Safety of Emergency Workers

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Order. To get everybody in, it would be helpful if Members kept their speeches to around five minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for a second time today, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) on securing this important debate. I echo the language from many of my hon. Friends about the volunteers at the RNLI. As my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) put it, those who have sought to intimidate, persecute and penalise the wonderful people who volunteer and their families really are the worst of the worst. We should all pay tribute to the volunteers for their sacrifice, their service and their courage.

I want to speak about some of the circumstances that emergency responders face in my constituency. Safety is not abstract idea there; my constituency is a remote, sparsely populated place, and parts of it are a long way from the nearest responder. A fell runner who breaks their ankle in the countryside near Haltwhistle; a family who is a cut off by flooding; a driver in a wrecked car at 2 o’clock in the morning: for all of them, the first person to arrive is someone who has chosen that job, who has given up their evening, their weekend or their sleep, possibly even for free in some cases. They ask for very little—they only ask that we do not make their jobs more dangerous than they have to be.

The rising violence and abuse that we have seen against emergency service workers in recent years should never a part of the job and should not be something that we tolerate as a society. Assaults on those workers should carry penalties that mean something, and we should consistently assess those sentences and make sure that they remain a complete deterrent to those taking part in them. Employers and the Government must invest in the training, equipment and protection of those workers. The mental health and trauma support that are essential after serious incidents should be prioritised. Staffing shortages are also a danger, because a crew that is stretched and exhausted is a crew that is more likely to be hurt.

The Police Federation tells us that sentences for assaults on emergency workers are often too lenient. The Fire Brigades Union has condemned attacks on crews on Halloween and bonfire night, and rightly says that anyone who targets firefighters on their way to an emergency is putting a whole community at risk. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives report physical assaults on paramedics and care assistants and threats and abuse often linked to alcohol, drugs and mental health crises.

We would not accept it in any other workplace. Every service describes the toll of repeated exposure to traumatic incidents. A paramedic does not forget a critically ill child. A firefighter does not forget a cut-out. A police officer does not forget a serious road collision. We cannot keep asking people to carry the mental and emotional toll of those things and believe that just offering them a leaflet is adequate. Mental health support after those serious incidents should be as routine, as quick and as well funded as anything else.

In Northumberland, we cannot discuss emergencies without discussing the A1; I know that the Minister will not be aware of all the ins and outs of the case, but I would like her to press it with the Department for Transport and the Treasury. The single-carriageway stretches of the A1 in Northumberland have a long and well-documented record of serious collisions; this year alone, there have been 12 deaths on them. I want to see the A1 dualled, and I know that all my hon. Friends from Northumberland do as well. I have worked with all the Northumberland MPs, the North East Mayor and other key stakeholders to press the case, and will continue to do so.

Each one of those collisions has a victim and a family, and we will never forget that, but each one of them also sends emergency responders on to the road: police officers to manage the traffic, firefighters to get people out of vehicles, paramedics to work on the live carriageway, and recovery and highway crews to operate just feet away from passing lorries. The danger on roads like that to people who respond is recognised nationally, especially when there is little room to separate moving traffic from people who are trying to help. Each time they are called out, they are asked to work next to fast-moving vehicles, often in the dark and the wet, and do the worst job of their working week. As I have said, I hope that the Minister can bring up the importance of the A1 to colleagues. The argument around dualling is well rehearsed. Because of the tragedies, the economic benefits and the risk to emergency workers, it is essential that we see that road dualled.

I also pay tribute to firefighters and the Fire Brigades Union. When I meet them, I regularly hear about growing risks in my constituency, from flooding, wildfires and climate-related emergencies to antisocial behaviour-related risks to their team. On bonfire night, Northumberland fire and rescue service control handled 266 emergency calls in 24 hours, and the busiest stretch, between 4 pm and 10 pm, saw crews attend 49 incidents across the county—bonfires, bin fires, road collisions and false alarms—with control staff also helping neighbouring services who were struggling with demand that evening. I pay tribute to them and thank the FBU for its consistent engagement with me since I was elected.

I want to widen this debate to include the mountain rescue service. A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to meet mountain rescue service volunteers in Wylam in my constituency. Northumberland national park mountain rescue and the North of Tyne mountain rescue work in partnership. Between them, they cover about 5,000 square km—all of Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, from the Cheviots to the Tyne bridge. They are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year—they are not paid at all.

They told me that they search for walkers, fell runners and climbers who are overdue or injured, and they search lowland areas for people who are vulnerable or missing from home. They also go into places that statutory services cannot easily reach. After meeting with them, I heard that storage of their equipment is a sharp problem that they have to deal with. Rescue kit is expensive and must be ready at a moment’s notice. I wrote on 30 October—

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Order. Sorry, but I have to stop you there and call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson now.