Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

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

[Chris Bryant]

That is part of the problem that we—and, for that matter, the whole criminal justice system—need to address: all too often, people simply do not feel at the end of the process that they have got justice. When people see those working alongside them not getting justice, with paltry sentences handed down, they of course decide, “I don’t want to have to go through all the grief and the hassle of pressing charges.”

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend—he is my hon. Friend too. Does he agree that there is a real sense of anger and frustration not just among police officers but among other emergency workers when they see people walking out of court with, effectively, a slap on the wrist?

[Chris Bryant]

If it were even a slap on the wrist, that would be nice, but sometimes the punishment is absolutely minimal. It is intrinsic to justice that it has to be seen to be done, and I will come on later to why I think my Bill will make a difference. I know there are people at the criminal Bar who—perhaps out of an excessive loyalty to other lawyers—dislike it whenever we introduce a new offence, but I hope the Bill will make a difference.

Incidentally, it is worth bearing in mind the fact that this year the Welsh ambulance service has listed 114 properties as housing potentially violent people, while another 320 were listed as potentially dangerous. That is this year; in January 2016, only 50 properties were flagged up. In other words, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of places where paramedics feel they are unable to go without police support. That is truly worrying for our society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I intend to speak briefly because I know that many other colleagues want to speak. I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the debate.

I congratulate my good friend the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He is a friend—sometimes, a critical friend—and we have worked well together on numerous issues over the years. It has been particularly good to see the very careful way in which he has sought to garner cross-party support for the Bill. I have been impressed by how he has worked with Ministers to try to refine some of its details. I hope that the Bill will enjoy a successful Second Reading and that we can move forward and work out some of the details in Committee.

I was pleased that the hon. Gentleman asked me to be one of the sponsors of the Bill. I am of course delighted to be in the House today to stand with emergency workers from my constituency of Preseli Pembrokeshire, and from all across the UK, and join in sending what I hope will be a strong signal from the House about how we value them, the esteem in which we hold them and what we intend to do to improve their working lives. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I do not know her well, but she did much of the groundwork for where we are today and a lot of the credit goes to her for the work she has previously done.

The Bill now has Government support. I know from my meetings with the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service and with Justice Ministers that they genuinely desire a serious, useful and practical piece of legislation to put on the statute book to ensure better legal protections for emergency workers. I am impressed by the spirit with which they have responded to the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Rhondda. There is widespread support right across the House for the aims of the Bill and the measures in it.

In researching the aspects of the Bill with which I am less familiar, I have tried to speak to local officers during the past few weeks. I was impressed by the response I received from officers in my constituency and right across the Dyfed-Powys police force area, as well as by representatives of the local branch of the Police Federation. This time last Friday, I was in a meeting with local members of the Police Federation and a number of police officers to talk specifically about the Bill and other matters affecting them, and I was genuinely moved by some of the experiences they shared with me.

Officers do of course train and prepare for potential attacks and assaults. In some ways, that is part of their career and they expect it to happen at some point. The Dyfed-Powys police force area has some of the lowest crime rates anywhere in the country—it is a truly wonderful place to live: we do not have high levels of crime—but what struck me when talking to these officers was the sheer frequency with which assaults occur even in such a police force area.

It is true that all the offences the officers described are already covered in legislation—under the current statute book, it is not considered okay for attacks to happen on emergency workers—but I am nevertheless totally persuaded by the case they made last week, and by the case the hon. Gentleman has made, that our framework of legislation is too weak in this respect. I therefore very much support the Bill’s aim to strengthen the legislation on assaults on emergency workers.

Such assaults often occur when an officer seeks to apprehend a suspect. In one incident in my area, when police officers sought to arrest a man wanted for questioning about a domestic assault, the man drove at them in a tractor. He went on to attack one of them with a long-handled sickle—a sword, basically. He killed the police dog that was with the officer, and the officer narrowly missed being seriously injured. No one should think for a moment that such an incident does not leave a serious and deep mark on all the officers present at the scene.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a very valid point about how brutal and shocking such attacks can be. I want to draw attention to one involving staff from the South East Coast Ambulance Service. While they were on duty and trying to deal with a road traffic incident, they were charged at by a driver in a car. They were attacked before they could get out of the ambulance, and had to deal with someone who might injure them before they could deal with the incident itself. Does he agree that most of our constituents do not fully appreciate the risks our emergency workers have to take?

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The vast majority of incidents never appear in newspapers and never get talked about in the media. They are hidden and affect just the officers and their families. At a time when so much good work is going on in the field of mental health and policing, we should also recognise the physical, psychological and emotional impact that an assault can have on an officer and their family. It is all too easy to forget that emergency workers are human beings too: they are mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, friends and loved ones.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned an unfortunate skirmish in his constituency in which a police dog was attacked and killed. Does he agree that it would be pertinent for the Bill to incorporate a response to attacks on animals that work in the police force and other emergency services, so that the law could deal equally with such perpetrators?

