Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect on police safety of the distinction between the offences of assault on a police officer or police community support officer and resisting arrest.

I want to be clear that an assault of any kind on a police officer or Police Community Support Officer is wholly unacceptable. The choice of which is the most appropriate offence to charge an offender with is one that the Crown Prosecution Service must take.

Sentencing guidelines already provide for assault of a police officer to be treated more severely in appropriate cases. The courts need to be able to take into account all the circumstances of each case.