Emergency Workers (Protection) Bill

Rest assured—the Scottish experience has been very much taken into account. The chief fire officer suggests that across the country the fire brigade may have to reconsider the types of incident it attends. He continues:"““To have to take this action would be tragic and also affect community safety.””" I am sure we all agree with that and are alarmed by the prospect. The question is how we deal with it. I was trying to transpose a Scottish Act to existing legislation in England and Wales. I have agreed that, in Committee, I will propose separating the impeding offence from the offence of assault, and the Government have agreed that they will support an offence of"““impeding an emergency worker responding to an emergency””." That is welcomed by the fire services and especially by the ambulance service—I spoke to its representatives yesterday—because at present it has no such protection at all. There will be a penalty of £1,000, which the Minister, with whom I have been liaising throughout, assures me is the same amount that a similar level of offence would incur in relation to action against the police. The Bill will be backed by a series of other measures. There will be a package of measures particularly geared to dealing with the problem of juvenile offenders, many of whom are very young. Some are young yobs, and some, although they are not too young to be called yobs, are even below the age of 10.