Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 27th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[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.

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[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.

[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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It is therefore much better for us to communicate again to public health professionals through Public Health England that there is close to zero risk of transmission through spitting, to communicate that to police officers so that they do not form this anxiety and take these drugs unnecessarily, and, above all, to communicate to the people who are spitting that what they are doing is disgusting and trivial but in no way harmful to health. On that basis, we will take away their attempt to communicate terror through this particularly revolting action. We strongly support the removal of these clauses from the Bill.

[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.”