Written evidence to be reported to the House

Part of Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 5:30 pm on 16 October 2007.

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Jan Berry: No, I do not think that our officers do. I think that this is more directed at protecting NHS staff. What it does is to make a separate offence, so that if a person refuses to leave, having been asked to do so, it provides us with not an aggravating factor, but certainly an actual offence. I think it sends an important message to NHS staff, who face the most awful circumstances, and not just on Friday and Saturday nights, that we care about them. We have an offence of assaulting a police officer, which I would not want to disappear from the statute books. I think that all public sector workers should be properly protected by the law, because they perform extremely difficult tasks, and it would send an important message to them that we actually care about what is happening to them.