It has been an honour to listen both to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), and my right hon. Friend the Minister. I stand with three shields behind me: one for Airey Neave, assassinated in 1979; one for Robert Bradford, killed in his constituency surgery; and one for Ian Gow, who was blown up a week after the IRA killed Sister Catherine Dunne, a Roman Catholic Sister of Mercy, by mistake, and they thought, rightly, that by killing Ian Gow they would wipe that atrocity off the news. There are also other shields behind the Speaker’s Chair.
On average, one MP is killed every seven years. We are not the only ones exposed to risk; there is also the psychiatric social worker, the emergency blue-light responder, people fishing at sea, those working in a permanent way on the railways, and the like—so we should not think that we are the only people who need to have our safety looked at.
I hope the police will understand that those who need the most protection should get the most protection, and those of us who are not at much risk should not get too much money or attention given to us. There should be a risk-based analysis, so more is given to those who often speak up bravely, or those who, often because they are women or from ethnic minorities, get more attention from the thugs and extremists than is given to someone like me. Our constituents will understand, too, that candidates standing for election with us, who get the same attention as us, should get the same kind of protection as us.