Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will hold discussions with the Crown Prosecution Service on increasing prosecutions for assault of emergency workers in Bolton.

Any assault on an emergency worker is unacceptable and I am determined to do everything I can to ensure they are prevented.

As part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, we have brought forward legislation to double the maximum sentence for assaults on emergency workers.

The Office for National Statistics’ Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and its latest estimates shows that the number of incidences of violence has fallen by 41% since the year ending March 2010, to 1.1 million incidences.