Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Bill

I am looking forward to taking part in the scheme. In fact, I have the papers on my desk as I speak. My only concern is that I might be expected to become fitter than I am. Once I have received clarification on that point, I will sign and submit the papers. As I said, we unfortunately all know of incidents in our constituencies or neighbouring areas. I remember an incident that took place in a neighbouring constituency on a Guy Fawkes night when youths fired rockets at two firefighters as they responded to a call. Their injuries were so bad that they were both hospitalised. At this juncture, it is useful to recall the words of the FBU’s general secretary, Matt Wrack. He said in March this year that the union welcomed the Bill and the cross-party support for it because the"““number and ferocity of the attacks has been getting worse and there have been several attacks this week.””" The Bill is thus central to firefighters’ concerns about their working conditions. I wanted to speak about the Bill because I received representations from my constituents to ensure that I supported it. I thus read the FBU website and paramedics’ websites to find out what they said about the Bill and people’s experiences. It is clear that assault and abuse causes great concern because they take up many pages of those worthy websites. As Matt Wrack said:"““If we can’t do our job because of violent assaults then it is our communities which are being put at risk. We are the targets, but it is our communities which are deprived of an emergency response which are the victims.””" He believes that the Bill must be part of a package of measures and that central to that package should be a wide range of educational measures to try to stop such attacks. The union is keen for statistics to be collected on such incidents. In some brigades, fire crews are being encouraged to record every single incident. However, as the union points out, the crews will be encouraged even more if they understand how the figures can be used. The union also wants co-ordination and evaluation. I understand that various initiatives are being introduced throughout the country, including community-based projects with offenders and possible offenders. I know that we would all agree that there is a need for such initiatives to be properly monitored and evaluated nationally so that brigades can learn more quickly what works and what does not. Frankly, what works in one area will not necessarily work in another. We need to understand the nature of the problems in our own communities and find remedies suited to our particular needs. The Fire Brigades Union has also accurately pointed out that the end result of the continuation of these incidents could well be the effective withdrawal or diminution of services from certain areas. Unless the problem is dealt with, we run the risk of depriving parts of the UK of access to the first-class emergency services that we have all come to expect and appreciate. After all, if we have to wait for the police to accompany an ambulance worker or a firefighter into a certain part of the country, it means waiting for two emergency services rather than one, which will slow down our ability to respond to incidents. That would be a real shame, and would mean that there would be a postcode impact on 999 services.