Protections for Emergency Service Workers
Debate between Andrea Jenkyns and Peter Gibson(3 years, 6 months ago)
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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.