Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

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

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I would prefer the inclusion of an additional subsection, which I think would meet his point. It would state that the Bill covered a person employed for the purpose of providing, or engaged to provide, healthcare services within the meaning of section 64 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, subsection—I cannot read the little number. I agree that it is something that we need to address.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill and I will support it, given the opportunity. Does the hon. Gentleman consider that clause 3 includes jailers—people who look after defendants in court while they are waiting for trials and so on? If not, perhaps some thought should be given to that. The cells at court can be volatile places and the people who work in that environment might be at risk.

[Chris Bryant]

That is another matter for us to tease out, of course. Clause 3(1)(e) is clear in referring to

“a person (other than a prison officer) employed or engaged to carry out functions in a custodial institution”.

I think that that would cover such people, but—

[Victoria Atkins]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I have no choice.

[Victoria Atkins]

I jumped to clause 3(3), which defines a custodial institution, and I do not read that as including cells at court. This might be a matter for the Committee.

[Chris Bryant]

I feel as though we are already in Committee. The hon. Lady makes a good point. Once a barrister, always a barrister; I am not sure whether she is being paid by the word or by the intervention. [Interruption.] Sorry; there had to be one anti-lawyer comment today.

The third thing that the Bill does is make provision for the taking of samples when an assailant has spat at an emergency worker. It makes it an offence punishable by a fine of up to £500 for an assailant unreasonably to refuse to give an intimate sample, such as a blood sample. That matters, because so many officers and emergency workers have been spat at and lived in anxiety for months about whether they had contracted a communicable disease.

I want to be very careful about how people refer to HIV in particular, but I have had one example of a police officer—I met him yesterday—who was spat at, with the saliva entering his eye and mouth. The assailant refused to give a sample, and the police officer had a false positive test for hepatitis B, which created enormous anxiety. His wife and children had to be tested as well. I just do not think that that situation is appropriate, and I hope the Bill will help to change it.

Some have argued that the Bill is unnecessary because the sentencing guidelines already deal with the matter. In particular, they say that the guidelines on assault occasioning bodily harm—section 47 offences from the Offences Against the Person Act 1861—state that the court should consider the fact that the offence was

“committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public”

an aggravating factor. I believe that that is drawn far too widely in the guidelines, and I want to throw a cordon sanitaire specifically around our emergency workers.

The sentencing guidelines also make it clear, as they have to by law, that there are two categories of aggravating factor: statutory, such as previous convictions and offences committed while on bail, which have been mandated by Parliament in statute law; and a non-exhaustive list of other factors, including location, timing, an attempt to conceal evidence and 14 other factors. The point is that the fact that the assault leading to bodily harm was on an emergency worker is not a statutory aggravating factor, and my Bill would make it just such a factor.

Those who argue that that is unnecessary are arguing against the very concept of statutory aggravating factors, including hate crimes. I believe that the country now widely accepts the proposition that such factors should exist. Moreover, the victims of hate crimes say that the very fact that the court has to state that the homophobic or racial element of the offence is an aggravating factor gives them a sense that justice is being done. Part of the fury that 999 workers feel is caused by the fact that that element is never stated in open court, but now it will be.

Paragraph 4.12(c) of “The Code for Crown Prosecutors” states:

“A prosecution is also more likely if the offence has been committed against a victim who was at the time a person serving the public.”

That, too, is written in the widest possible terms, and I am trying to enhance the protection specifically for emergency workers, because they put themselves in harm’s way on a daily basis.

Every single one of us knows that merely introducing a new offence will not put a sudden end to such assaults, and there is much else that we need to do to protect our emergency workers. This comes to a point that was made earlier: one reason many prosecutions are not brought is that the perpetrator is a vulnerable patient suffering from a condition that makes them violent. The health worker, who wants only the best for their patient, is understandably reluctant to press for a prosecution. A hospital might be so keen to keep out of the news that it will be reluctant to summon the police.

The truth is that if a mental health unit or an accident and emergency unit is under-staffed, it is far more difficult to maintain order and secure the safety of staff and patients. It should be a fundamental duty of any organisation that employs people in such circumstances to make sure its staff are safe. Someone who rocks up at A&E drunk or high and is told that they will have to wait for several hours is, of course, more likely to get aggressive and violent than someone who is seen swiftly. I do not say that to excuse anyone—of course I do not; violence against medical staff is morally offensive and medically counterproductive, and we should adopt a zero-tolerance attitude towards it—but health bodies need to put the safety of their staff at the top of their list of priorities, and the Government must give the NHS the resources it needs.

I am not going to make many partisan points, but it is incomprehensible to me why the Government are going to cancel NHS Protect, which provides the statistics on this—without such statistics, we would not have been able to have this debate—and will rely only on staff surveys to get such statistics in the future.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who has fought a magnificent campaign over the past 12 months. We worked together when I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Office. I commend her for seeing this legislation through with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). The scenes she describes are upsetting and just plain wrong. Does she agree that investing in body-worn cameras for police officers will help them to secure convictions, and, I hope, higher sentences, and perhaps save them from the arduous task of having to give evidence in court and be cross-examined to explain what happened? The videos will show what happened to them and I hope that will increase convictions in these circumstances.

[Holly Lynch]

I am really grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. I thank her for her support. We had an open dialogue when she was in her previous role, which was incredibly helpful. She is absolutely right that body-worn video has given frontline officers in particular the assurance that, should they be confronted in that way, there will be an evidence base that will help to secure prosecutions in court, which is what we all want.

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[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I am not going to thank the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) but I am going to pay tribute to him, and to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who has worked so very hard on this issue.

I was not planning to speak—that may have been to the relief of everyone in the Chamber—but I have been moved to do so by the examples given, and the strength of feeling displayed, by Members right across the House. This is one of those wonderful occasions in this place when we do the right thing and come together to make real change that will help real people in our constituencies who make such a difference to our lives.

I would like to pay tribute to Lincolnshire police, who this summer, in the largest ever slavery case, managed to secure the convictions of eight people from the same family who had enslaved vulnerable people and treated them despicably—very violently. The police managed to secure not only convictions, but sentences totalling 80 years. The police showed great bravery, which they show on a daily basis, walking into caravans and houses. I hope the Bill will go some way to supporting that bravery.

My constituency is very rural, which means that often when there is a medical emergency it is not paramedics who come to people’s assistance but volunteer first responders, in particular volunteers for LIVES, which is based in Horncastle. I am delighted that clause 3(2) covers not just paramedics who are formally employed by the NHS, but volunteer first responders who help the NHS. I join colleagues who have set out food for thought on issues such as a maximum sentence for conviction on indictment in saying that the Bill Committee needs to examine such issues. I too would happily sit on the Committee, if the hon. Member for Rhondda needs further help.

I will finish with the words of a constituent who works for Lincolnshire police. He puts it far better than I can:

“We deserve to be able to go home to our families and not be injured or worse.”