UK Parliament / Open data

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

To be honest, when the law behaves in such a pernickety way as to be able to provide a ludicrous—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who has some legal expertise, is laughing at the idea of lawyers being pernickety. I know that that is sort of their job, but when we end up with loopholes being abused in such a way, the law ends up looking like an ass. It is therefore incumbent on us sometimes to draw legislation as widely as possible to ensure that all such offences are caught. That has been the deliberate intention of the Bill.

Incidentally, I hope that in drafting the Bill, with the assistance of Government draftspeople and ministerial help, we have managed to land on a piece of legislation that is more effective than the parallel legislation that exists in Scotland. Scotland may, in fact, want to look at our legislation and reshape its own law to reflect this.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

639 c1159 

Session

2017-19

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
Back to top