Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Bill

We are becoming involved in definitions now. It is a question of whether St John Ambulance, for instance, is attending on behalf of the public service, which will often not be the case. I may not be best qualified to comment on such questions, but the Minister may be able to clarify the position. The hon. Member for Teignbridge may not be hon. and learned, but he is certainly au fait with parts of the law with which I, as a new Member, am less familiar. As I have said, the sentencing guidelines allow sentences for attacks on public servants to be weighted. I hope that the Sentencing Advisory Panel’s recent consultation on sentencing for violent crimes against the person will produce some sensible proposals. Perhaps the Minister could give us a tantalising glimpse of anything that may have emerged from that consultation, which was wide-ranging and to which a number of interesting contributions were made. That might reassure Members, including me, that some of the points we have raised could be dealt with in that way rather than by the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham spoke of ““young people larking around””, and impeding emergency workers. As he and others have pointed out, education is an important way of tackling that kind of obstruction. I also agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes). I want to say something about the work of the London fire service. I am particularly impressed by what Graham Howgate, the Hackney borough commander, has done in collaboration with the Shoreditch service. They have been working with fire cadets. Young people are chosen for the scheme because they are likely to become criminals if they are not channelled in the right direction at a particular time. They may commit a crime if they are not given support, and this excellent scheme provides them with that support. It gives them a sense of purpose, and educates them about the work of the fire service. The results have been good so far, and I wonder why the scheme has not been adopted more widely. Although such matters are not in the Minister’s remit, I hope he will take up that question with Ministers in other Departments. Since the creation of a borough command unit in Hackney some interesting collaborative work has been done, thanks largely to Valerie Shawcross, chair of the London fire authority. Although largely unsung, her achievement has been significant. One of the first things that Commander Howgate and his team observed was that a number of fires are started in abandoned cars. They would often have to deal with such fires, and clear up the mess. Such fires were frequently started by young people in particular spots in Hackney, but happily the problem has now been solved. Cars are removed much more quickly, because the fire service mapped the incidence of the attacks. It was realised that if the cars were removed, there would be less arson, less antisocial behaviour and fewer opportunities for young people to impede emergency workers in connection with their crimes. Although the Bill is welcome, the low-level obstruction that Members have mentioned is also important. The Hackney firefighters repeatedly find that equipment is stolen from their fire engines when they are out on a job. They themselves may not be impeded, but bolt cutters—which are particularly popular—and other emergency equipment are often stolen as trophies. Lack of respect for public services is a crucial part of what the Bill attempts to tackle. It deals with the worst elements, but we and, in particular, the Government have a responsibility to consider a number of possible solutions. I was disturbed by the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, which involved an adult. We should bear in mind that young people do not always cause these problems, although we tend to focus on them. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is smiling, because of course he wants to hug the hoodies, but not all young people are bad, whether they wear hoodies or not. The Bill sends out an important signal about the seriousness of impeding emergency workers. Members may have heard of a project called ““Prison? Me? No way!””. It is run by an educational trust set up by prison officers, which visits secondary school across the country to demonstrate the reality of prison to young people. There is a mock-up of a cell on the back of a lorry, and young people are locked into it. Prison officers drill the young people in teams, and explain to them clearly what the prison regime means. In combination with such educational initiatives, the Bill should help young people to realise gradually that if they commit the offences that we have heard about today, they could end up in prison. Organisations like the one that I have described are there to remind them that that is a very undesirable consequence of such action. The Bill obviously focuses on the criminal act of impeding emergency workers, but the services themselves have acted both to protect their staff and, crucially, to encourage them to report incidents. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley, Greater Manchester is ahead of the game because of the particular problems that it has experienced. Various initiatives have been launched, including the placing of video cameras in the cabs of appliances so that offenders can be identified. I know that one of the Opposition parties has persistently resisted the installation of CCTV. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Teignbridge wants to tell us now whether he supports the move to put video cameras in cabs. It appears that he does not wish to take me up on that, but it may be a subject for another debate. As we heard earlier, in Northern Ireland support is already given to firefighters along the lines suggested in the Bill, but the Bill will apply to ambulance workers and coast guards there. It is important to recognise that it will not apply only to England. Although the Bill mainly concerns ambulance workers, we should bear in mind the implications for other public service workers, notably in the national health service. Early indications suggest that 71 per cent. of staff trained in the NHS to deal with potentially aggressive and violent incidents believe that they have the necessary skills to do so, compared with only 29 per cent. before the training. We must not sit back and assume that the Bill alone will solve the problem. I am sure none of my hon. Friends are doing that. We may try to initiate further debates in the House to discuss other ways of protecting emergency workers. The law is an important tool, but it is not the only one. The NHS, supported by the British Medical Association, Unison and the Royal College of Nursing, has produced posters reminding would-be offenders of the tough penalties that they could incur. I hope that public information campaigns will stress the reality that the Bill is law, and that people may, in the most serious cases, be sent to prison. Several of us have mentioned young people and antisocial behaviour. What is needed is proper youth work, and I am glad that the Government have provided more money for the purpose. In my borough of Hackney, nearly £1 million extra will be spent on youth work this year. We pay attention to the respect agenda, and aim to tackle antisocial behaviour at all levels, nipping it in the bud. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham said, it must come to be seen as absolutely unacceptable. The decent folk whom I meet on doorsteps nearly every week want to lead peaceful lives. They do not want their emergency workers to be impeded. Low-level activity escalates quickly if it is not challenged, and we must challenge it. Sport, including competitive sport, is an important way of channelling young people’s energies in the right direction, as is education. I will cite one example from a visit to Mossbourne city academy on the edge of my constituency. I talked to children and staff at the school, and asked one child what he liked about the school. He said that he liked the discipline. I was surprised that a 12-year-old said that, as one does not tend to think of that as a top desire of a child of that age.