Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Judith Cummins Excerpts

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

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. I am not entirely sure that they would be. If that is the case, we will make sure in Committee, when I have taken a bit more legal advice, that they are included, because it would be bizarre in the extreme if they were not. PCSOs in my constituency are an absolutely vital part of the equation of community policing, and we should afford them exactly the same protection.

I should say that I have had an awful lot of conversations with Ministers over the last few weeks about the Bill, which has been a delight, and I am not entirely convinced that we yet have the definition of an emergency worker in the Bill right, because some people who work in the NHS who should be included would not be. I have talked to Ministers, and they are absolutely clear that we will put that right in Committee, so I hope both the elements I have mentioned can be put right in Committee.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that those who look after us and keep us safe need protecting with the full force of the law, and that that is the protection his Bill will provide?

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely, and the point is that it needs the full force of the law. All too often, the victims, who work in our emergency services, and who know this area of the law well, have felt that the full force of the law has not been used.

I have cited some statistics, but this is not just about statistics. Last year, Nurse Sharon Morris was attacked in a mental health unit, and it is worth saying that Unison, the trade union, has found that more than two in every five mental health workers have been attacked in the last year. The effect on Sharon’s life was profound. She said:

"I’m not the same calm but confident woman I was. Personally, I’m feeling vulnerable, and I feel I’m not much use to my family as I am on edge whenever we are around people. I have nightmares and flashbacks. The worst part is seeing my assailant’s face superimposed on my eldest son’s face—they are physically similar—and I couldn’t cope with him hugging me for many weeks. I was off sick for three months, and I’m now seeking redeployment away from patient areas; I get anxious around patients, so I’m currently just doing office work.”

In fact, since she said those words, she has moved on to another area of work. That is one of the problems: these assaults are leading to a serious problem in the recruitment and retention of staff.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Judith Cummins Excerpts

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

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for his work on the Bill so far, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch).

I know that time is short, but I wanted to share with the House my own experience. Last year, I joined West Yorkshire fire and rescue service and West Yorkshire police the night before bonfire night, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax and the chair of West Yorkshire fire and rescue service, Councillor Judith Hughes. I was first placed in a pump and then moved to a fire car. The fire car is the unit that responds first to reports of incidents so that those attending can judge whether a pump is needed. We were also checking that bonfires on public land were not causing a hazard. We received many reports over the evening and checked quite a number of neighbourhood bonfires, where we were welcomed.

But there were two incidents where I saw at first hand the danger from attack that our firefighters and police officers face. The first such incident was when we were called to a fire where a mattress had been set alight against the wall of an end-terrace house. The house was down a narrow back road, with access restricted to a single line of traffic, and row after row of houses criss-crossed by unlit back alleys. Attending the incident, I saw the professionalism of our firefighters in assessing the situation. I also saw, when we were on our way back to the car, an officer shine his torch down a dark alley where a number of masked people were moving towards us with what I can only describe as malicious intent. It is not uncommon for a fire to be set with the intention of luring firefighters and police officers into dangerous situations in order to ambush them. That appalling fact will shock us all, and it is a vivid reminder of just how necessary the Bill is.

The second incident occurred when we attended a neighbourhood bonfire. Instead of a bonfire, we found what can only be described as a community burning of rubbish that coincided with bonfire night. There were mattresses, plastic sofas and other hazardous items all set on fire. Stood around the fire were about 20 young people. We were chatting to them, and then when someone threw a firework into the fire, I was promptly ordered back into the car. While we were walking away, we were fired at with rockets placed in plastic tubing. The officer I was with sustained burn injuries across his head. The rockets continued to be launched at us in the car. We escaped without any further injuries, but the situation could have been so much worse.

I was shocked and scared, but that is an everyday occurrence for our firefighters, police officers and emergency workers. In West Yorkshire alone, there were 95 attacks on operational fire crews last year, up from 65 the year before—a shocking 50% increase. West Yorkshire police recorded nearly 2,000 assaults on employees, and there were 840 incidents of verbal and physical abuse against Yorkshire ambulance service staff.

One firefighter told me that his wife never sleeps when he works nights. I asked him what the worst thing that had ever been thrown at him was, and he told me he had once been attacked by youths throwing excrement in glass jars at him and the crew. These, I remind the House, are firefighters—firefighters who have no power of arrest; who time after time run into danger to save lives and protect the public; and who, as the campaign is aptly named, are more than a uniform and deserve our utmost respect and the full protection of our laws. These laws need to be strengthened so that our firefighters and all other emergency workers are properly protected from the attacks they face in the course of their duties, and so that those responsible are brought to justice. I am proud to support the Bill.