Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Bill

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). I add my voice to all those who have praised my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) and congratulate him on successfully steering his Bill through all its stages. The signs are encouraging that it will also pass today’s stage. I supported the Bill on Second Reading, and I am pleased to do so again today. On that earlier occasion, my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West explained his reason for adjusting the focus of his Bill. He made a good decision. In its new form, the Bill is positioned between those cases that involve no offence having been committed and those more serious cases involving assaults on emergency workers, which can attract serious sentences of imprisonment, as we heard earlier. An offence of obstructing an emergency worker in the execution of his or her duty is a valuable addition, as, for a long time, there has been such an offence to protect police officers from being obstructed in the execution of their duties. Some people might therefore think that the Bill is quite narrow, but I hope to show that its application is broad. People might be pleasantly surprised at what a valuable tool the Bill will be to emergency services in adopting policies of zero tolerance to such behaviour, and to the prosecuting authorities—the police and the Crown Prosecution Service—in enforcing the law. The Bill extends the same protection from obstruction enjoyed by the police to the other blue light services, but applies more widely than to the blue light services alone. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend has secured a provision in the Bill for the protection to be extended later to other emergency workers. I congratulate him on ensuring that the Bill protects emergency workers from obstruction at every stage of their response to an emergency, which is important. Some Members have asked about the Bill’s application to mountain rescue workers, and I think that I agree with the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) that they do not attract protection under the Bill as drafted. Like him, I examined the provision about air ambulance services, which are provided at the request of a national health service body. That would not extend to mountain rescue services, such as those launched from RAF Stafford in my constituency, which rescue people lost on mountains in Wales. Clause 1(2)(f)(ii) extends protection to"““any other person or organisation operating a vessel for the purpose of providing a rescue service””." I am pretty sure that that the definition of ““vessel”” would restrict the protection to ships on the sea, and would not include vessels that carry people through the air. If I am wrong, of course, the provision would be wide enough to protect those engaged in mountain rescue services. If not, although, as my right hon. Friend said in his speech, it is too late now to amend the Bill further, I urge the Minister to consider making use of the power in clause 5 to extend the protection to other groups, to make sure that the crew of aircraft who are engaged in saving and rescuing people are also protected. I am pleased that protection is extended to fire and rescue service workers. In Staffordshire, horrendous news reports appear from time to time about obstruction and assaults on fire and rescue workers. Happily, such occurrences are few and far between. I hasten to add that the Bill is not intended to deal with hoax calls, which are a much more prevalent nuisance to fire and rescue service workers. In relation to fire and rescue service work, a specific offence already exists for hoax calls, which prevent people from doing their job and saving lives when necessary. Fire and rescue service workers are usually enormously popular, which is why those who obstruct and assault them are such a small minority. At the time of the last national pay strike, however, there was a little ill feeling in some areas of Staffordshire towards fire and rescue service workers. Unchecked, that could have become the kind of behaviour about which we have heard today. Even before that strike began, however, Staffordshire fire and rescue service had embarked on a community fire safety strategy, which, once the strike was out of the way, applied fully. That involved a widespread campaign to issue householders with smoke alarms and, as other Members have described, of fire and rescue service officers meeting young people and families in schools and more informal settings such as school and garden fetes, to explain their work. That has ensured that fire crews get much earlier notice of a fire, so that they can respond to it more quickly, and that there is less chance of people wanting to obstruct them, as they understand the importance of the job. The happy ending to the story in Staffordshire is that, as a result of that community fire safety strategy, the number of deaths in fires has dropped dramatically. That fall has been long-lasting, which is a tribute to the workers who have committed themselves to go into communities, meet people and persuade them to protect their property and lives with smoke alarms and to understand the importance of fire workers and not getting in their way. Having mentioned the national pay strike, I hope that it will be a long time before we see green goddesses back on our streets. The Bill, however, has the foresight to extend to members of the armed forces who carry out the duties of firefighters the same protection from obstruction as fire and rescue service workers. That is important, albeit that none of us wishes to see the provision apply, as we would prefer the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force to continue their normal duties and not have to protect us from fire as well. I am pleased that the Bill protects crew members of the third of the emergency services—the ambulance service. Hon. Members might know that Staffordshire has the best-performing ambulance service in the country. That is no mere puff or boast; anyone who studies the statistics will see that, year after year, Staffordshire ambulance service massively outperforms any other in the country in its response times and the number of lives saved as a result. There is a secret to our success. Our ambulance service has tried desperately for many years to explain it to other services and to persuade them to adopt the same standards, but sadly too few have followed so far, although I know that it has been on the Government’s agenda since their policy statement last year to persuade other services to go the same way. As a footnote I should add, if you will permit me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that during the recent large ambulance service mergers we successfully argued that Staffordshire ambulance service should stay out of a west midlands service precisely because our standards are so much higher than others. There was concern that the standards of a very good ambulance service might in the course of a merger fall, by however small a degree, and that that would harm the public of Staffordshire. I mention that because, although we have the best-performing service in the country and all residents of Staffordshire know that, we still face the problem of a