the age restriction, I might have qualified. The leaflet also says:
“Uniform will be worn at all times to prevent accusations of spying on the public whilst in ordinary clothes”.
The sentence which struck my eye in the context of this debate was:
“You must expect a hostile reception from all sections of the public and be prepared to be assaulted, stoned or stabbed in the course of your duties”.
We do not have the statistical evidence, so I am not sure whether this is a rising trend, a stable one or anything else. What has changed is, first, that we are more aware of what happens because it is slightly better recorded now than in was in 1829. Secondly, society’s attitudes to what is acceptable have begun to shift. The people who we rely on to provide care and support and to deal with emergencies are precisely the ones who we should have the highest duty of care towards. That is what the Bill is all about.
I can understand, if you like, the attitude that someone who is drunk and aggressive may have towards a police officer who is trying to spoil their fun. I am not condoning it or saying that is a reason, but you can at least understand it. What I find really surprising are the statistics that I have seen from the London Ambulance Service about the level of assaults on ambulance workers. There are about 3,000 front-line ambulance crews in London, but the level of assaults in the last year—2017-18—was 477. That is about one in six ambulance crew members being assaulted. Of those, 82 were spat at—that is one in 30. I look around your Lordships’ Chamber and there are more than 30 noble Lords in the Chamber this morning—not bad, incidentally, for a Friday morning. That is the ratio that people in ambulance crews—who are going to save lives, taking people to hospital—seem routinely to have to expect. I think that is very serious. We should not condone the fact that, of the 477 incidents recorded, 313 involved intoxication of the assailant from alcohol and/or drugs. The interesting figure is not so much the 313 who were intoxicated, but all the others who still thought it was appropriate to spit at the ambulance crews.
I think of those paramedics who arrived on London Bridge four minutes after the first emergency call, before the terrorists were shot dead by the police—who also arrived with remarkable speed and accuracy. I think about them putting their lives at risk for the safety of the public and then, in their normal duties, facing these sorts of things. That is why this Bill is important. We should value our emergency services and recognise that it is they who run towards danger. They do so on our behalf and we should express our appreciation for them.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I, too, would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for sponsoring this Bill and to say how good it is to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. As he alluded to, he has been very closely associated with policing and the other emergency services for decades, and we should place considerable weight on the evidence that he has presented to us. I of course should declare an interest: I was a police officer for over 30 years. To take up the theme that the noble Lord started on whether things have changed, I would say that some things have changed and some things, sadly, are very similar to those that I experienced when I joined the Metropolitan Police in the mid-1970s—I tell people I joined when I was seven, but that is not quite true.
In the mid-1970s, the best piece of protective equipment that we as police officers had was between our ears: you could usually talk your way out of most problems. That is not the case today. I remember that there was a dance hall on the Holloway Road and, every Friday and Saturday night, at about 1 am, when the dance hall closed, some of the people who were inside came out and inevitably started fighting on the pavement. Tempers that had been boiling up inside spilled out on to the street. We would sit in our panda car and wait for the inevitable to happen, then get out of the car, shout “Police!”, and everybody would stop. We would go up to the ringleaders, arrest them, and they would come very quietly with us back to the police station for fighting in the street. Nowadays, those combatants are far more likely to turn on the officers than they are to come quietly, as happened in my day.
There is a real issue, not just with the level of sentencing but the attitude of the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts towards assaults. Even when I was still in the police service, some years ago now, there were often very clear, by definition of the law, assaults occasioning actual bodily harm—“Section 47s”—or even very clear grievous bodily harm or wounding offences, which the Crown Prosecution Service downgraded to Section 47s or to common assaults. Courts presented with the lower offence would sentence appropriately. So this tolerance of violence in society is also a tolerance of violence even in the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts, and in my opinion it should not be there. It is not part of the job—as it may have been at the formation of the Metropolitan Police Service—to expect emergency workers to be assaulted as part of carrying out their duties.
