Police Officer Safety

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Holly Lynch

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch]

The circumstances in Northern Ireland are very serious and really quite different from some of the circumstances in the rest of the country. I am asking the Minister today to consider all available options to provide the safety and resources that police officers need on the streets. That is certainly one option that could be considered, with the specifics of Northern Ireland policing.

Returning to the incident on the streets of Halifax, it gives me great pleasure to welcome PC Gallant to Westminster to join us for this debate. I think it is fair to say that he remained much calmer than I did throughout the incident.

An assault on a police officer is an assault on society. It is totally unacceptable that public servants, working in their communities to protect people and help the vulnerable, are subject to assaults as they go about their jobs. Make no mistake, these are tough jobs, and while most officers will tell you that they understand there are risks, being a punching bag should never be part and parcel of the job. In West Yorkshire alone, there were 991 recorded assaults on police officers last year, with an estimated 23,000 across the country. In addition, many attacks are going unreported or are being side-lined in the pursuit of other charges, making it extremely difficult to understand the true scale of the problem.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

In Cleveland, a police officer has had their jaw broken twice in the past 12 months. That follows on from the fact that in the past six years, Cleveland has seen a 25% cut in the number of front-line police officers. Does my hon. Friend think that that is a factor? The amount of single staffing patrols has now increased to such a level that officers are exposed to increased danger.

[Holly Lynch]

There are no two ways about it. I will come on to that in more detail in my speech. That is a very serious incident. Sending officers out on their own just is not working.

When I asked the House of Commons Library for statistics, by police force, of assaults on officers, it responded by saying that there is a lack of official statistics in this area. A recent Home Office report cites that assaults on officers and police community support officers are not collected as national statistics. Instead, the figures are estimates based on two limited data sources. To be fair to the Home Office, I very much welcome the recent efforts it has made to improve the system for recording assaults on officers, but there is still a long way to go.

Last year the Home Office asked forces to provide data on assaults on a voluntary basis. However, it recognised that there were flaws to that approach, concluding that

“the figures…are not directly comparable at police force area level”,

and that

“the estimates are relatively crude, and should be interpreted with caution.”

As the data are not collected, we simply cannot answer some of the bigger questions. Is the number of assaults going up? Are some forces failing to protect their officers? Have cuts to police budgets made policing more dangerous?