Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[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.