Halifax MP's '˜crisis talks' with Government to ensure bill to protect emergency workers has teeth

Labour MP Holly Lynch said key parts of the Assaults on Emergency Workers Bill were still being fine tuned in conjunction with the Government before it faces its Third Reading this week - the final stage it will face before MPs on its route to the House of Lords and becoming law.

Ms Lynch said: “There has been a degree of change and movement. We’ve been in crisis talks with the Government in recent weeks on changes to the Bill. It is not going to look exactly as we envisaged on Friday.

“There have been growing concerns about the spitting clause, that it wouldn’t achieve what we wanted it to do.

“We’ve been made aware that there would be practical difficulties delivering some of the clauses around spitting, and that testing requirements wouldn’t be as accurate as we thought they were.”

Ms Lynch said the Government was advised by the NHS that tests presently do not have the scientific backing required for the Bill, but she said, blue light workers who have been spat at were still a priority.

“We are working with the Government to provide an alternative package of measures to offer emergency service workers so that they receive the very best advice across the board if the legislative proposals cannot work as we thought,” she said. “It is regrettable, but I do understand, and if it is not going to work in practice then we do need to find a workable solution.”

It will cover assaults and related offences including common assault, ABH, GBH, and manslaughter.

Ms Lynch said that she and Mr Bryant, along with trades associations, were continuing to lobby the Government, which has been widely supportive of the Bill, to include sexual assault among the charges.

“The Government initially failed to include sexual assault among the raft of charges, and we are continuing to lobby to ensure it gets included,” Ms Lynch said.

“Until this point, everything with the Bill had ran fairly smoothly, now all of a sudden quite a lot of the nitty gritty has needed addressing.”