Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last but never least, Mr Chris Bryant.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Emergency workers are there to protect all of us, so an attack on an emergency worker is an attack on us all. Surely the law should therefore come down heavily on any assailant. Will the Home Secretary confirm for the avoidance of doubt that the Government will support my private Member’s Bill on Friday? Will she ensure that magistrates understand that, when they say that police officers and other emergency workers should have to put up with a certain amount of violence in their jobs, that is completely untrue? We should protect the protectors.

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman will know, certainly if he listened to the Home Secretary’s conference speech, that the Government are extremely supportive of the spirit of his Bill and included such measures in our manifesto. Any drama around the Government’s accepting the principle of his Bill is therefore of his manufacturing, as he well knows from our conversations. We want to support the Bill because we want to send the strongest possible signal that assaulting emergency workers is intolerable and anyone who does that should feel the full weight of the law. As with all private Members’ Bills, there will be detail to work through, but he knows that we support the principle of his Bill, on which we congratulate him.