Emergency Workers (Protection) Bill

I, too, begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) not only on coming so high up in the ballot, but on seeking to legislate on such an important subject. I have the greatest respect for him, not least because of the help and support that he has given to me as an extremely new member of the Public Accounts Committee. He has considerable experience as a member of that Committee, and I thank him for his help. I am pleased to be here to support my right hon. Friend’s Bill this morning. It is the first time since I was elected last May that I have remained in Parliament on a Friday; I shall be back in my constituency tonight. I am actually here to support the next Bill on the Order Paper—I promised a group my constituents who are extremely exercised by the issue of planning permission for mobile phone masts that I would do so. However, it is a pleasure to support, in passing, my right hon. Friend. I shall keep my remarks extremely brief in my desire to enable him to secure a Second Reading. I share my right hon. Friend’s outrage at the instances of assault on emergency workers. These people have dedicated their lives to public service—a fact that the public should respect in the way that they treat them. I am therefore glad that, thanks to the work of my right hon. Friend and other hon. Friends, Ministers have a renewed focus on the need to ensure that sentencing guidelines for the existing offence of assault take account to the greatest possible extent of the fact that the victims of such assaults work in the public services. Indeed, we have a manifesto commitment to do that, and I am all in favour of manifesto commitments being delivered on as soon as possible. I hope that the negotiations that my right hon. Friend and others have held with the Department on this issue will lead to that commitment being realised sooner, rather than later. I also hope that the Bill will have a deterrent effect on those who seek to perpetrate such horrible offences. I note, however, that the number of such offences is falling. I am told that the figure is down from 37,776 in 2003–04 to 11,482 in 2004–05, the last year for which data are available. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) said that much of such crime is unreported, but I hope that this downward trend can nevertheless continue. There is no doubt that the influence of alcohol plays an important part in such assaults, as others have pointed out this morning. In my constituency, there is a significant problem with assaults in the accident and emergency department of Burnley general hospital. I cannot imagine anything worse than sitting there in some pain while delays are caused by altercations and acts of aggression against hospital and ambulance staff. I want to raise a particular issue, to which I hope the Minister can respond. Sometimes assaults are racially motivated, and I have certainly heard of such incidents occurring in my constituency. I find it absolutely abhorrent that some members of the public—under the influence of alcohol or otherwise—assault hard-working public service workers simply because they are from a different ethnic group from their own. I hope that the Minister can reassure me that the double whammy of racially aggravated assault against emergency workers will be dealt with extremely severely, and that she is negotiating with the Sentencing Guidelines Council to ensure that that happens. I welcome my right hon. Friend’s pragmatic decision to amend the Bill to close a loophole, so that those who impede emergency workers can be dealt with with the severity that such an offence deserves. I hope that, in the light of that amendment, all Members will ensure that the Bill proceeds to the next stage.