Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Meeting date: Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Official Report 1034KB pdf

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Honouring Emergency Workers

The final item of business is a member’s business debate on motion S6M-03342, in the name of Graham Simpson, on honouring emergency workers. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. As ever, if a member wishes to speak in the debate, they should press their request-to-speak button now or as soon as possible. I call Graham Simpson to open the debate. You have around seven minutes.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament recognises the campaign by the Lanarkshire Police Historical Society for officers murdered in the line of duty, including Constable George Taylor and Detective Sergeant William Ross Hunt, both of Strathclyde Police Force, to receive posthumous UK bravery awards; further recognises what it sees as the need for those who lose their lives while on public duty to receive recognition; notes the view that the UK Government should agree to create a new award for all emergency workers who are killed while serving the public, and that this should be retrospective; recognises what it sees as the sterling bravery shown by Constable George Taylor and Sergeant William Ross Hunt in the face of what it understands was horrific violence; congratulates the Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Iain Livingstone, on agreeing to honour both men, and notes with sadness the long wait that their families have had for both men to be acknowledged.

17:32  

I start by thanking all the members from across the chamber who signed the motion, thereby allowing the debate to take place. At the heart of it is something that I think that we can all agree with: those who serve us in the emergency services are heroes and deserve our thanks and recognition.

I want to set out the background to why I lodged the motion. In 2020, I was contacted by retired police officer George Barnsley of the Lanarkshire Police Historical Society. He asked me to look at two cases in which he believed officers had been overlooked for posthumous awards. If members will allow it, I will take a bit of time to go over the cases in chronological order.

The first involved Constable George Taylor. On 30 November 1976, Robert Mone and Thomas McCulloch escaped from Carstairs state hospital. During the escape, they murdered another inmate and a male nurse, and they fled wearing nurses’ uniforms. Shortly afterwards, Robert McAllan was driving his car in Carnwath when he saw a man lying in the road and another signalling to him to stop, which he did. He was asked if he would drive them away, but he refused because he saw a police van coming.

Both officers in the van were attacked with an axe and a knife. George Taylor was killed. Mone and McCulloch stole the police van, then other vehicles. Officers from Strathclyde Police chased them to Carlisle, where four Scottish police vehicles were joined by reinforcements from Cumbria Constabulary. Mone and McCulloch were forced onto a slip road while trying to move ahead of police who had overtaken them, and they crashed. Despite the crash and the police presence, they used their weapons to attempt to seize a car that had stopped at the crash, but they were eventually overpowered, restrained and arrested. They were convicted of the murders of the inmate, the prison nurse and Constable Taylor.

The second case happened on 5 June 1983 in Larkhall. Detective Sergeant William Ross Hunt was making enquiries into an attempted murder incident. DS Hunt and other officers attended the home address of the suspect at Earn Gardens in Larkhall. The suspect was not at home, so the officers walked back towards their vehicle. At that time, the suspect came back with other members of his family and approached the address. DS Hunt walked towards the group to explain the reason for their visit, but the group attacked him and stabbed him to death. He was 56 years of age and had more than 30 years of police service. Three family members—Hugh Murray Jnr, who was 16, Margaret Smith, 23, and Hugh Murray Snr, aged 51—were arrested and convicted of DS Hunt’s murder.

Detective Sergeant Hunt’s son, Phil, is with us today in the public gallery, as is George Barnsley. They are behind me.

Neither of the murdered officers has been formally recognised in the honours system, but they are not the only ones. Members will know of the case of Woman Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher, who was killed outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984. She has never been honoured. There are others.

The Queen’s gallantry medal was instituted in June 1974 to replace the?order of the British empire?for gallantry and the? British empire medal?for gallantry. The QGM ended the anomaly whereby the order of the British empire for gallantry was awarded for lesser acts of bravery than the?George medal?but took precedence over it. The QGM is awarded for “exemplary acts of bravery” by civilians and members of the armed forces where purely military honours are not normally granted. It has been awarded posthumously since 30 November 1977.

In December 2020, I wrote to Home Secretary Priti Patel to suggest that the Queen’s gallantry medal would be appropriate in the cases that I have described. Since then, I have been passed around various ministers—Chloe Smith, Alister Jack and more recently the Cabinet Office minister, Lord True—and there have also been ministerial discussions about it.

The upshot is that a case will not be considered if it is more than five years since the event occurred. We do know, however, that Constable Taylor was nominated for an award shortly after his death. A report dated 28 March 1977 from Chief Superintendent John Lauder to Chief Constable Patrick Hamill nominated individuals for awards. The Chief Superintendent recommended Constable George Taylor for a Queen’s bravery award. A letter dated 29 April 1977 from Chief Constable Patrick Hamill to the Secretary of State for Scotland at the time, Bruce Millan, endorsed Constable Taylor’s nomination.