[Stephen Crabb]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but I will resist the temptation to draw this debate into a discussion about the detail. We will have time in Committee to sort that out. Let us stick to the broad principles today.

One officer with whom I spoke told me that she had recently had her nose broken on duty and that her daughter is now afraid every time her mummy puts on her police uniform—she is afraid to see her mum go to work. The impact extends far beyond the individual officer. The psychological fallout can be exacerbated when the perpetrator is seen to walk away with what seems like a slap on the wrist. If only it were a slap on the wrist; as the hon. Member for Rhondda has said, all too often it is nothing at all.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

In 2015-16, there were 668 attacks on NHS staff in the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, none of which were reported for criminal sanction.

[Stephen Crabb]

Those are shocking figures. There is a real sense of anger, certainly among the police officers with whom I spoke and other emergency workers, when they have suffered an attack and see those responsible walking away from court with no punishment at all. That is a factor in people deciding to quit these really important occupations in our society.

Another female officer in my police force area shared an incident with me. She was punched in the face, causing her lip to bleed. The suspect was known to be infected with hepatitis C and had a cut on their hand as well. That immediately put the officer in significant danger, as there was a possibility that her own blood could be contaminated. The officer was, of course, required to have blood tests and was prescribed antibiotics to try to prevent an infection. After two weeks’ leave, the officer returned to duty. However, she will not receive her blood test results for another eight weeks and feels that her life has in effect been put on hold. It was particularly galling for this female officer to hear that the suspect, who was convicted, received a prison sentence of only five weeks, which means that they will be out of prison weeks before the officer gets her blood test results.

The fact is that far too many of our police and emergency workers believe that their experiences of assault are not treated seriously enough by the judiciary and that laughable sentences are given to their attackers. Therefore, I welcome the tougher approach that the Bill provides.

Of course, it is not just the police who face assaults. Even more incomprehensible, in some ways, is the sheer frequency of attacks on paramedics, firefighters, nurses and prison officers—people who put their own lives and safety at risk for others—when they are trying to perform their duties.

In addition to the figures shared by the hon. Member for Rhondda, figures that I saw earlier this year indicated that attacks on firefighters had trebled across Wales. South Wales fire and rescue service reported 31 incidents between April 2016 and March 2017, up from just 12 in the previous year. It said that its crews had been subjected to verbal assault and physical abuse, including having bricks thrown at them.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for citing the figures from Wales. The Scottish fire and rescue service also collates the figures, but the House of Commons Library briefing for this debate has no national figures because they are not officially collected. Does he agree that that omission from public data should be addressed?

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The devolved Administrations have their own systems for collecting data, but that should not be a barrier to ensuring a proper UK-wide picture of what is going on across the whole country.

If we are serious about taking a zero-tolerance approach to mindless attacks on frontline workers, let us ensure that we have a framework of law that reflects that, not only for the police but for firefighters, paramedics, nurses and prison officers. There have been calls for the scope of the Bill to be widened to include workers in other health and care settings. As I have said, that is a matter for discussion in Committee. The important priority today is to ensure that this Bill passes its Second Reading with the strongest possible support from across the House.

Before I finish, I wish to address one more aspect, which is the proposed powers to take blood samples and non-intimate samples such as saliva. When I began my research, I confess that I did not appreciate the significance of this issue in the context of assaults on emergency workers. One of the officers I met last week described an assault when she went to assist a woman at a domestic incident. The woman turned aggressively on the police officer and attacked her, causing several injuries including significant bleeding when she dug her long fingernails into her hand. The attacker then shouted at the officer that she was carrying a blood disease. For the past five months, that officer has been living with stress and anxiety over what she may or may not have been infected with. No samples have been taken from the attacker to check whether or not she was lying, so the officer has faced the long process of being tested herself. She told me how she has been afraid of just how much physical contact she should give her own children, for fear of passing something on. The right to take samples from suspects will rapidly accelerate the process of determining a potential contraction and will give a confident assurance to those emergency workers affected that we are here to help them through the situation.

There is plenty of detail to be worked out in the Bill, but this morning gives us the opportunity to show our strongest possible support for its Second Reading. It is a chance to signal the extent of our respect and support for our emergency workers. This is not just about signalling, however. I am sceptical of proposed legislation that is just declaratory or that contains just rhetoric; the important point about this Bill is that it is practical and useful, and its measures will make a real difference to the working lives of some of the most important people in our society.