Police Officer Safety

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend must be clairvoyant, because the next thing I was going to say was that fire crews in the UK have come under attack 1,000 times in the past two years, and attacks on ambulance workers are also on the rise. Although the main purpose of this debate is to discuss violence against the police, I could not let it pass without referring to other blue-light services with similar issues. All assaults on the police are unacceptable, and we will discuss how to address them. The sad thing is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) said, there is no clear, reliable evidence of the number of assaults on the police, because the data are still recorded in a haphazard and irregular fashion.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

On Merseyside, the most recent figures equate to almost 16% of the entire force being subjected to an attack in one year. Not all those attacks would have resulted in injury, but very many of them did. Does my hon. Friend think that it is an urgent matter for the Government to collect proper statistics on such assaults?

[Ms Abbott]

It is indeed urgent that the Government collect proper statistics. We need reliable, uniform data so that we are clear about the extent of the problem, the trends over time and the differences between forces. To address a problem, it is first necessary to identify it correctly.

There is a further point in relation to the collection of data. Even without data that are as robust as we would like on assaults, there are things that we could do now to address violence against the police to the benefit of the police force and for the reassurance of the public. One of those things is the adoption of body-worn cameras by all police officers who come into contact with the public. I will return to that subject later.