Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill
The next item of business is the debate on motion S2M-2157, in the name of Tom McCabe, that the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill be passed.
It is with great pleasure that I open the debate on the bill. The bill is the product of considerable work on the part of the Executive in consultation with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. It is also the product of invaluable partnership working with the Justice 1 Committee at stage 2, which demonstrated again the genuine and powerful contribution that the Parliament's committees can make to the legislative process in Scotland and showed that the Scottish Parliament is strongest when it pulls together to find the right solutions for the people of this country. Most important, partnership working has helped to achieve focused, effective and workable legislation, which tackles head on the problems that face emergency workers. First, therefore, let me record my thanks to the Justice 1 Committee for its tireless work on the bill to date. I am sure that members will agree that the bill has come a long way since stage 1. I look forward to seeing that hard work bear fruit this afternoon.
We have all seen sickening stories in the press about firefighters, paramedics and others being attacked when they respond to emergencies. None of us here will understand such behaviour and all of us will condemn it. The bill makes it clear that the Scottish Parliament will not tolerate such behaviour. Emergency workers provide an invaluable service to our society. We depend on them to protect our health, our well-being, our possessions and our environment. It is the Parliament's responsibility to ensure that, in return, they receive the protection that they deserve.
The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill will provide that protection by creating the offence of assaulting, obstructing or hindering someone who is providing an emergency service. Since the bill was introduced, its coverage has been extended considerably to ensure that the right workers receive the right levels of protection in the right circumstances.
I refer members to my entry in the register of interests.
A group of emergency workers who are not included in the bill are mountain rescue teams. The Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland is consulting teams across the country on whether they believe that they should be included in the bill. Can the minister confirm that, if the MRCS believes that the bill should cover mountain rescue team personnel, he would be sympathetic to amending the legislation by using the order-making provision in the bill?
I confirm that the order-making provision is in the bill so that we can back up any desire to add workers to the bill, based on an evidence-based approach. We have said that our minds are open to anything that is evidence-based.
We have expanded the list of workers who are included in the bill, so that all those who provide emergency services, be they doctors, prison officers, mental health officers or volunteer rescue boat crews, will be protected. We have recognised that the very nature of some workers' jobs requires them to be constantly ready and able to provide emergency services. Therefore, we have extended on-duty protection to police, firefighters, ambulance workers and designated health workers in hospitals, so that their operational capacity to respond to an emergency, should one arise, is completely safeguarded.
Clearly, the amendments that were agreed at stage 2 have resulted in significant changes to the bill. The additional amendments that have been agreed at stage 3 are perhaps less significant in comparison, but they will ensure that the bill is consistent and comprehensive and, above all, that it effectively meets our policy aim. What has not changed is the fact that the bill is firmly, intentionally and explicitly focused on emergency circumstances.
I thought that it would be helpful to confirm some of the discussion that we had in the Justice 1 Committee, particularly at stage 2. The provisions in the bill are about a summary offence. It is important to note that, for all groups of workers, more serious assaults, involving a weapon for example, would generally be dealt with on indictment in front of a jury. It is important to note that the common law covers everybody for more serious offences.
That is an important contribution, which informs our understanding of what the bill is designed to achieve and which will reassure people that the bill is not, in any way, a dilution of protections that are already in place.
Legislation alone will not solve the problem. That is why the bill is just one crucial part of a range of actions that the Executive is taking to tackle violence towards any worker who serves the public. The report "Protecting Public Service Workers: When the customer isn't right", which was published earlier this year, provides a blueprint for action in this area. The report was produced in partnership with the Scottish Trades Union Congress, employers and representative bodies and it makes a series of recommendations for preventing work-related violence and protecting all public service workers. The Executive has committed to implementing those recommendations over the next three years.
Already, we have launched the first phase of a multimedia campaign to raise awareness of the problem, which highlights the personal impact of even non-violent situations and sends the strong message that abusing workers is bang out of order and simply will not be tolerated.
