Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Lyn Brown Excerpts

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

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Well, there we are—that is the secret. I was going to poke some fun at my hon. Friend and say that his constituents must be proud of him, but of course having heard that he canvassed his constituents I am sure that they are actually very proud to see him introducing the Bill today.

I should declare that which a number of colleagues know: I was a member of London fire brigade for 23 years before being elected to this place. During my 13 years as an operational firefighter, the great anomaly was that on 364 days of the year there were always those, young and old, who wanted to come into the station to see the fire engines, but on 5 November we were not always that popular. In my day, there were many fewer organised bonfires and firework displays, and sometimes they needed fire attention and dousing for public protection. In the approach to fireworks season, whether Diwali, which is on now, or Guy Fawkes night, I hope we have a safe period for all celebrating. We have heard too often of fireworks being used as weapons against police, fire and ambulance workers.

I am grateful to the House of Commons Library, the Fire Brigades Union and London fire brigade for their briefings on this debate. The House of Commons Library briefing says, “Prime Minister Nick Hurd”—[Interruption.] Sorry, I meant to say Policing Minister, although some of us see the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) as a future Prime Minister—and the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) has also been mentioned as a prospective future Prime Minister. The House of Commons Library briefing cites the Policing Minister as saying that

“the Government supports the spirit and principle of the Bill, but that ‘there will be detail to work through’.”

Of course that is great news for the whole House, where we have heard positive speeches from Members on both sides indicating that the Bill will pass Second Reading. The briefing goes on to list the number of assaults and attacks, saying that the Home Office estimated that there were 24,000 assaults on police officers in 2016-17 and that the latest bulletin from the Ministry of Justice on safety in prisons in England and Wales says that there were more than 7,000 assaults on prison staff.

On the subject of NHS staff, NHS Protect—which my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda mentioned as being under threat—states that, according to the figures it has collected, more than 70,000 staff were affected in 2015-16.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I was in Moorfields hospital the other day, having had an eye haemorrhage, and as I sat there during the afternoon, three instances came up on the screen of someone being assaulted in one of the cubicles. I think that numbers such as those are grossly under-reported. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My hon. Friend quotes from personal experience, and we have heard anecdotes in other contributions in the Chamber this morning that officers and hospital staff are reluctant to report incidents other than the most serious. Clearly, there seem to be barriers preventing all the assaults that appear to be taking place from being put on record. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I am sure that the Minister will want to comment on it. I am also grateful to her because she gives me the opportunity to mention West Ham. Just as an aside, we need three points against Brighton this evening.

In an intervention on the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), I mentioned that there were no data on attacks against firefighters. Dr Paul Hampton from the Fire Brigades Union has written to me:

“You probably know that data on attacks on firefighters is not published by the Home Office for England (figures are published in Scotland by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service).”

The right hon. Gentleman indicated that there are figures for Wales, and other hon. Members have made that same point. Dr Hampton continues:

“So I think you can make the points about the lack of central government monitoring and under-reporting in the debate.”

That supports the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), and I would be grateful if the Minister commented in his winding-up speech on the absence of data on firefighter assaults in England.

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, made this point:

“It is never acceptable for anyone to go to work and have to put up with verbal abuse or physical assault. Yet that is what fire crews are now facing on a daily basis in some areas of the United Kingdom.”

That was written 10 years ago, and sadly it is still true today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who brings an awful lot of professional experience to the debate, given his career in the fire service. I was particularly interested to hear what he had to say. It would also be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is undoubtedly a canny parliamentarian. He has introduced his Bill with great skill. In my experience, he has always been happy-go-lucky, so I am not at all surprised that he was successful in the ballot. In bringing forward his Bill, he has made sure that he gets the maximum bang for his buck. We have to get the Bill on the statute book.

The hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) has also contributed a lot to the debate and championed this work in the House. For her, and for me, there is a personal dimension to all this. Both my parents were police officers. My dad did 30 years’ service and my mum was a frontline officer until she had me, at which point she gave that up and went to work on the administrative side of the police service. I cannot imagine how I would have felt, when I was growing up, if my mum or dad had come home and told me that they had been assaulted at work. I cannot imagine the sense of anger, upset, bemusement and concern that I would have felt if we had had that discussion at the dinner table on an evening while I was growing up.

[Lyn Brown]

When I was shadow policing Minister, a police officer told me that he used to go home and talk to his children about being very clumsy, because he did not want them to know about the attacks that he had suffered at work.

[Tom Pursglove]

It is just horrendous that anybody should feel that they have to go home after work and try to cover up what has happened so that their children will not be concerned about what mummy or daddy does at work every day.