minority of people obstructing, assaulting and threatening ambulance service crews as they go about their duties. There was a horrendous report last year of an ambulance crew member being badly assaulted and seriously injured. It might be a coincidence, but Staffordshire ambulance service recently issued—on 6 July—its own press release saying that it has"““a robust policy of zero tolerance toward any alleged verbal or violent behaviour””" aimed at its crews. The release says:"““This Ambulance Trust appeal to the Community to help change the apparent attitudes developing in society that seems to say it’s ok to behave in such a way.””" I would add that, if such societal attitudes develop and embed in behaviour, just as the violence and abuse referred to in the release would worsen, so would obstruction of ambulance crews, which would be highly undesirable. As I mentioned in an intervention, the Bill is important in the education process for which many hon. Members have called as part of the response to the problem. It is important that we send the message that we think that this is such an important issue that we are creating a specific offence of obstructing emergency workers. We do not wish to send mixed messages—that the matter is important but we are not doing anything to face up to it. My right hon. Friend gave an assurance that the Bill extends more widely than to employees of ambulance services. There has been some debate about whether that means voluntary workers such as St. John Ambulance, but I want to mention another group of people who are extremely significant in Staffordshire and other rural ambulance services: community first-responders. There is a strong association of community first-responders around the country. They are remarkable people who voluntarily undergo training by paid ambulance service workers and stand ready in their isolated localities and communities to receive calls to attend the scenes of serious incidents. Very often, because they are in isolated locations, they are first on the scene, before the ambulance crew arrives in response to the 999 call. I stress that they are volunteers who attend in their own time and who have the skills to deal with however horrific a situation they find when they reach their destination, where they help of their free will keeping people safe and alive until the professional crew arrives. I also welcome the fact that the Bill extends to the air ambulance service. I tried to think in what ways people in helicopters might be obstructed in carrying out their duties and saving lives. The most obvious situation is somebody obstructing the landing of a helicopter that is picking up someone who is seriously injured in order to take them to hospital. Therefore, there is a point to that provision. I shall not take up time dealing with the other groups of people who attract the Bill’s protection, but I should like to mention the case of staff who are transporting organs from one hospital to another in order to save a live in a transplant operation or delivering much needed blood that is required for a serious operation. They are clearly carrying out highly time-sensitive work, and obstructing them in the course of their duties could have serious consequences. It is right that they attract the protection of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch mentioned protection for those who are willing to put out to sea to save lives. There is no coast in my constituency; we are a long way from the coast in every direction, but as my hon. Friend pointed out, people travel to the seaside and might get into danger. Conceivably, that could be any resident of my constituency. It is therefore pleasing to know that the protection of the law extends to people doing such important work. I said that clause 1(3) is sensibly wide, covering all the emergency operation: the journey to the scene of the incident, the preparatory work at the scene and the time spent giving help at the scene. The entire process is covered by the Bill and protects those doing such work. Subsection (4) contains a comprehensive definition of emergency circumstances. I am particularly pleased that it extends to cases involving mental illness, which are so easily overlooked. It is interesting to note the protection offered concerning serious harm to the environment. I think instantly of the great expanse of beauty in my constituency in Cannock Chase, where there are numerous sites of special scientific interest and an area of outstanding natural beauty, which during the summer months are at serious risk of an outbreak of fire. Somebody obstructing the fire services on their way to tackling a fire in an open space such as Cannock Chase could be endangering hundreds of square miles of sensitive landscape, and I see the point in the provision. The same point applies to buildings and premises. If the response is delayed, the extent of damage can be great. Perhaps most obviously, life and death situations are also covered, in subsection (4)(b). I said that the Bill is surprisingly broad, and clause 2 is certainly a good example of that. Whereas the primary protection is for an emergency worker who is usually an employee of a fire or ambulance service, clause 2 extends to a person assisting such a worker. As I think I heard my right hon. Friend say, such a person could be a good Samaritan among the public who steps forward to help emergency workers at the scene. If that person, anxious and willing to assist, is obstructed on their way to give that assistance, it would be an offence. That is the impressive extent of the coverage that the Bill offers. Action that amounts to obstruction is also widely defined in clause 3(1). It can consist of action other than physical obstruction, and when trying to think of examples of that, I recalled the incident last summer when someone killed a number of people at a garden barbecue and the police, fire service and ambulance service all stayed away for several hours because they believed that there was a person at the scene who was armed and would be a danger to the emergency workers who attended. I realised that a way in which workers could be obstructed by other than physical means was by someone maliciously and falsely claiming that there was something at the scene that would make it dangerous for them to attend—an armed person or explosive device, for example—thus keeping them away from the scene. The Bill is impressive. It is widely drawn to cover the objectives. Critics of the Bill who complain that it does not deal with aggravated assault have the wrong target, because it is filling a space, albeit not that one, and by so doing it will provide valuable assistance to our emergency workers who, after all, face enough danger in their jobs. They act out of public spiritedness, first and foremost, because they want to serve the public, to save lives and to prevent suffering and damage. Their jobs are hard enough without a very small minority of irresponsible people getting in their way and preventing them from doing their job, thus putting other people in more serious danger and putting property at greater risk of damage than would otherwise have been the case. The Bill is welcome and I sincerely congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West on his success in bringing it to this point.