Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of offences against emergency workers in (a) Dudley, (b) Sedgley and (c) Gornal and Woodsetton.

Our brave workers across the emergency services do an extraordinary job in the most difficult situations, keeping us safe, day in and day out. It is absolutely unacceptable for them to be assaulted.

The Home Office collects data from police forces on police recorded crime including “Assaults on a constable” and ‘Assaults with injury on an emergency worker other than a constable’. Data for ‘Assaults with injury on an emergency worker other than a constable’ is only available from April 2020 to June 2020.

Data is broken down by Police Force Area and Community Safety Partnership Area, including Dudley. Data is not collected at ward level. The latest data for the year ending June 2020 can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables

Assaults specifically against emergency workers are punishable by up to 12 months in prison and could be charged as common assault. We have also announced our intention to double the maximum sentence for assaults on emergency workers, from 12 months to two years, showing our commitment to ensuring these attacks are not tolerated.