Police officers in particular place themselves in harm’s way while the rest of us are able to stand aside. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, said, spitting in the face of police officers and other emergency workers is a particularly disgusting and increasingly prevalent type of assault that needs to be tackled through this sort of legislation, bearing in mind that there is usually no injury, as such, caused by that behaviour. Of course, over the years there has been an erosion of respect for authority generally and a lack of respect—or a falling away of respect—for those in uniform. But it is time for us as politicians to stand up for our uniformed services, our emergency services. Running down the police service, for example, may be politically expedient, but it has an impact in terms of the respect that members of the public have for the police service. We have seen some of that in the change in the volume of assaults taking place.
In April 1981, on my day off, on a Saturday, I went into Brixton, collected 10 random officers from across London and six plastic shields and went into the Brixton riots. A number of cars and buildings had been set alight and the fire brigade obviously had been called in to extinguish them because, in some cases, life was at risk. Some of the people engaged in those riots turned on the firefighters and started stoning and throwing petrol bombs at them. Our job was to go in and clear the streets to enable the fire brigade to do its job. So, again, these sorts of attacks on other emergency service workers are not a new thing, but they are increasingly prevalent.
Only on Wednesday this week, an ambulance crew was called to a 13 year-old girl in cardiac arrest in Eastleigh, Hampshire. It was a false call and an ambush. The ambulance crew was attacked with bricks, chairs and bottles by the attackers who had lain in wait. What sort of society are we in that diverts a life-saving ambulance crew simply to ambush and attack it? That is why we need this legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, a cultural shift is needed away from tolerance of violence in society—and, in my opinion, in the CPS and the courts.
I have some sympathy with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. We have to get away from continuing sentence inflation. If my noble friend on these Benches who leads on justice were here, he would agree largely with what the noble and learned Lord said. But prison is an entirely appropriate place for violent people who pose a threat to society—and those who assault emergency workers pose such a threat, not just because they are evidently violent but because, in assaulting those people charged with preventing violence or tending to victims, they are adding to society’s culture of violence, and that is unacceptable. I agree with the noble and learned Lord that increases in maximum sentences do not necessarily result in the courts increasing sentences. However, as I have repeatedly said, the CPS and the courts need to be in no doubt how seriously legislators take these issues, and they must take them seriously as well.
I have to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, who said that most of the assaults on emergency workers are committed by people who are either drunk or under the influence of drugs. I was a police inspector and had a very young and inexperienced constable with me, and we were called to a woman who had been very badly beaten up by her male partner to the extent that we had to call an ambulance. We decided to call for assistance before approaching him—but unfortunately, he approached us. There was a violent struggle and we ended up on the floor, the probationer holding the man’s legs while I was trying to pin his arms down on the floor, and he was so strong that he was pushing me up to try to escape from us. That was a deliberate assault on police that was not to do with drugs or drink. He was a violent individual. In those cases—our injuries were only minor—we need this sort of sentencing power for the courts to punish those individuals for that sort of attack.
The noble Baroness, Lady Watkins of Tavistock, talked about the new psychoactive substance Spice. I will say only that the irony is that Spice was designed as a legal replacement for the illegal drug cannabis, yet it is far more dangerous and creates far more psychosis than the drug it was designed to replace. Despite the Psychoactive Substances Act, possession of Spice except in prison is still legal, yet the less harmful substance, cannabis, is not. Our drugs laws are in a mess.
The Police Federation—I am grateful to it for meeting me yesterday—tells me that in a recent case, an officer from Essex Police was assaulted while making an arrest, and the assailant broke the officer’s arm. He was charged with resisting arrest and was fined £20. In what way is that a deterrent?
