Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Bill

My Lords, I, too, add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Anderson for sponsoring this important Bill which comes to us in good order from another place after some penetrating and, I am pleased to say, highly constructive debate. Like other noble Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Morris of Handsworth on his delicately phrased and uncontroversial maiden speech. For many years, I have been an admirer from afar of my noble friend for his work as a trade union leader and as a powerful advocate for the rights of workers. It is with some humility that I stand at the Dispatch Box and welcome him to our debates. I am sure he will make many telling contributions, not least to advance and defend the interests of those who work for us and provide important and valuable public services. I am sure that, along with all Members of your Lordships' House, we on the government Benches will listen very carefully to the important and wise words of my noble friend in our deliberations. We all agree that any violent or obstructive behaviour directed against workers responding to emergency situations is unacceptable. Emergency workers are putting themselves in the front line in dangerous situations for the sake of their communities, and they should not face additional and avoidable dangers. It is unacceptable, whether those dangers are brought about by malice or by those who are thoughtless and have not considered the consequences of what they are embarking on. I repeat the assurances that the Government have already given. We are committed to ensuring that emergency workers can go about their business without being impeded, obstructed or subjected to violence or abuse. We now have a Bill that is very clear and simple. It will be easy to understand, and easy for the courts, the police and prosecutors to use, and we are proud to support it. The Bill will be a significant part of the legal protection for all emergency workers. It deals with deliberate acts of obstruction against those responding to blue-light emergencies. It will also provide a good basis and a bedrock for further work. As part of the respect agenda, we are committed to ensuring that people and communities treat those who help them with the respect they fully deserve. This Bill will be an important addition to that agenda. The Bill will target those who obstruct emergency workers responding to emergency and life-threatening situations. Those are situations where there is an immediate and real risk of serious injury, or worse, and there may be only a few minutes to respond to that situation. In those circumstances, impeding or obstructing workers becomes particularly dangerous. Obstruction not only puts at risk the emergency workers but also risks the lives and safety of the public they serve. There is no offence of obstruction at the moment for ambulance workers or coastguards, so this will be new for them. The Bill will also introduce a clearer and simplified obstruction offence for firefighters and increase the available maximum fine from £1,000 to £5,000. The Bill rightly concentrates on services that may be involved in responding to emergency situations, where urgency is imperative. Those are the situations where we need to deal with obstruction in particular. The police, ambulance, and fire and rescue services may be involved in emergencies, and so may the coastguards and lifeboat crews. There may be others. The police already have their own obstruction offence, and we do not need to duplicate it here. But the Bill includes all the other emergency workers I have just mentioned. It includes volunteers and those working under contract providing an ambulance service for the Health Service, including air ambulances. It also includes all fire and rescue services, whether they are working for local authorities, at airports, as members of the forces or for private companies. The Bill also includes those who are transporting blood, organs or emergency equipment working on behalf of an NHS body and responding to emergency situations. Those carrying blood, organs and medical equipment to an emergency are in a similar position to the emergency services. Any delay could be dangerous. So I am pleased that, for the sake of clarity, such emergency workers have been included in the offence. The Bill deals with obstruction, so we need to confine the categories of worker that it covers to those dealing with urgent cases, where delay and obstruction can have serious consequences. The Bill is particularly important for workers who may be isolated and not able to call on colleagues for support or ask for someone to take over if they are obstructed or delayed—in other words, blue-light workers. Other workers may, of course, face threats and violence, but if there is violence or a genuine threat of violence, the offender will be committing an offence of assault in any event and can be dealt with by the police and the courts. We do not want to complicate the Bill unnecessarily by adding categories of workers when the Bill will add nothing to their protection. In previous debates, and earlier today, the question of mountain rescue teams and those involved in rescues in remote areas has been raised. They would certainly come under the category of ““emergency workers””. But we have not heard of any case where a mountain rescue worker has been obstructed or impeded, so I am not sure there is a problem which we would solve by adding them to the list of emergency workers. If we found that there was a problem, we would be happy to consider adding mountain rescue teams and others to the list by order. We have that flexibility built in. At the moment, I do not think the case has been made for including other categories of emergency worker in the offence of obstruction. But we should remember that if we want to add categories of worker, we can do so in the future. Parliament will have a chance to consider any proposed additions or modifications to the list. This is an important clause. It will mean that not only can we add new categories of emergency worker but we can quickly update the categories if required. We may need to make a change because one of the services currently covered has changed its name or has been reorganised, for example. We should be able to achieve that reasonably easily. I know that many people have been keen to see an offence of assaulting an emergency worker, similar to the one that exists in Scotland. It has been referred to extensively in our debate by my noble friend Lord Morris, by my noble friend Lord Anderson in proposing the measure, and by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. The criminal law and administrative arrangements in Scotland are very different. For example, it has no Sentencing Guidelines Council to give statutory guidance on the seriousness with which such offences should be viewed. I will return to the role of the Sentencing Guidelines Council later. For England and Wales, a separate offence of assault would be redundant and would only complicate the statute book unnecessarily. It would not give any additional protection for emergency workers. There are already comprehensive measures under the current law for dealing with attacks and violence in a wide range of circumstances. Offences range from common assault, through actual bodily harm, where the injuries are more than superficial, to grievous bodily harm, which can be very serious indeed. There is protection from harassment and, of course, offences of criminal damage where essential equipment is at stake. Penalties range from a maximum of six months’ imprisonment or a fine of up to £5,000 for common assault to a maximum of life imprisonment for grievous bodily harm with intent. That is why the current Bill concentrates rightly on obstruction. There is a specific offence of assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty. It is common sense that other emergency workers should enjoy the same legal protection as police officers when they are in the same position. That