Emergency Workers (Protection) Bill

The right hon. Gentleman is one of the great conspiracy theorists of the House, but to suggest that ““Take Jim Dowd”” is code for ““Hurry up and sit down”” is pretty ridiculous. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West made an important point. We all agree that we want convictions for these offences, but the Government see two potential barriers. One relates to determination to proceed, on which action is being taken. The NHS security authority is one example. I am happy to give a commitment to the House; I have already spoken to the Attorney-General about the possibility of improving guidance to the Crown Prosecution Service. The other barrier is the fact that proving the offence is being made more complicated. We have the opportunity to create a very simple offence of impeding. What we do not want is a series of narrow, specific offences involving aggravating factors, which will merely mean that more must be proved in court. We need a simple, straightforward definition. We all oppose assaults, whoever the victim may be. We all agree, however, that an assault on an emergency worker has a particular quality, which we want sentences to reflect. We do not want to have to prove more; we want an assault to be an assault to be an assault. Assaults on emergency workers nevertheless have that special quality. I am finding it difficult to persuade the House of my view, but I hope that I shall be able to do so. It is an important point of principle that it is best to provide adequate guidelines on sentencing, rather than increasing the number of facts that the prosecution must prove in order to secure a conviction. The more factors that are added to the law, the more barriers the prosecution must hop over. It should be a straightforward process that an assault leads to conviction, but an assault in the circumstances specified in the Bill should have more serious consequences than an assault in other circumstances. However, we should not put extra burdens on the prosecution by adding to the things that it has to prove: the presence of an aggravating factor and other particular circumstances. I feel strongly about the matter. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West for his generosity in agreeing that we should focus on the big gap that exists and use the tools that we already have to deal with serious assault. It was not possible to do that in Scotland. The reason is that Scotland does not have the Sentencing Guidelines Council. Scotland had to create specific offences. It has slightly different sentencing mechanisms. The way that our sentencing system is constructed means that the nine-month sentence is not available. We are trying to create simple, straightforward law—I am glad to have the endorsement of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who said that it is quite a good thing to try to be simple and straightforward—and to ensure that the seriousness of this particular offence is taken into account. I hope that we can achieve consensus across the House. I think that we agree on the outcome that we want. I am prepared to spend time following this debate to explain and to discuss with Opposition Members the way in which the Sentencing Guidelines Council is capable of operating and the powers that it has, so that we can agree that that part of the Bill is not essential. However, there is a part of the Bill that is essential. That is to deal with obstructing or impeding an emergency service worker who is responding to an emergency. There are already offences of obstruction, just as there of assault, but they do not cover everyone or every activity; it is not necessary. I have referred to the firefighters offence. There is also a police officers offence, but there is no offence that covers obstruction of other emergency workers such as ambulance workers or members of the coastguard, who deal with emergencies offshore. We have identified that as a gap in the legislation that covers emergency workers. It is the only gap that we have identified. Other matters can be dealt with within the framework of existing legislation. If hon. Members look at the respect action plan, they will see that we specifically identified the possible need for an offence of obstructing an ambulance worker. We said that we would consider introducing such an offence, so we specifically welcome that part of the Bill. We believe that it would be a step in the right direction to ensure that deliberately obstructing an ambulance worker is an offence. As I have outlined, the offence of obstructing a firefighter is not as simple and clear as it could be, so we think that making it simpler and easier to use would be an improvement. Therefore, the Bill has something to offer. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for introducing it. I was glad that he said that he will table amendments in Committee to ensure that the issue of obstructing emergency workers responding to an emergency can become the core of the Bill. There are real benefits to be gained from that. In addition to such an offence, we need to recognise that there is more to do. As well as having an offence of obstructing an emergency worker in responding to an emergency, we need to try to prevent that offence from occurring. We need to ensure that behaviour that often begins with exuberance and high spirits does not escalate into obstruction and violence. As we have heard during the debate, that has often happened.