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Plenary, 15 Jan 2004

15 Jan 2004 · S2 · Plenary

Item of business

Emergency Workers (Protection)

Sheridan, Tommy SSP Glasgow Watch on SPTV

In August last year, I found myself in Helensburgh court because I had been deemed to be part of a crowd that was acting inappropriately outside the gates of Faslane nuclear submarine base and I had been arrested and charged with breach of the peace. That makes it clear to me that anyone, in any part of Scotland, who is part of a large crowd that is acting inappropriately can already be charged and arrested for their behaviour.

In the court, I had to wait for two cases to be dealt with before mine. One chap was charged with possession of what was described as enough cannabis for personal use. Another chap was charged with assaulting a female ticket collector on the Glasgow to Dumbarton train; the assault constituted verbal abuse and spitting on the female ticket collector. Both the young men pleaded guilty to their respective charges and both were fined £50.

That example illustrates why we need to reinforce the promise that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service made more than a year ago, when it said that it would emphasise the need to deal much more stringently with attacks on public service workers. In Helensburgh that day, it was obvious that the message from the Lord Advocate had not got through. When a young man is fined £50 for possession of cannabis for personal use and someone who has assaulted a young female ticket collector is given the same fine, it is obvious that the message is not getting through. We must address the fact that far too many public service and emergency service workers in Scotland are vulnerable and need extra protection.

I am sure that other members, like me, have a sense of déjà vu. We should not be discussing the introduction of a specific offence against emergency service workers—we should be discussing whether we need to extend legislation to cover other workers. In February 2003, the Parliament should have agreed to amendment 75 to the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, in the name of Paul Martin, which wanted to make attacking emergency service workers a specific new offence. The same arguments that were deployed against that amendment are being deployed today—that is where my sense of déjà vu comes from. Some members are asking, rightly, how far the argument goes, who is in the public service and who is an emergency service worker. Such arguments are legitimate and we should not undermine them, but we should have made a start a year ago by introducing the provisions that were discussed at stage 2 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, which received cross-party support. The provisions were also discussed at stage 3 in February 2003 and secured cross-party support. Unfortunately, Liberal and Labour members voted against the provisions. It would be worth while for Labour members to bear it in mind that when some members called for the introduction of extra laws, Labour members voted them down and voted against extra support for emergency workers in the front line.

We must all welcome the fact that we have eventually reached this stage and that there will eventually be legislation, but it would have been much better if legislation had been in force for the past 12 months. We could have reflected on how things had worked and on how wide we would have to cast the net in relation to extension. We must certainly ensure that ambulance crews are included in any definition of emergency workers and that the front-line staff whom members have mentioned—particularly nurses and other health workers on duty in accident and emergency wards throughout Scotland—are considered to work in emergency situations. However, it would have been better for all those emergency service workers if the Parliament had taken the bold step of introducing the provisions back in February last year. We would then have been able to monitor things and to add any extra coverage that was now required.

I hope that the Lord Advocate will admit that he was wrong when he said:

"I do not believe that there is a proven need for legislation at this stage."—[Official Report, 20 February 2003; c 18516.]

I am afraid that, almost 12 months later, there is a need for legislation. Legislation was needed then—most of the examples that were given by Paul Martin and other members involved attacks on emergency service workers that had happened in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Sadly, such attacks are still taking place.

We should welcome the fact that there will be legislation, but we should recognise that the legislation is a year late. The Executive must learn to listen more to its own back benchers as well as to Opposition members.

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Plenary, 15 Jan 2004

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