Partnership working is vital to success in this area and I am delighted that the STUC has been so supportive of our work. Trade unions have a crucial contribution to make to the issue. I am confident that by working together we can find the right solutions and deliver real differences to those at the front line. Criminal sanctions alone will not deter people from offending behaviour but, together with our non-legislative measures, the bill will make the difference our emergency workers deserve.
The Parliament has the opportunity to vote on the bill today and to send a clear message to emergency workers and to the perpetrators of abhorrent crimes against them that the members of this Parliament value emergency workers, condemn the assault of emergency workers and the disruption of emergency services and are prepared to take action to see that such behaviour is punished appropriately.
I commend the bill to the Parliament. I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill be passed.
I echo the minister's comments that the legislation will have been produced not only in the chamber today or in committee; its passage has been a long and laborious process, and many people outwith the parliamentary field have input considerable time and effort. Thanks and credit must go to them.
In supporting the motion, we return to the initial question: why should we support the bill when we have the common law in our armoury? The clear answer is that the common law is not working. Incidents have been narrated on numerous occasions, first in a debate initiated by Karen Gillon. We have the common law, but every member will be aware of incidents, and the number of such incidents is multiplying. Such behaviour is antisocial and unacceptable. We are not seeking to replace the common law, as the minister clearly stated in his reply to Pauline McNeill's intervention.
Does Kenny MacAskill accept that in many cases the common law is not even being given a chance, because procurators fiscal are not using it to prosecute to deal with the situation?
Such crimes are not prosecuted for a variety of reasons, including people's failure to give evidence or report crimes and difficulties in apprehending the perpetrators because people do not bother telling officers who did it, even though they saw them. A variety of factors are at play; it is not simply down to problems in the Procurator Fiscal Service.
I accept that we have problems that must be addressed, but we support the bill and the minister today because the common law is not working. Will the bill be the solution? Clearly, the answer is that, on its own, it will not be a solution. It will not make the attitudinal or cultural changes that are required to stop the bad behaviour, but—as the minister, to his credit, made clear—we are sending a message from this chamber that actions such as stoning firemen who are trying to put out fires and throwing bricks at paramedics are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. We are the elected Parliament of the people of Scotland. If we do not send that message and let it ring out true, nobody else will.
First, the bill will give fiscals the opportunity to libel a variety of charges. Simply throwing an egg at an ambulance could be libelled as a breach of the peace under the common law. However, there are circumstances—sadly too prevalent—in which fires are raised or malicious calls are made to draw fire engines into circumstances simply so that they can be attacked. That is unacceptable. Although such offences could be libelled under the common law, a decision could be taken that it would be appropriate to use the full weight and majesty of this legislation to show that the behaviour is unacceptable and to make an example of the person. That is why we are giving this option to those who are charged with dealing with such behaviour.
Secondly, as the minister said, the bill sends a message that, although there is no single, simple solution to the antisocial behaviour that manifests itself in such offences, such behaviour will not be tolerated, will be dealt with heavily and there will be no acceptable excuses for it. It might not be proceeded against in every instance following the passing of the bill, but the legislation will be there for the fiscal to use and the sheriff to implement if they so desire.
As I said, the bill is part of the process of sending the simple message that we are not prepared to accept such behaviour. I have sympathy for the Conservatives' view that such attacks can be dealt with under common law, but the common law is not working and we must change the situation. The bill on its own is not necessarily the solution, but it is one more string to the bow of those who seek to end such behaviour. The bill makes it clear that the Parliament believes that that behaviour is unacceptable. We support the bill.
No doubt a few headlines in tomorrow's newspapers will say what a good piece of work the bill is, but I regret that it is not; it will be bad legislation that, I believe, will not stand the test of time. I say that not out of any anti-devolutionary spirit—since the people of Scotland decided that they wanted a Scottish Parliament, my party has worked hard to make devolution work. However, the people of Scotland deserve a strong Parliament that makes good laws and it is in that spirit that we are totally unable to support the bill.