We on these Benches see these as exceptional circumstances. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, said, emergency workers cannot remove themselves from violent situations. They cannot walk away or turn the other cheek. If a police officer does not arrest someone for spitting in their face, the next time there is a confrontation that person is likely to punch an officer in the face, and the time after that stab them in the ribs. We support the Bill.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I put on record how much I support the Bill and thank my noble friend Lady Donaghy for sponsoring it as it begins its passage through the House of Lords. I apologise to the House and in particular to my noble friend Lady Donaghy for being a minute late and so arriving after the start of her contribution. I can say to the House that I now know how the noble Lord, Lord Bates, felt—although, whether it will please the House or not, I am not planning a Dispatch Box resignation today. I also thank my friend in the other place, Chris Bryant MP, who introduced the Bill last year with cross-party support.
This is a small, four-clause Bill that would introduce a new offence of common assault or battery against an emergency worker. This would be triable summarily in the magistrates’ court or on indictment in the Crown Court, leading to maximum prison terms on conviction in the magistrates’ court of six months and in the Crown Court of 12 months, and/or a fine in either court. It is of course regrettable that we have to even consider bringing such legislation forward. I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, that this is a sad reflection of the society we live in today.
Later in my speech I will refer to cases where emergency services workers, police officers, firefighters and other professionals have been spat on, kicked, punched and sexually assaulted when carrying out the duty of their chosen profession and keeping the public safe. It is disgusting, disgraceful, and totally out of order, and it is right that Parliament acts to update our legislation and deliver what I think the overwhelming majority of the British public want: to see the people in the various professions I have outlined protected from the abuse and assault that they risk every day they walk out wearing a uniform to do their job.
As I have mentioned previously, Clause 1 sets out the new offence. It is welcome that this clause also provides that if the worker is not at work but is carrying out functions which, if done in work time, would have been in the exercise of their role as an emergency worker, they will still have that protection.
Clause 2 creates a statutory aggravating factor that increases the seriousness of the offence on sentencing, which is welcome, as is Clause 6(6), which makes it clear that the courts would not be prevented from treating the fact that an offence has been committed against an emergency worker as an aggravating factor in relation to other offences. It is disappointing that the offence of spitting, which is disgusting, is not at present an aggravating factor. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, can refer to that when she responds. My noble friend Lord Harris also referred to that issue.
Clause 3 sets out what is meant by an emergency worker. The obvious ones are of course police officers, firefighters and NHS workers, but I was pleased to see that the Bill also details other workers who carry out equally important functions, such as prison officers and prison custody officers, who are at great risk of assault on a daily basis. So the scope and meaning of emergency worker has been cast wide, which is to be welcomed, as is the fact that Clause 3(2) makes it clear that it is immaterial whether the employment is paid or unpaid, so special constables, volunteer firefighters, and St John Ambulance and RNLI volunteers would also be afforded the same protection without any question whatever.
I was also pleased to read in Clause 4 that the Bill will come into force two months after becoming law, rather than a Minister being required to bring it or any part of it into force. There is the issue of Section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which my noble friend Lady Donaghy referred to, which gives the power to magistrates to hand down a prison sentence of up to 12 months but has never been commenced, as it can only come into force by order of the Secretary of State as set out in Section 336(3) of that Act. The Labour Government, who brought the Act into effect, never enacted the provision, nor did the coalition Government, and to date the Conservative Government have not chosen to enact it. So all parties that have been in government in recent years have had the opportunity to bring this part of the Act into force but have decided not to do so. There may be good reason for that, as the section may be viewed as too broad. That could have a disproportionate effect on the prison population, which is already at record numbers, and in turn that does not always lead to good outcomes, as rehabilitation is the key and we want to see the rate of offending brought down. Where shown to be working well, community punishments, payback and work programmes have their right and proper place in the criminal justice system. I therefore very much see the point the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, made in his contribution.
Having said that, this is a special case, for the reasons outlined by many noble Lords in their contributions today. The Bill is very specific, focusing on a specific group of workers, who do some difficult and challenging jobs, and who need our support. These jobs need to be done to protect the public, save lives and to keep us all safe, and these workers need protecting so that if they are assaulted, the perpetrator on conviction is very likely to be sent to prison. Therefore, in responding to the debate, can the noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, state the Government’s position on enacting Section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act, which would give magistrates the power to send a person to prison for up to 12 months?