After that letter to the Secretary of State, there is no further record of Constable Taylor’s nomination. Every English officer involved in the case subsequently received their awards. The Scottish police officers did not.

I have been in touch with Chief Constable Iain Livingstone. He has recognised the sacrifice of both men and wants to honour them with the highest accolade that he can—the chief constable’s bravery commendation. He is to be commended himself for doing that.

There is therefore no United Kingdom award for those brave men and other officers like them, and that brings me to the idea of a brand new award, which could fill the gap. It seems to me that, if any member of our emergency services loses their life in the line of duty, their family should get something that says that the nation values and thanks them. If a member of the armed forces is killed on operations or as a result of terrorism, their next of kin receive the Elizabeth cross as a mark of national recognition for their loss. That is quite right. There should be something similar for members of our emergency services.

The Police Federation of England and Wales, the Police Superintendents Association and the Prison Officers Association have all arrived at the same conclusion. I have written to the committee on the grant of honours, decorations and medals, which makes recommendations to the Queen. It would be great if the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government could get behind this.

This would be for George Taylor, William Ross Hunt, Yvonne Fletcher and many others in the police, fire services, ambulance services, coastguards and mountain rescue services. They are, all of them, heroes: brave to the core.

17:40  

I am grateful to be able to speak in today’s debate and I thank Graham Simpson for the motion, which gives us all the opportunity to recognise the efforts of the emergency services. In my case, I recognise those in the north-east in particular.

I know that the substance of Graham Simpson’s speech was about the lives of the officers that he has mentioned. What Graham Simpson has outlined today exemplifies not only the bravery of our officers but the potential sacrifice that they and their families make, and it is only right that we recognise that.

I want to talk about what our emergency services did to keep us all safe in the north-east during the recent storms, which caused so much damage and put so many people at risk in the north-east. During storms Arwen and Malik, emergency services and workers were thrown into situations that were considerably more dangerous than anyone had anticipated. The conditions in which they had to work during storm Arwen meant that they were at considerable risk when the rest of us were told to stay safely indoors.

I remember driving home as the storm began to hit the north-east. I was at a constituency meeting on a farm and the lights were flickering and the windows shaking throughout. On the way home, I realised that what was approaching would be a very damaging time for the north-east, and how unsafe it was to be out in the storm. On that Friday afternoon, as I drove home on the road between Oldmeldrum and Methlick, huge tree branches were already starting to fly past the windscreen, and that was just the start.

Overnight, fully mature trees were brought down, blocking roads and bringing down live power cables. Our colleagues in the police and fire services were mobilised immediately to respond to road blockages and falling live power lines, and to co-ordinate the emergency response in really quite dangerous conditions. Sadly, our police and ambulance crews had to respond to one fatality that was caused by a falling tree crashing into the car of a young man at the Hatton of Fintray Road at the height of storm Arwen, and another during storm Malik in Aberdeen city. It is an absolute miracle that none of the emergency workers was injured in doing so.

The fact that there were no fatalities among our emergency workers or civilians was remarkable, given the extent of the hazards that the storm presented. That was in no small part due to the effort of those emergency services and their messaging, their immediate response, and their bravery in the work that they did in subsequent days to remove debris and to close off areas where trees were still at risk of falling. As I say, there were many live power lines.

The damage that was caused by storm Arwen was enormous because of the unusual wind direction and its intensity. Superintendent Murray Main said that the magnitude of the event had been both significant and unprecedented. Superintendent Main is to retire shortly; I thank everyone who signed my parliamentary motion recognising his years of service and his leadership during those recent storms.

It has always been the case that our emergency workers will go where the rest of us cannot and should not go, but they face abuse, violence and danger every day. I commend the bravery of the officers who are mentioned in Graham Simpson’s speech and motion, and I support his call for their posthumous recognition. Indeed, there is a north-east element to one of those cases. The man who killed George Taylor was incarcerated in Peterhead prison and was deemed to be one of the most dangerous prisoners ever to be incarcerated in the old prison there.

I support Graham Simpson’s call for posthumous recognition of the officers. Our emergency workers always deserve our gratitude, but in the past few years, they have deserved it more than ever. Once again, I thank Mr Simpson for allowing us time to put our thanks on the record today.

17:44  

I thank Graham Simpson for a really excellent motion on a very important subject.

I have a great deal of respect for emergency workers. In fact my husband, Joe, was a serving police officer in the criminal investigation department when I first met him. I confess that my heart was in my mouth when he was called out to an incident and went out with his handcuffs and his baton, not knowing when he would come back. I understand how that feels.