At the start of the process, we all signed up to the bill in good faith—who would not want emergency service workers to be protected from assault and obstruction? However, it quickly became clear that the bill had not been thought through. The Executive's aims were muddled and the Justice 1 Committee did not know whether the bill was aimed at protecting emergency workers at all times or whether the focus was on the consequences of obstructing or hindering them. The so-called blue-light services—the police, the fire service and ambulance crews—are clearly emergency workers whose work is almost always carried out in emergency circumstances. However, when the committee took evidence, it became clear that those whom the bill is intended to protect had real difficulties with and concerns about it. For example, a witness from the fire service expressed reservations about the service's inclusion in the bill, which, he feared, could result in the loss of the fire service's neutrality by aligning it with the police and hence increasing the risk of attacks.
Other witnesses wanted to extend the bill to include more public service workers, but it was evident that if we had started that process, the list of those who could be included might be endless. The minister has chosen to extend the category to include a limited number of public service workers who are not blue-light service workers. In doing so, he has created a two-tier public service workers bill, although he was honest enough to admit that in evidence. I would have preferred him to go further and acknowledge that, despite everyone's good intentions, the bill is simply not necessary, it creates more problems than solutions and extra legislative time has been allocated and wasted on a face-saving exercise for the Executive.
The common law can already deal with such situations and has the flexibility to take account of individual circumstances. The situation has been enhanced by the Lord Advocate's guidance to procurators fiscal, which emphasises that an attack on any worker who is delivering a public service is an aggravated offence. That goes a long way towards achieving the bill's objectives, without the need for new legislation. Two more elements are needed. First, we need a high-profile campaign that stigmatises attacks on public service workers in emergency circumstances in much the same way as the drink-driving campaign stigmatised that behaviour. Secondly, we must ensure that the increased sentencing powers that are proposed in the bill are available to sheriffs under the summary procedure.
We have heard many references to the impressive chamber and the importance of ensuring that the quality of our work matches the quality of our surroundings. Today, we have failed to do that. The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill is not good enough for the people of Scotland.
Like most members, I agreed that we needed legislation on the issue. As Margaret Mitchell said, who would not stand up and say that we want to give the best possible protection to emergency workers? However, as we went through the process of scrutinising the bill, we realised that the matter was not as simple as it had appeared at first sight.
In more than five years in the Parliament, I do not think that I have come across a piece of legislation that has been more difficult to deal with or on which it has been more difficult to understand the Executive's thinking than this bill. For a bill that runs to only a few pages, we ended up with a stage 1 report that ran to 240 paragraphs.
I thank the minister for his comments about the partnership between the Executive and the committee. We have given it due scrutiny and put more of ourselves and our views into it than we have done with any other bill, and we have seen that reflected in the Executive's responses. Unison went further and said that the rigorous approach of the Justice 1 Committee had salvaged legislation that should provide a measure of additional protection for many workers. That is where we have got to.
The Justice 1 Committee felt that the legislation would give added protection at the margins for certain workers. The changes that the minister proposed and accepted at stage 2 have improved on that. The bill will give greater protection, especially to the blue-light services—ambulance, fire and police. The police already have certain protections, but the bill goes further to protect them from assault as well as from being obstructed and hindered. It also improves the positions of the other two blue-light services, the ambulance and fire services.
Throughout consideration of the bill, we have heard conflicting and confusing evidence, partly because there is no data on how many assaults against emergency workers there are, in particular when they are in emergency circumstances. We have heard conflicting evidence from unions and other bodies who represent groups of workers about who should be covered by the legislation and into which categories they should fall; whether they should be covered when on duty, as Stewart Stevenson discussed when he talked about general practitioners, nurses and midwives, or whether being covered in emergency circumstances is enough.
Even now, I do not believe that any of us could say that we are 100 per cent happy that we have got the bill right. The legislation opened a can of worms and Mr McCabe is to be congratulated on trying his best to put those worms back in, but we might not have got it right. That is why I am reassured that the minister will consider whether other workers should be added.
