The next item, therefore, on the agenda is the legislative consent motion on the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services to move the motion—Vaughan Gething. 

Motion NDM6662 Vaughan Gething

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales, in accordance with Standing Order 29.6, agrees that provisions in the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill, in so far as they fall within the legislative competence of the National Assembly for Wales, should be considered by the UK Parliament.

Motion moved.

I am happy to move the motion before us today on the LCM, the legislative consent motion, relating to the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill.

I feel that many of us are regularly shocked by the continued reports of emergency workers being attacked both verbally and physically whilst they are fulfilling their already demanding roles that are of such great value to all of our communities across Wales.

Chris Bryant, the Member of Parliament for the Rhondda, has introduced his private Members' Bill to provide additional protection to those emergency workers. That Bill was introduced on 19 July 2017 and it enjoys cross-party support. Interestingly, in introducing his Bill he's undertaken a wider consultation encouraging members of the public to vote for the potential options if he was drawn in the ballot. More than 10,700 responded directly. Both in the UK consultation and also the very local Rhondda consultation, this particular Bill topped the poll as to the proposal to take forward. It also had the support of more than 145,000 petitioners online. So, the Bill enjoys widespread support and I certainly hope it will receive the support of all parties in the Chamber today.   

The Bill as drafted extends and applies to England and Wales and it would strengthen the law by creating a new aggravated version of the existing offence of common assault or battery when committed against an emergency worker. The maximum penalty would therefore increase from six to 12 months imprisonment. It would also create a statutory aggravating factor for other assaults and related offences against emergency workers, such as actual bodily harm, gross bodily harm and manslaughter. That aggravating factor would merit a more severe sentence but does not increase existing maximum penalties for those offences.

It would also extend police powers to take blood samples with consent, and non-intimate samples without consent, from individuals who assault emergency workers when an inspector has reasonable grounds to believe that the emergency worker has been exposed to a risk of transmission of an infectious disease. That proposal is intended to reduce the number of emergency workers who sadly have to undergo a blood test themselves and take prophylactic medicine sometimes unnecessarily. That will provide emergency workers with faster and greater certainty about whether they have potentially contracted an infectious disease.

The Bill defines emergency workers to include the police, National Crime Agency workers, prison and custody officers and fire services, rescue service workers and NHS workers in public-facing roles. Of course, a number of those are in devolved areas. I would like to thank both the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee and the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee for their work and their conclusion that they too have no objection to today's motion. Some of the services in the Bill do fall outside devolved competence, but others—as I said, fire and rescue in particular, the rescue service and NHS workers—are devolved. I'd ask Members across parties today to support the motion, so the provisions will therefore ensure that Welsh emergency workers will be afforded the same protection as emergency workers in England, and on the same timescales. I hope that Members will rapidly agree today's motion and bring proceedings to a close. 

I call on the Chair of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, Dai Lloyd.

Thank you, Llywydd. The Health, Social Care and Sport Committee considered the LCM at its meeting on 11 January.

I’m sure everyone in this Chamber will agree that we should welcome any measure that seeks to improve the protection for our front-line emergency workers: as we've heard, the police, fire service and those in the NHS—nurses and doctors and so on—by strengthening the law when certain offences are committed against them.

We should also welcome the fact that, in the unfortunate event of an emergency worker being assaulted in the course of their duties, there are clauses in the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill that will allow for the taking of samples from the person who carried out that assault if it is believed that the emergency worker has been exposed to the risk of transmission of infectious disease. That is to be welcomed as well.

As well as enabling the worker to find out quickly if they are at risk of contracting an infectious disease, and taking swift action to address that, it will spare them the prolonged stress and worry of waiting for results, which can be weeks if not months.

So, on the basis that taking forward these provisions in a UK Bill will mean that emergency workers in devolved services in Wales are afforded the same level of protection at the same time as those in England, the committee has no objection to the agreement of this motion. Thank you very much.

I will try to be brief, but I do want to first of all say congratulations to Chris Bryant for bringing this forward in Westminster, because I think it's an excellent Bill to have brought forward and it absolutely reflects the Welsh Conservatives' 2016 Assembly manifesto where we sought to strengthen laws on penalties.

A quick bit of context, because everybody else has spoken about what the Bill will do: in 2017, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board alone saw 1,136 physical acts of assault against NHS staff, of which only 27 went to court—27 the year before, 27 the year before that. That's a complete nonsense. In total in 2017 verbal and physical assaults against NHS workers came to—quick mathematics here—just under 7,000 cases. Of those 7,000 cases, 906 made it to court. We need to tell the public that when people are putting themselves on the line for the public, going out there to help you no matter what your cause is, you have got to treat people with absolute respect. We will be supporting this Bill. Well done, Chris Bryant. Well done, Darren, for having this in our manifesto last time.

I just want to make a few points on this, because I think this is a piece of legislation at Westminster that is very, very desirable and long overdue. It is an area where we might have considered legislating ourselves at some stage, but it's absolutely right that we have a certain degree of consistency in this area.

I'd like to raise a number of points. It's all very well us talking about increasing the sentences and so on. The biggest problem that has arisen has been the lack of prosecutions, and I think we need to have a better understanding as to why that has occurred, because I remember the campaigns that we had for zero tolerance on assault in the health services. What happened to that? It certainly didn't result in an increase in prosecutions, and no matter what we set the sentences at, unless we actually ensure that there are prosecutions in these cases, then it will not actually have that impact. So, all I would suggest is this: I think that this is something that's eminently worthy of support, and congratulations to Chris Bryant for actually taking this forward, but this is a matter that we do need to keep under review ourselves, because if, over the coming years, it is not having the desired effect, we may want to look ourselves at the issue as to how the legislation's working—

Would the Member take an intervention?

Yes, certainly.

It's just to say that I absolutely agree with you and I wonder if there may be a case for asking the Counsel General if he would review why there's been so few prosecutions. Going back to my ABMU case, year after year they've had the highest number of assaults and the least number of prosecutions. So, I think you're absolutely right in identifying that something, somewhere is going wrong and we have to send out a strong message that it's not acceptable to assault people.

I agree with that. There was some debate of this in Westminster, where the evidence recalled that with some of the sentences where there were prosecutions it was so paltry that it was an attitude of, 'Well, it's not worth the trouble. It's not worth actually doing it'. I think there's actually a broader imbalance in criminal prosecutions within our society, to the extent that there is a greater likelihood of prosecuting someone over a theft, over a welfare benefit offence than an unprovoked assault, for example, and I think that is the issue that goes throughout our criminal justice system. But, in particular, the need to actually emphasise the importance of the role of emergency workers who are serving the public and ensuring that they are protected I think is absolutely essential. But I think it would be, yes, a very good idea to monitor this, and it could be a function of the Counsel General to actually do this, but also to engage with the Crown Prosecution Service as to ensuring that, when this legislation goes through, there is a presumption of a prosecution and there is a review of the sentences that are then handed down and there is then also, I think, engagement with the sentencing guidelines body to ensure that the sentencing guidelines are particularly clear, because otherwise this important legislation may not have the desired effect.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary to reply to the debate.

I'd like to thank Members for their support for the Bill proposed by Chris Bryant. I look forward to Members voting in favour of it, and I note the comments made by both Angela Burns and Mick Antoniw on the broader issues about the criminal justice system actually taking up complaints over assaults against emergency services workers. I look forward to working with Members across the Chamber and, indeed, colleagues in Government on doing something about that too. Many thanks.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

That brings today's proceedings to a close. 

The meeting ended at 19:17.