Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Bill

I thank the hon. Gentleman, whom I respect very much, for conceding the last election. That is terribly generous. He is being tedious. We already have people looking at how we can carry out that manifesto commitment. It is not a matter of whether we will do that—we will; it is a matter of how. We have established the Sentencing Guidelines Council, so it is appropriate in the first instance that it does the job with which it is charged. Then, as I tried to say to the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross)—in a convoluted way, I fully accept—we will examine the matter further if the Sentencing Guidelines Council route is not the appropriate one. With the Sentencing Guidelines Council, there is already an implied tariff in place for those who obstruct public service workers. We need to build on that. We are considering, as the hon. Member for Teignbridge rightly suggests, other aspects such as sentencing for firearms and knife offences, and the wider context of assaults on public sector workers, rather than the narrow confines of obstruction of emergency workers. That commitment remains absolute. When the hon. Member for Surrey Heath speaks of retreats of this sort or that sort, both of which are fiction, he is introducing an unnecessary and poisonous veneer of partisanship into our deliberations, which he should be ashamed of. I agree with his starting point. We need to fill the gap and add a deterrent or exhortatory value to the law. I agree with his point about the double impact of interference in the discharge of emergency workers’ duty and the potential damage done by that obstruction—for example, when the pipes used by firemen are cut. I absolutely commend what the Father of the House has done with regard to the Bill. To hon. Members who have criticised the extent of the Bill, I say that it elegantly fills a gap that needs filling. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have discussed the wider issues, and we will examine those points and report back to the House. The House is about to give the Bill a fair wind, and I hope that it receives a fair wind in the other place too, in which case the Father of the House will be able to add it to his many other significant contributions in his long and enduring time in this place.