I welcome the fact that my amendment about child protection officers was accepted at stage 2. I also welcome the extension of cover from the accident and emergency department to the entire hospital. That gives greater clarity to the bill.
Many people have been disappointed by the narrowness of the bill. We hope that the minister will monitor the effectiveness of the bill and whether or not the legislation is being used. One of the areas that concerned us was the evidential process of proving that someone was an emergency worker working in emergency circumstances when they were assaulted.
Along with everyone else, I believe that it is totally unacceptable for someone who is working for the good of the public to be assaulted. As part of the package that the Executive is proposing, the bill should be welcomed and supported.
I welcome the passage of the bill and the additional protection that it will give to emergency workers and to those in emergency circumstances. However, I acknowledge that the use of those two phrases has caused some consternation and I will return to that.
When I joined the Justice 1 Committee after the stage 1 report had been debated, I was aware of the concerns that had been raised. I thank the committee clerks for bringing me up to speed with what was quite a complicated issue. I was also surprised at the committee's delay in moving on from stage 1, but I realised why there had been so many problems when I had my first briefing session.
Following some constructive discussion with the minister, Tom McCabe, I believe that the committee was right to focus on the "Emergency Workers" part of the bill's title. That allowed the committee to scrutinise the bill that was before it and not some imaginary bill.
When I was involved in taking evidence and making visits throughout Scotland for the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill, I was made aware of the difficult circumstances that some workers face far too regularly. Many workers, from bus drivers to shop workers, had been threatened or even assaulted just for doing their jobs. I believe strongly that everyone should be able to go about their work without fear and, as a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, I have supported USDAW's high-profile campaign on the matter. However, the bill relates to emergency workers. I do not accept Margaret Mitchell's position that we should reject the bill because it creates a two-tier workforce. As I said, no one should go to their work in fear, but when threats and violence put at risk not only the workers, but those whom they seek to help, we must go one step further, which is why we must support the bill.
We know that, for legislation to be effective, it needs to be clear. People understand what the blue-light services—the police, fire and ambulance services—are, what emergency circumstances are and who those assisting in such circumstances are. I thank the minister for accepting my stage 2 amendment on mental health officers.
The bill is important and I hope that, on this occasion, the Conservatives will put aside their opposition, because it is important that the Parliament gives the message that we are determined to stamp out any kind of aggression towards the workforce, and that, because this piece of the jigsaw refers to those who work in emergency circumstances, we should support the bill.
I add the Scottish Green Party's support to the general support for the bill. One problem that members from smaller parties have is keeping track of the detailed arguments that arise in committee stages when their parties do not have members on the relevant committee, so I am particularly grateful to the researchers in the Scottish Parliament information centre for keeping us informed of developments.
As we heard in the various arguments on amendments in the stage 3 debate, there is a balance to be struck in defining circumstances and categories of workers. I confess that I do not understand what the huge problem is with defining categories of workers. I do not consider it to be the case, as some members have said, that protection for emergency workers in emergency circumstances would be undermined by extending that protection to others in other situations.
I am sure that every member of every party acknowledges the importance of the problem of aggression towards emergency workers. We depend on emergency workers and many others for the protection that they offer to society. The impact of violence against them is profound; it affects not only their health and safety, but their dignity, motivation and ability to provide essential services, so it is entirely right that society should make a pointed and determined effort to reflect protection back on them. However, I make a plea for a restorative and constructive approach towards dealing with offenders. The offence of violence towards public service and emergency workers is particularly offensive and disturbing and is to be condemned, but to draw young offenders into the criminal justice and prison systems when their offending behaviour might be the result of peer pressure, ignorance, thoughtlessness or boredom would be short sighted.
I especially welcome the minister's words on prevention. He will have the Greens' enthusiastic support for his efforts to inform and educate the public and to raise awareness of the issue to make the problem less likely to occur. Prevention is certainly better than cure.
I restate the Scottish Green Party's support for the bill.
