Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, Sheerman-horning!

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

9. What progress the Government have made on improving the safety of prison officers.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

14. What progress the Government have made on improving the safety of prison officers.

[Mike Wood]

Despite the number of assaults on prison officers, very few offenders are prosecuted. Will the Minister ensure that anyone who attacks an on-duty prison officer faces the full weight of the law and can expect the punishments that those crimes would attract elsewhere?

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely, and this was debated in this House when we discussed that private Member’s Bill. At the moment, people are getting a sentence of 22 weeks for spitting at a police officer, but it is rare for such prosecutions to be brought for assaulting a prison officer. We therefore wish to work closely with our colleagues in the police to make sure that prosecutions are brought and that prison officers are properly protected. I have been talking to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service to ensure that we can get more police officers into prisons.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

7. What assessment he has made of the effect of prisoners participating in sporting activities on improving rehabilitation rates.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

14. What assessment he has made of the effect of prisoners participating in sporting activities on improving rehabilitation rates.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)]

There is strong evidence that physical education and sport improve the wellbeing and motivation of those in custody and ex-offenders in the community. Both improve their prospects of successful resettlement.

[Mike Wood]

Team sports promote the values of hard work, accountability and team work. Does the Minister agree that these are exactly the values we should seek to instil in offenders, particularly young offenders, to cut the risk of reoffending and give them a better chance in life after release?

[Dr Lee]

Yes, I do. I hope that every Member would agree. I have commissioned Professor Rosie Meek of Royal Holloway to compile a report on the impact of sport on offenders in custody and in the community so that I can get a complete picture of what I think are the positive benefits. I look forward to her report being published in the new year.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Mike Wood Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Just as for other sons and daughters of emergency service workers, the Bill has a particular resonance for me. In the nearly 30 years that my father served with West Midlands police, he suffered various injuries. Some resulted from accidents in the line of work, but too many were the result of physical assaults: being hit around the head with a stool in a central Birmingham bar, being pulled off a police motorbike and hooligans trying to pull him off a police horse during a football riot. There were too many other incidents that he saw first-hand, such as the Handsworth riots. He saw rioters assaulting the paramedics, ambulance workers and firefighters who were trying to save lives and put out fires right in the middle of the riot zone.

Sadly, as we all know—as I certainly know, not only from the patrols on which I have joined my local police, but from the emails that I have received from serving emergency workers—such assaults happen far too regularly. The emergency workers at whom the Bill is aimed choose to wear their uniforms. They dedicate their careers to putting other people first, and we must ensure that the Bill puts them first. It is precisely because we need the Bill to succeed in its aim of ensuring that these particularly appalling crimes attract suitably strong punishments that we must also ensure that the perpetrators are charged effectively.

Adam Aston, a Dudley Labour councillor, has served as a paramedic for 13 years. He tells me that he has been assaulted twice during that time, and that on neither occasion did the Crown Prosecution Service choose to press charges. If the Bill is to be effective, we must ensure that this is not simply another offence for which the Crown Prosecution Service will not prosecute.

I hope that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the Minister will work together on both prosecuting and sentencing guidelines. Our public sector workers regularly put themselves between us and danger, and we, as legislators, must ensure that we put the law firmly on their side.