I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She makes an important point about the scoring of political points during the national pandemic that we are facing.
In my regular discussions with the chief executive of the North East Ambulance Service, Helen Ray, she has highlighted to me the fact that her colleagues want to see community sentences handed down to assailants that are served in the service that they committed the offence against. That would ensure that punishment was restitutional and perpetrators fully appreciated the impact of their offences on the people who risk their lives serving us. It is unacceptable that, in the course of this year, there have been more than 1,600 assaults on ambulance staff and more than 2,000 cases of verbal abuse.
We must do more to protect our emergency services. We must do more to prevent assaults on emergency services. And we must do more to ensure that the punishment fits the crime.
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