Since the bill came before the Parliament's Justice 1 Committee for stage 1 scrutiny, it has been perfectly clear that it has not received a glowing commendation. That has nothing to do with the policy intention and everything to do with the substantive content of the bill and what it tries to achieve. It has been exceedingly instructive to listen to the debate and to the debate on the amendments.
The question that must be posed, and which illuminates the difficulties surrounding the bill, is who the bill is not for. Clearly, it is not for the medical practitioners, registered nurses or midwives who are mentioned in Stewart Stevenson's amendment 2, and it is not for the social workers to whom Kenny MacAskill referred. However, the bill is for the water rescue services personnel whom Jackie Baillie has discussed and for those social workers referred to by the minister. The bill does not cover the bus drivers, estate agents et al mentioned by Pauline McNeill, although she would like it to. The distinction between who the bill is intended for and who it is not intended for is incomprehensible.
Margaret Smith has been honest enough to recognise that today. She spoke about the existing anomaly, and was right to do so. She did not want to extend that anomaly by supporting Mr Stevenson's amendments. Karen Gillon mentioned psychiatric nurses. It was interesting that, in responding to her and to Stewart Stevenson, the minister said that, where the bill does not cover a situation, the common law will prevail and will cover the incident in question. The minister reiterated that point when responding to Kenny MacAskill's amendments.
It would have been infinitely preferable to allow the common law to do what it is best at: to provide flexibility of application according to the severity of the offence under either summary or solemn procedure. In the cases of the many workers to whom the Parliament is desirous of giving adequate protection, that flexibility could be achieved now by a direction from the Lord Advocate to say that such cases should be prosecuted on indictment and that, on conviction, sentence should reflect the aggravating circumstances.
If the existing law is not being applied for the various reasons that Mr MacAskill advanced, the bill will address not one of those reasons. It is deeply troubling that offences under the bill might be prosecuted under a less robust regime than indictment at common law.
The policy intention of the bill is commendable, but the bill does not meet that policy intention. It has inadvertently created confusion and inconsistency. In so doing, it does a disservice to all those whom it should protect. We support our emergency workers, but we cannot support bad law. The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill is very bad law, which is why my party will be unable to vote for it.
I seem to recollect that the Tories introduced a number of bad laws, not least of which was the one that brought the poll tax to Scotland, so I take what Annabel Goldie has just said with a pinch of salt.
I add my thanks to the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, his officials, the Justice 1 Committee and the committee clerks for getting us to this point. Despite the fact that it is relatively short, the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill has a degree of complexity, as was clearly reflected in the committee's deliberations. I will not attempt to repeat the minister's eloquent explanation of the purpose or nuances of the bill. Let me instead paint a picture of what I hope the bill will prevent from happening in my constituency and in constituencies throughout the country.
The firefighters at Dumbarton fire station tell me that, in responding to 999 calls to put out what can be serious domestic fires in parts of my constituency, their vehicles have been stoned; they have had a variety of missiles hurled at them, which have not just shattered windows and damaged the vehicles, but caused injury to the firefighters, delaying them in attending emergencies. Ultimately, it has delayed the firefighters in doing their job, which is about saving lives.
I hope that the staff nurse working at the accident and emergency department of the Vale of Leven hospital will never again have to contact me to say that she was assaulted as she attended to a patient. The patient was drunk and violent and left her with substantial physical injuries—never mind the emotional injuries—which meant that she could not return to work.
I welcome the recognition that the bill now gives to services such as the Loch Lomond rescue boat. That service is provided on a voluntary basis by men and women from my constituency and Sylvia Jackson's constituency. It is an essential emergency service that is engaged in saving lives and its volunteers deserve the same level of protection as others who are specified in the bill. I thank the minister and the committee for their support in that regard.
Nothing justifies any attack on any emergency worker, especially those who are directly engaged in emergencies and in saving lives. Unlike the Tories, I very much welcome the bill. The Tories have once again demonstrated to the rest of us in the Parliament and to the people of Scotland just how out of touch they are.
