Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Huw Merriman Excerpts

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

[Chris Bryant]

My original suggestion was that it should be six months on a summary offence and 12 months on an indictable offence, but the Government decided that they would prefer it to be 12 months on either. Because I am in an emollient mood, I decided to go along with the Government. That may be a question for the Government, today or in Committee. There is an argument for holding the Committee stage on the Floor of the House on one of the days that might be empty over the next few weeks, given the legislative programme.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way so many times. He will be aware that the Attorney General can review unduly lenient sentencing for certain offences. I have called for that to be extended to offences against police officers, which the hon. Gentleman has referenced. Will he consider the possibility that, in Committee, the offences in the Bill could be wrapped into that extended power?

[Chris Bryant]

That is a good point, which had not occurred to me. The hon. Gentleman has made a good case for being on the Bill Committee, and that is up to me. The Bill Committee may be growing, however, so we may have to persuade the Government Whips; I have found that if one talks nicely to Government Whips, they are sometimes helpful. We might want to bring Committee or Report to the Floor of the House so that everyone can consider the proposals.

The second thing the Bill does is mirror, in clause 2, the provisions in part 12 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. That Act made any offence aggravated when it was based on hostility to the victim’s race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender nature. That statutory definition of aggravated offences built on the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which stipulated that certain offences would attract longer sentences if they were racially or religiously motivated. So clause 2 of my Bill will put an assault perpetrated against an emergency worker on a legal par with a hate crime, and I think that that is the appropriate way to go. It means that the court must state, in open court, that the crime is so aggravated and must treat as an aggravating factor the fact that the offence was committed in such a way.

Clause 3 defines an emergency worker. Thanks to a glitch, I think the definition is not quite right, and we will want to improve it in Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I congratulate —not thank, because he does not want me to do that—the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for all the work that they do here.

As we have heard, there is currently protection within the law for anybody who is the victim of assault, and protection in the enhanced sentencing regime guidelines for anybody who is carrying out the work of public service, so why do we need to change the law? The NHS England statistics on assaults tell us why. In 2011-12, there were 59,744 assaults on workers in the NHS in England, and that figure rose to 70,555 in 2016. Quite clearly, the law is not working.

Without wanting to take up too much time, I will refer to some of the feedback I have received from the A&E department in the area of east Sussex that I represent. Here are a few examples from just one doctor:

“Held in a room with a patient threatening me with scissors. Punched in the face on my first emergency department job. One of my juniors got held up against the wall by a bloke who called her a slut and spat in her face. Recently threatened by a bloke I was stuck in a room with whilst pregnant. Sure I could think of more.”

There are many similar examples.

That takes me to the point that I would really like the hon. Member for Rhondda to think about in Committee. How much consideration has been given to the question of how many of the 70,555 offences against NHS staff would be covered by the draft legislation? Would they all be covered because they are all within the sphere of emergency services? Do they all count as emergency workers, or are the vast proportion of them outside that sphere, because they work in other wards and non-emergency settings? If they are outside it, I ask the hon. Gentleman whether it would be worth widening the scope of the Bill to extend the protection to non-emergency services so that it covers not just emergency workers, but those who do other, related, healthcare work. If the Bill covers all those who need protection, I will absolutely welcome it.

I recognise that there is a danger of extending the scope so much that it covers practically all public sector workers. We could well end up with additional enhancements for everyone bar lawyers and estate agents—God forbid—in which case we would have lost sight of the original drift. I ask for the Bill to cover hospitals, and to ensure that the NHS is a safe place, because the situation has got out of control, as the figures show. Those who work in the NHS deserve our protection, but the number of assaults on NHS workers show that something has gone wrong. I would like the NHS as a whole to be given this special protection to send a strong message that such assaults will not be tolerated. We must do everything that is necessary to show people that the NHS is a profession in which they will be safe and in which we want them to work.

I would be delighted to work with the hon. Gentleman on the Bill. I absolutely support it, and I look forward to the possibility that the definitions will be widened in Committee to give this protection to even more people.