In preparing for this speech today, I have received some excellent briefings from UNISON, the London Fire Brigade, the London Ambulance Service, the Police Federation and others, and I thank them all very much for that. Today, we have heard examples of appalling assaults. The London Ambulance Service listed 534 assaults on ambulance crews in 2016-17, with a least one member of its staff assaulted every single day, and that is on top of the verbal abuse that staff in emergency control rooms take while dealing with emergency calls. I was shocked to learn that the London Ambulance Service issues stab-proof vests to all front-line staff. That is a terrible indictment of where we have got to and shows the lack of respect for people carrying out an important function—dealing with people who are in distress and injured, sometimes very seriously.
Looking more widely at NHS staff, according to available NHS trust data, there were 56,435 assaults in 2016-17. When extrapolated to cover the NHS in England, that suggests just over 200 reported physical assaults every day, and that is just reported assaults. Unison, the trade union that has thousands of members working in the NHS, has a number of case studies which highlight the abuse its members have received. One of the most tragic was psychiatric nurse John, who, having been subjected to assaults at work, developed PTSD. He ended up himself being sectioned at a local mental hospital and, while there, he took his own life. The subsequent inquest into his death found that the assaults he had suffered during his occupation had played a material part in his decision to take his own life. That is truly tragic.
I was also dismayed to learn of the attacks on firefighters. I have been told of an incident in Yorkshire where fireworks were thrown into the cab of a fire engine when it arrived to attend to a fire on bonfire night. Fireworks are explosives and you have to be a complete idiot to throw them at anyone. There is no excuse for such behaviour.
The London Fire Brigade provided me with information about an incident last year in which firefighters, on attending a blaze, came under attack from 20 youths throwing fireworks at them. One of the fireworks hit a firefighter on his shoulder. It then bounced off his shoulder and got inside his helmet. It exploded next to his ear and caused extensive damage to his ear and his hearing. As a result, that firefighter is still not yet back at work. Again, that is a terrible tragedy. The Bill seeks to provide further protections to all emergency service workers and it has my full support.
There is one group of emergency service workers whose more regular customers are not always pleased to see them, and that is of course the police, who uphold the laws that we pass in this House and the other place. In recent months I have spent time with the Metropolitan Police under the Police Force Parliamentary Scheme and it has proved to be an invaluable experience for me. The most challenging times were the three shifts I spent with the police in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. I was shocked at the abuse directed at the police on every single shift I was on. It was vile verbal abuse that no one should have to put up with, and it was often worse when directed at the women officers. It was abuse about their appearance and was truly horrid and disgusting.
As we have heard, the Home Office estimates that there were 24,000 assaults on police officers in England and Wales, but the data collected by the Police Federation suggests that there were more than 2 million unarmed physical assaults on officers over 12 months and a further 302,842 assaults using a deadly weapon over the same period. Those figures suggest that an assault against an officer happens every two minutes. The figures from the Home Office and the Police Federation are very different. I have not seen how either set of figures has been collected or what is considered to constitute an assault, for which they may be using completely different data. Of course, the Home Office figures are reported assaults but not all assaults are reported, which might explain some of the difference between the figures, as my noble friend Lord Bach mentioned.
The Bill proposes a maximum sentence of 12 months but of course, unless Section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act is commenced, the maximum sentence in magistrates’ courts can be only six months. An early guilty plea would result in a third of the sentence being taken off, so the maximum sentence handed down by a magistrate would be four months. Of those four months, only two would actually be spent inside—that is, eight weeks—and the other two months would be served on licence.