I have represented ambulance workers through the GMB Scotland for a while. I was genuinely shocked at the amount of risk that is taken by ambulance workers on a daily basis. We can never be thankful enough for the risks that emergency workers take.

I did not feel that police officers got the full recognition that they deserved during the pandemic for displaying bravery every day on the front line when the Covid virus was at its height.

The number of police officers who are subjected to assaults every year is rising. The latest figures from Police Scotland indicate that more than 3,000 police officers and police staff were victims of assault each year over the past five years.

As we have heard, the murders of Constable George Taylor and Detective Sergeant William Ross Hunt while on duty are shocking reminders of what the police can face simply for doing their job. I commend the work of the Lanarkshire Police Historical Society—and that of Graham Simpson—in leading the campaign for posthumous bravery awards for those two officers.

Campaigners believe that both Constable George Taylor and Detective Sergeant William Ross Hunt are entitled to a variety of honours, including the George medal and the Queen’s gallantry medal. I understand that the campaign is supported by Chief Constable Iain Livingstone, who has backed the families and offered a chief constable’s bravery commendation.

I also understand that a UK Government spokesman has said that

“the rules on posthumous gallantry awards stipulate that the event must have taken place in the past five years. This means, regrettably, it is not possible for either case to be formally recognised.”

I do not think that that is good enough. It is clear that the sacrifice of all officers, past and present, who die in the line of duty must be recognised, no matter when their deaths took place. I believe that the pandemic awakened us to their incredible bravery.

I agree with the motion that we need a new award for police officers, firefighters, paramedics and prison officers who are killed in service. Although nothing can ever truly make up for a lost life, at the very least an emergency services medal should be received by the immediate family of those who die in the execution of their duties to acknowledge their sacrifice.

I apologise to the chamber: because I have to be at a cross-party group meeting this evening, I will not be able to stay for the cabinet secretary’s summing up, but I wanted to say that I fully support Graham Simpson and his work.

17:47  

I begin by giving credit to Graham Simpson for bringing this extremely important subject to the chamber and by welcoming Phil Hunt and George Barnsley to the gallery.

I declare an interest, as my wife is a serving police officer. While I am standing here talking, she is out there protecting people and putting herself in danger. As politicians, the biggest risk that we face is being heckled by the other side or tripping up over our words, but police officers face real dangers and real unpredictability every single day.

Just last week I received an email from an officer who said:

“put yourself in our shoes, day in, day out. I find myself more often than not using the phrase ‘there but by the grace of God’ when it comes to how officers are not seriously injured on a more frequent basis.”

He blames a lack of funding, and he talks about the need for more tasers, which is a whole other debate. However, he adds:

“It will take one of my colleagues to be killed before fingers begin to be pointed.”

I get that, and I could not agree more.

It is the welfare of front-line officers and, indeed, of all emergency service workers, that matters. Sometimes we think that the main danger is from violence on our streets, but many are exposed to horrific incidents that can cause severe mental health problems. At the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, there was a series of reports in the media of Police Scotland officers taking their own lives. There were four over four months up until January 2020 and at least eight apparent suicides in recent years.

The thing is that we do not know how many there actually were. Why? A freedom of information request to Police Scotland revealed that no record is kept. I asked the Crown Office how many of those tragic deaths of police officers were the subject of fatal accident inquiries. To my great shock, the answer was none. Officers are dying and no one is taking the time or interest to find out why. We know that suicide is complex, but surely fatal accident inquiries should be an absolute given. How can we hope to prevent further suicides if we cannot learn from those that have occurred? Do we really take the issue of police welfare as seriously as is sometimes made out?

As I have said, we owe not just police officers but all emergency service workers a huge debt of gratitude. Graham Simpson has very diligently spotted a gap and he is doing something about it. I think that that speaks to the power of what we, as individual MSPs, can do.

I look forward to seeing what the committee on the grant of honours, decorations and medals says to Graham Simpson, and I agree that it would be helpful if the Scottish Parliament and, indeed, the Scottish Government could support the aims of his campaign. Let us also make sure that the mental welfare of all officers is paramount.

17:50  

I thank Graham Simpson for lodging the motion and I thank the members who have made contributions to the debate.

First, the motion asks us to recognise the campaign that has been led by the Lanarkshire Police Historical Society for officers who were murdered in the line of duty to receive posthumous United Kingdom bravery awards. It specifically mentions Constable George Taylor and Detective William Ross Hunt of Strathclyde Police, who sadly lost their lives in the course of their duties. Today we have heard cross-party support for the campaign; we already know that it has the full support of the Scottish Police Federation, which represents front-line officers.

