Protections for Emergency Service Workers

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve

under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing this debate and on making such a powerful case in support of our emergency workers. This cause could really unite the people of our country. In seeking to protect those who protect us, our emergency service workers are among the finest in our society, and I am sure that Members from right across the House will join me in thanking them.

I have had the great pleasure, as I am sure have many Members across the House, of visiting my local teams, including the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, our firefighters, our NHS hospital services and West Yorkshire police and its training centre. I have been on patrol with local officers on a number of occasions, and often they help the most vulnerable in society at their time of greatest need. I have been shocked every time I have been out on patrol by how many call-outs were for people with severe mental health issues.

Emergency service workers face the most extraordinary pressures daily, and we ask so much of them. They often face appalling levels of abuse. In West Yorkshire last year, we had some shocking statistics. In 2019-20, some 2,185 assaults on West Yorkshire police were recorded in Leeds and the wider region, up 15% from the previous year. I am sure that colleagues across the House agree that any abuse is unacceptable. It should not become part of their job to face such abuse and violence from those whom they protect. I believe that the Government get that and understand that this situation is unsustainable. It is our job, our duty as policy makers, to find a solution and put an end to this trend and protect emergency workers. I have raised the issue with the Home Secretary, and I believe that there is strong understanding in Government of what needs to be done. I welcome the Government’s sentencing White Paper, “A Smarter Approach to Sentencing”, which includes proposals to increase the maximum penalty for assaulting an emergency worker from 12 months to two years’ imprisonment.

The law is ultimately moral, and as a society we should say that there is fundamental justice in abuse or violence against our emergency service workers resulting in the strongest sentence possible. I reiterate my support for what my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South said, and I continue to support the Government in bringing this injustice to an end. We must protect those who protect us and thank them for all they do in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Gibson]

It is a pleasure to continue serving under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I was speaking of temporary Chief Inspector Chris Knox of County Durham police. Chris said to me:

“It is imperative that the law protects officers because every day we are expected to protect the public and we need the government to back changes”.

[Andrea Jenkyns]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is pretty bad form for the shadow Minister in Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition to be scoring political points while Members are making their speech? Surely, on an issue as important as this, we should be united across the House.

[Peter Gibson]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She makes an important point about the scoring of political points during the national pandemic that we are facing.

In my regular discussions with the chief executive of the North East Ambulance Service, Helen Ray, she has highlighted to me the fact that her colleagues want to see community sentences handed down to assailants that are served in the service that they committed the offence against. That would ensure that punishment was restitutional and perpetrators fully appreciated the impact of their offences on the people who risk their lives serving us. It is unacceptable that, in the course of this year, there have been more than 1,600 assaults on ambulance staff and more than 2,000 cases of verbal abuse.

We must do more to protect our emergency services. We must do more to prevent assaults on emergency services. And we must do more to ensure that the punishment fits the crime.