Of course, if it is an either-way case and goes to a Crown Court, the sentence can be up to a year, but we must question the deterrent effect of the proposals as the Bill is currently drafted. Can the noble Baroness, in responding to the debate, address the issue of increasing the sentence for offences to 24 months as opposed to the 12 months currently in the Bill, and will she also agree to meet me and members of the Police Federation with officials from the Ministry of Justice to explore this? Even if the Government are not prepared to agree to a sentence of 24 months, what can be done with the sentencing guidelines and other directions that can be given to the courts on the appropriate way to treat these offences? I ask that particularly in respect of police officers but prison officers, too, I am sure, face similar challenges in their work.
I welcome the Bill but with the regret that in today’s society we need to have such legislation on the statute book. However, that is a matter for another debate on another day. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s reply on this important Bill and, in particular, her response to the points I have made about the police. I hope that she will agree to a meeting at a future date. Finally, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Donaghy on bringing forward this Bill and I wish it every success.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for introducing this Bill and all noble Lords for their contributions today. We must also thank Chris Bryant, and the tens of thousands who took part in his poll, for getting the Bill to where it is today. I hope that we can give it a fair wind through your Lordships’ House as it heads towards the statute book.
In the past few months, we have marked a year since the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower and the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, including the murder of Police Constable Keith Palmer outside this very building. These events are a sobering reminder of how much our emergency workers do to protect us.
However, their bravery and commitment is not demonstrated solely by such major incidents; each and every day emergency workers across the country show remarkable courage simply by carrying out their work, examples of which were set out very vividly by the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Paddick. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked us to imagine a day without them. Indeed, just imagine.
I thank my noble friend Lord Wasserman for pointing me towards #ProtectTheProtector, which highlights just some of the cases of violence towards emergency workers—assaults that happen every day. Whether it is paramedics saving lives in A&E, police officers working to keep us safe, members of the fire service fighting some of the most daunting public disasters, or prison officers working out of sight of the public eye with some of society’s most dangerous and troubled individuals, all our emergency workers deserve to have their significant contribution to public life recognised.
Although the very nature of the work done by our emergency staff frequently puts them in potentially dangerous situations, we should be clear that an attack on these workers while they are carrying out their critical work is a particularly heinous crime. We need to ensure that our laws and the penalties for breaking them adequately reflect this, and that is why the Government are supporting the Bill today.
For some time now, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have been working together to gather evidence about what is happening on the ground, looking at what more we can do to protect emergency workers. Most noble Lords have quoted statistics from a range of sources, so I shall not repeat them, but none of them should make us as a nation feel proud. Indeed, it is a terrible reflection on our society, as noted by my noble friend Lord Wasserman.
The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and the noble Lords, Lord Bach and Lord Kennedy, mentioned that there might be a problem with under-reporting. We hope that by providing the targeted offence in this Bill, victims will be encouraged to report assaults. The Bill will, subject to your Lordships’ agreement, have a real impact in responding to these attacks. We estimate that there will be approximately 15,000 prosecutions of the new offence per year. I should make it clear to noble Lords that these may not be new offences but offences that would otherwise have been tried under other existing laws. The Government could not be clearer: the prevalence of these assaults will not be tolerated. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, mentioned, emergency workers should have the right to carry out their work without fear of assault. Those who are violent towards our emergency workers must be prosecuted and must receive an appropriate penalty. That is what this Bill seeks to do.
The Bill represents a truly cross-party effort. There have been several significant changes since its introduction last summer, and these have been the result of a great deal of collaboration between the Government and the honourable Member for Rhondda. It is testament to this non-partisan approach that the changes that have been made further strengthen the Bill. It has been my pleasure to meet many noble Lords ahead of today’s debate, and I know that there is a desire to make rapid progress on this Bill. As I said, the Bill has evolved following extensive cross-party collaboration in the other place. I would therefore urge noble Lords to support the Bill as its stands so that our emergency workers can get the additional protections they are very clearly asking for.
I turn now to the Bill itself. The first clause creates a new form of assault where it is carried out against an emergency worker in the exercise of their functions. An offence committed in these circumstances will have, on indictment, a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment, which is double the current maximum penalty for common assault. The Government believe that this increased penalty will allow the courts to sentence in a way that better reflects the circumstances of the assault and the victim.