I will say a word to Graham Simpson about just keeping going on the matter. When I was first elected to Parliament, I was involved in a campaign to have people who were in the Arctic convoys recognised with an honour and a medal, which had been resisted fiercely by successive Governments over a number of years. Many of the people were civilians, not military personnel—as members know. Eventually we won the campaign, but it took a long time. I had the privilege of actually handing medals to some of the veterans. Maybe that is a precedent that the member wants to use in the campaign that he is involved in, when he talks to the UK Government. The Arctic convoys happened much more than five years ago, yet an exception was made. It is incomprehensible to me that a person such as Yvonne Fletcher has never received an award. I just do not know how the system works.

It is only right that members and wider society pay respect to such police officers, and that we remember them and their loved ones—some of whom are here today, as has been mentioned—who have suffered loss. The debate has been valuable in demonstrating that respect. The Government supports consideration of a posthumous UK bravery award.

All UK honours and medals, as has been mentioned, are in the personal gift of the Queen. Official recognition is developed on behalf of the UK as a whole and is not directly within the gift of the Scottish Government.

I will go back to the point about tenacity. I had the case of a chap in my constituency who had won seven medals during his time in the military, the last of which arrived at his post in Germany on the day that he left and was then lost. The trouble that he went through to get that medal replaced, which was extremely important to him, was incredible. Eventually, Mark Francois, who was the relevant minister at the time, agreed to that, but even after he had agreed, the civil servants said, “No, we don’t do that”, and he had to tell the civil servants. I know that such things are sometimes difficult, but the persistence and tenacity that Graham Simpson has shown can bear fruit.

As we have heard, the Chief Constable has written to the families of Constable George Taylor and Detective Sergeant William Ross Hunt to offer them the highest award that he can offer—the chief constable’s bravery award—without prejudice to consideration of any national honour.

It is also right that we look beyond the subject of police officers, which has dominated the debate to some extent, to others—as Gillian Martin mentioned—who risk their lives while on public duty. We have recognised the important role of other emergency workers and have heard the call for a new UK award for all emergency workers who lose their lives while serving the public. We also support full consideration of that wider proposal.

It is, of course, important that we recognise and honour the police officers, staff and other emergency services workers who daily show their continued commitment to supporting the public. Every day, emergency services workers across Scotland put themselves in harm’s way as part of their duties, and often go above and beyond what is expected of them. Their hard work, dedication and bravery have helped to make Scotland a stronger, safer and more secure country.

I thank the cabinet secretary. I welcome his words and his advice to keep going. I stress that it is not my campaign; I am involved in it, but there are many others involved, as well.

Given that he has expressed support for the campaign, is the cabinet secretary prepared to write to the UK Government expressing the support of the Scottish Government?

That question was asked earlier. The member will be aware that I have twice expressed explicit support for the campaign; I will say more on that later. If he will give me the chance to take some advice about protocols in the matter, I will be happy to get back to him on it. What I have said about support for the campaign is now on the public record and will be in Parliament’s Official Report.

It is important that we recognise individuals who work in the emergency services, and that we recognise the dedication and bravery that they show. We are committed to ensuring that we continue to protect our emergency services workforce. It is simply not acceptable that that they are attacked. It has always puzzled me—that is putting it lightly—why, for example, fire crews who work to protect people, life and property are attacked or abused and sometimes even risk losing their lives while going about their daily duties. Things are thrown at their vehicles and so on. I think that I speak for us all when I say that we will not tolerate attacks on police or other emergency services workers.

No one, in any circumstances, should face abuse or violence while they are at work. We fully support our police, prosecutors and the courts in dealing with people who offend against emergency workers. The courts already have extensive powers, which were recently reinforced, to deal robustly with people who carry out such appalling behaviour. In Scotland, a life sentence is mandatory for murder and is available to the court as a sentencing option for anyone who is convicted of culpable homicide. It is, of course, for the independent court to decide on the sentence in individual cases. In reaching its sentencing decision, the court will take into account the victim’s being an emergency worker and the fact that the accused was committing a crime when the culpable homicide occurred.

The Scottish Government supports the chief constable’s pledge, and he has expressed his support for what is being asked and is making representations at UK level. That highlights his commitment to reducing the impact of violence on the police workforce, to improving safety for officers and staff, and to providing appropriate support to the victims of attacks.

The Scottish Government has also introduced restitution orders. They are a financial penalty that can be imposed on offenders who are convicted of assault on police. That sends another signal that such behaviour is unacceptable. It is our intention, and we have made efforts to make sure, that when those monies come in they are used in support of the police officers against whom attacks have been made.

I say again, just to make it clear, that I support the intention to honour emergency workers. The Scottish Government supports the call by Graham Simpson for consideration of posthumous awards for emergency workers who lose their lives while on duty serving the public.

Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. That concludes the debate.

Meeting closed at 17:58.