Although I have no doubt that the penalties that are contained in the bill will have a deterrent effect, I am clear that the legislation must sit in a much wider package of measures. Therefore, I particularly welcome the Executive's intention to bring forward such measures, including the public awareness campaign, improved training for managers and staff and more education for children and young people about the unacceptability of antisocial behaviour directed at emergency workers. We need practically to reinforce the bill's message that attacks on public service workers are completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated. I commend the minister and the Executive for introducing the bill.
My colleague Margaret Smith referred to the bill as a can of worms. I remember the discussions that I had with her at the early stages of the bill's consideration, when it was more the case that the can had arrived but the worms were not in it—the committee had to find out where they were. I have had discussions with Margaret Smith throughout the process and, like the minister, I congratulate the Justice 1 Committee on the good job that it has done.
The whole thrust of the bill is, as its title suggests, in the word "emergency". That point was well made by Mary Mulligan and others. There is a growing trend of more assaults in our society and, as Kenny MacAskill said, an increase in antisocial behaviour. Throughout the public sector, assaults are reported to be on the increase. Little research has been done on the issue, but there is no doubt that the bill will help to address the problem. Perhaps some research is needed on the continuing increase in the number of attacks on emergency workers.
I have some sympathy with the various health agencies that wanted us to support Stewart Stevenson's amendment 2, but common law and the Lord Advocate's guidance to procurators fiscal give the level of protection that is needed. Pauline McNeill and Margaret Smith covered that point extremely well earlier in the debate. The bill introduces a maximum sentence of nine months' imprisonment or a fine of up to £5,000. Those penalties are greater than the penalties under common law and the increases are very much to be welcomed.
It is worth making the point that fire officers and policeman who think that they are going to an emergency will be covered by the bill even if they find out when they get there that the situation is not an emergency. In my constituency, on a number of occasions, the fire brigade has been called out and youngsters have heaved stones at the fire engine as it is driven up the Gilmerton Road. We can now deal with those people, many of whom are over 16, in a far more aggressive manner. As the minister said, no one in the chamber can understand the behaviour that those youngsters are involved in. The bill will protect emergency workers and I support it. I congratulate the Justice 1 Committee on its work in bringing the bill to a conclusion.
I now go to Tom McCabe to wind up the debate. Minister, you are entitled to seven minutes, but it would be helpful if you could take fewer.
This has been a good debate and I have listened to it with interest. I sincerely thank members for taking part and for their amendments, which added to the bill and assisted us with our explanation of the issues.
In concluding the debate on the bill, I think that it is important to remember what we are seeking to do. Emergency workers save lives. They protect our society from harm in difficult and often dangerous circumstances and they deserve to be protected in return—that is what the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill is about. Devolved government provides us with important opportunities to address critical issues that impact on our society in Scotland. It is therefore genuinely sad that the Conservatives have, yet again, failed to rise to that challenge and failed to recognise that the heroes in our health and emergency services—they are nothing less than heroes—need and deserve the level of protection that the bill will provide.
I hope that my colleague Margaret Mitchell and I made it crystal clear on the Conservatives' behalf that we support our emergency workers and applaud what they do. We question the technicality of whether the bill addresses the need that must be addressed.
Actions matter, not words. That is how emergency workers will respond. They need to see actions and real things from the Parliament. The bill will give them that and protect them, unlike the Conservatives' words.
I reiterate my thanks to the Justice 1 Committee and its convener, Pauline McNeill, for their considerable contribution to the bill's development. I also thank the Crown Office, the Law Society of Scotland, our Executive officials and many other organisations and individuals who played a part in shaping the bill.
The bill's passage through the Parliament has been eventful, but I am convinced that our journey has been worth while. The bill will give robust and comprehensive protection to those who provide invaluable emergency services to the people of Scotland. Who here would deny such committed workers that protection? That is the question to consider this afternoon. I commend the bill to the Parliament and urge members to support the motion.