There has been some discussion of spitting. I can confirm that spitting is indeed an assault and can be prosecuted as such.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, raised concerns that sentences handed down by the magistrates’ court may not in some circumstances be appropriate given current custom and practice. I would be very happy to meet him and the Police Federation to discuss what steps we can take to ensure that certain more serious offences are dealt with appropriately.
Some argue that this increased penalty of 12 months is still not sufficient. However, I must stress that the incidents we are talking about are those that would otherwise be charged as common assault. These are assaults which may not involve any injury and can amount to a push or a fear of injury. The maximum penalty must be proportionate to the nature of the assault. If the assault is more serious, it should properly be charged as either actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm. These offences already have a maximum five-year penalty.
The second clause sets out the aggravating factor. For these more serious offences, which include actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm, manslaughter and sexual assault, the Bill places a duty on the court to consider such an assault when committed against an emergency worker in the exercise of their functions as an aggravating factor in sentencing. This builds on the requirement in the sentencing guidelines and ensures that, for example, an assault causing actual bodily harm may be considered as more serious when committed against an emergency worker, and may therefore merit a more significant penalty. This provides a clear and unequivocal direction to the court to treat these offences more seriously. I should note, however, that the sentencing guidelines already enable judges to impose more significant sentences for those attacking public sector workers.
Clause 3 provides a definition of an emergency worker for the purposes of the Bill. I am pleased to be able to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, that this definition makes no distinction between those who are paid and those who are unpaid. For example, volunteers such as St John Ambulance medics working to support the provision of NHS services are essentially acting as emergency workers and would be covered by the Bill, and volunteers for the RNLI or Mountain Rescue would be covered under the search-and-rescue category. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Browne, that the coastguard is also covered. In arriving at this definition, considerable thought has been given to ensuring that the Bill focuses on those workers who are at the front line of emergency response and whose day-to-day work routinely puts them in danger as they deal with challenging circumstances and with challenging people. I believe that the definition of emergency worker in the Bill as it currently stands is as it should be. It makes no distinction between being on duty and being off duty, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy: a firefighter who is off duty but finds himself or herself having to deal with a fire would indeed be covered.
What the Bill is not about is assaults against these workers in any circumstances—in other words, when a worker is not acting in the exercise of their functions as such a worker—however regrettable and reprehensible such attacks may be. These offences will continue to be dealt with under the law for assault as it currently stands, as for any other member of the law-abiding public.
I turn now to the specific points raised by noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, mentioned the provisions to increase the maximum penalties handed down in magistrates’ courts. I am sure noble Lords will agree that that is a complex issue and goes far beyond the potential new offences being discussed today. I assure noble Lords that the Government keep this issue under review, but we currently have no plans to commence the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, raised the important issue of prison overcrowding. It was my pleasure to respond for the Government to the debate on prison overcrowding, and the Government of course take this point on board. We must consider carefully the maximum penalties for various offences. However, that cannot mean stopping all penalty increases immediately, and I hope the noble and learned Lord will agree that in this case it is justified. On the other hand, the Government are looking across the piece at ways to reduce short-term prison sentences and increase judicial confidence in community sentences, with or without treatment orders. Custodial sentences should be a last resort. I reassure my noble friend Lord Wasserman that, in some cases under this Bill, community sentences will be appropriate. As was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, treatment for drug addiction and mental health problems may also be necessary. I recognise also her comments about support for workers and access to mental health services. I will ensure that the Health Minister, my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy, is aware of her comments, and I will certainly write to her with more information.
On a final note—
Lord Browne of Ladyton
I am grateful to the Minister for allowing this intervention before she reaches her peroration. She suggested that the Government’s estimate is that there will be 15,000 prosecutions under this Bill when it is enforced as an Act. Frankly, that flies in the face of the Scottish experience, where the figure is more than 80% less than that. I do not expect the Minister to share all the detail of this but will she undertake to publish the methodology by which this estimate has been reached so that it can be tested? How much of it will be displacement of what would otherwise have been prosecuted? That would give us some opportunity to estimate the worth of this approach.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank the noble Lord for his comment and I will certainly do what I can to unpick the figure of 15,000. My understanding is that much of it will be the displacement of existing assault offences under Section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act and assault on a police constable offences under Section 89 of the Police Act 1996.