is the case particularly when firefighters, ambulance workers and the police might be attending the same incident and working side by side. Although the police are dealt with in a separate offence, we should remember that assault on a police officer carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison. This is the same as the maximum penalty for common assault, so there is indeed the same legal protection for everyone, as there should be. We have no evidence to suggest that a specific offence of assaulting an emergency worker would encourage the courts to give tougher sentences. Indeed, a specific offence of assault might be more difficult to prove than the more general offence of common assault, because you have to prove the extra elements of the offence. If you had a specific offence of assaulting an emergency worker, for instance, you would have to prove not only that the accused committed an assault but that the assault was against an emergency worker, the worker was responding to an emergency and the offender knew that the person was an emergency worker. All those extra elements would have to kick in and apply. For common assault, you need only to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the offender committed the assault. That makes the general offence easier for the courts and the prosecutors to deal with. Emergency workers are important to us all. If there were a specific offence of assault for them, a large number of at-risk groups might demand the extra protection that they thought a specific offence would offer. Public sector workers such as teachers or transport workers, for example, might ask for a specific offence. Different assault offences for different groups of people and different circumstances would become a potential recipe for confusion and would not give those groups more protection than they currently have under the law. We would not support that. The real issue is not whether we need a new offence covering assault; it is to ensure appropriate sentencing for offences where emergency workers are involved. Sentencing must reflect the seriousness of an assault on an emergency worker. That is why the role of the Sentencing Guidelines Council is so important. Robust guidelines are already issued by the council and more are under consultation. These guidelines make two things clear: first, that it is an aggravating factor in any offence if the victim is serving the public; and, secondly, that the courts must take into account the harm or potential harm that the offence might do. We are all clear that any offence against an emergency worker has the potential for widespread and significant harm. The courts must take those aggravating factors into account. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, made it clear that this Bill should not be seen in isolation. There is a huge programme of work to tackle violence, disorder and disrespect, and the Bill will complement it. In particular, it will complement the Government’s respect agenda, which addresses the problem of disrespect in our society and its destructive and corrosive consequences. The Respect Action Plan was published in January. It set out the Government’s goals and reiterated that we need to tackle anti-social behaviour by addressing disrespect in every walk of life. This includes disrespect towards emergency workers, who are, above all, serving their communities. Offences against emergency workers are often committed by young people. The respect plan makes clear the critical role of schools and parents in tackling disrespectful behaviour by children. We also want to ensure that young people are active and learn how to make a positive impact as individuals in our society, so we tackle this behaviour before it escalates to the level where it needs to be dealt with by the criminal law. The National Health Service and fire service are tackling the root causes of disorder, disrespect and violence against their employees. They are working closely with the police to ensure that even low-level violence is treated seriously if it is against NHS workers and that offences are prosecuted. Rigorous enforcement of the current law is a good deterrent. It also makes staff feel safer and more confident in the conduct of their job. Recent statistics released by the National Health Service show that assaults on National Health Service staff in acute hospitals are down. That is in direct relation to the strenuous efforts that have been made to ensure that assaults on NHS staff are properly dealt with and properly prosecuted. Similarly, assaults on ambulance workers have been significantly reduced. So this approach is beginning to bear fruit; it is working. The fire and rescue services have also introduced measures to deal with attacks on firefighters. The Chief Fire Officers' Association has set up a taskand finish group to look at all matters relating to assaults on firefighters with a view to making recommendations and producing best practice. I understand that this report is due to be made available to the service soon. So there is a lot that is being undertaken, and there is a lot more that wecan do. I am grateful to noble Lords for bringing the Bill to us. Increasing dangers are faced by emergency workers and the Bill will fill a gap which helps us to tackle them. We need to make sure that, in addition to this change, we make the best use of the other mechanisms and powers available to us to tackle the dangers as part of what I have identified as a wider programme. In particular, we need to allow the Sentencing Guidelines Council to do the job of ensuring consistency across sentencing, and we should not underestimate the value of the non-legislative measures to which I have made reference. The shortcomings that we have identified in the system are shortcomings in enforcement, not shortcomings in the law. Dealing with such shortcomings is not as simple as making changes in the law, but I have outlined ways in which we are working with others to make it easier to tackle the sort of behaviour which makes emergencies worse than they need to be. That is why we are anxious to achieve practical benefits through this approach. The creation of the new offence of obstruction will be an important and valuable step, but it is not the whole story, as we have heard in this debate—it is an anchor for the other measures that I have outlined. A number of points and questions were raised during the debate. I shall try to respond to as many of them as I can in the time that I have. I have made reference already to the sentencing guidelines. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked me when they might be produced. Overarching principles have already been issued by the Sentencing Guidelines Council. These specifically include as a factor to be regarded as causing particularly serious harm, "““offences committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public””." The council is considering further, specific guidelines for offences of violence, which are likely to have similar criteria. The noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, asked whether the Government were committed to consulting on mandatory minimum sentences for assaults on public workers as well. I think that I have already dealt with this question. We will concentrate greatly on advice that is given to us, particularly from the Sentencing Guidelines Council and the Sentencing Advisory Panel, which has also consulted on sentencing for assaults and other violent offences, including issues such as the use of weapons and victims who servethe public. It is also considering the results of the consultation and will make a recommendation to the Sentencing Guidelines Council for appropriate guidelines. It may be worth drawing to the attention of your Lordships' House that the Government have tabled changes to the Violent Crime Reduction Bill, which will be debated on Monday. We are increasing the maximum sentence for possession of a bladed instrument from two to four years—so clearly we see these issues as very serious indeed.