On a final note, I would like to discuss one particular group of emergency workers who are included in this Bill: prison officers. In doing so, I would like to share my experience. Several months ago, I visited Her Majesty’s Prison Brixton. I was very well looked after by a prison officer called John Melhuish. He showed me round the wing, introduced me to a group of prisoners who I chatted with, and generally made me feel very welcome and made sure that my visit went smoothly. I wrote to thank him for the visit and for the work that he does every day. Mr Melhuish wrote back to say thank you for the thank you, because prison officers do not get very many. It is therefore my great pleasure to say a public thank you to all of them today.
Prison officers are the unsung heroes of emergency workers. They operate out of sight but they should never be out of mind. They respond to some of life’s most serious crises and emergencies involving some of society’s most challenging people. As the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, explained so vividly, they do so in a very challenging environment. The courage of prison officers in these situations is remarkable. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, pointed out is true for emergency workers in general, prison officers cannot simply remove themselves from the scene. I would like to recognise this today and to state once again that we welcome the Bill on behalf of all the emergency services, including on behalf of prison officers. I again thank all those who have brought the Bill this far. I commend the many staff associations that have been working hard to push these issues to the fore—the Police Federation, the Prison Officers’ Association and many others.
I cannot agree with my noble friend Lord Wasserman that this Bill is derisory. It is reasonable and proportionate. The protection of our emergency workers affects us all. This sentiment has been reflected in the strength of the cross-party support and collaboration that has gone into the drafting of the Bill. It is this cross-party energy that has resulted in the Bill as it stands. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, said, it is almost perfectly formed.
I urge Members of your Lordships’ House to support the Bill in its current form so that we can swiftly deliver the legal changes that our front-line emergency workers deserve.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, when the Minister addressed the comments of my noble friend Lord Browne on covering RNLI workers on the coast, she assumed that that would cover such workers in Scotland. Clause 4(1) of the Bill states:
“This Act extends to England and Wales only”.
Perhaps the Minister will write to me and clarify that.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I will write to the noble Lord and clarify my comments.
Baroness Donaghy
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and take the opportunity to thank all our emergency services for the work that they do.
It is clear from the wide-ranging discussions that we could have separate debates in this Chamber on issues such as employers’ duties of care, prevention and support, sentencing policy, prison population and alternatives to prison, the effectiveness of our legislation, where most of it lies on the table not enacted, mental health services and the state of our society in tolerating violence. However, the Bill is about a small, focused and specific part of the subject and it is a Bill as opposed to a general debate. I therefore deliberately focused on the issues in the Bill.
I am grateful to the Minister for her responses, including clarifying the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, about volunteers. I understand and agree with some of the reservations expressed about whether the Bill is symbolic rather than making a difference; whether it will reinforce impunity; and whether in the scheme of all the other problems about prison sentencing it will make a difference. I understand those reservations.
However, sometimes the moment has to be grasped—not only in responding to public opinion but to the impetus in this House and the other House that we will not accept any more violence against emergency workers—and that time has come.
It is a responsibility of government to pursue a multitrack approach on all of the issues raised in the debate. The Bill is not an attempt to make that multitrack approach, nor is it its responsibility to do so, and I hope noble Lords will respect its limitations. I hope it is much more than symbolic and I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill
Monday 16th July 2018
(6 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 27 April 2018 - (27 Apr 2018)
Baroness Donaghy
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill
Tuesday 24th July 2018
(6 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 27 April 2018 - (27 Apr 2018)
Royal Assent
Thursday 13th September 2018
(6 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 27 April 2018 - (27 Apr 2018)