DISCUSSIONS between police bodies and the Government, aimed at getting better protection for police response and pursuit drivers, have been \u2018kicked down the road\u2019 again according to Essex Police Federation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Delays are threatening to undermine the good faith shown by the PFEW in its deliberations with the Government and the \u2018mature and constructive\u2019 way it\u2019s carried out the discussions so far, said Steve Taylor, Essex Police Federation Chairman.<\/p>\n
Currently police drivers have little protection in law and are treated the same as ordinary drivers, despite undergoing years of specialist training.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re almost eight years down a path and for a while we allowed the Government to kick the can down that path,\u201d Steve said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn recent times we\u2019ve undertaken, in good faith, a series of measures aimed at bringing that legislation to bear and we\u2019ve entered into that in good faith, namely getting ourselves into a space where the Home Office are consulting on options.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a Private Members Bill, Sir Henry Bellingham\u2019s bill, coming forward at the end of March for a bit of a crunch vote in Parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, there will come a point where our ability to continue to engage constructively and in a mature way with Government on this issue ceases and we have to take stock of where we are.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sense is that the bill the end of March could afford a natural space for us to start reviewing how we are tackling this issue. It\u2019s not fair,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And simply blaming Brexit for the delay is too easy, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve known about and have we\u2019ve been talking about [the issues] now for eight years and yet there appears to be no great incentive, no great rush in the Government to change things.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll too often we hear the reason for this is Brexit and capacity, and yet we see things like the coastal erosion bill and animal cruelty legislation get through.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere there\u2019s a will there\u2019s a way – are we in a space now of quite legitimately questioning the will of the Government to bring change in his area?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in that strange place now where the Government appear content with systems as they are, with the ability of the CPS to not take things forward with local checks and balances if you like.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s not fair for our members to rely on the political landscape at the time they happen to do something they\u2019ve been trained to do. When those political winds change, they find themselves gripping the rail and it\u2019s simply not fair for simply doing what they\u2019ve been taught to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s only right and fair that we get into this place of better legislation, to protect police drivers, drivers simply doing their job to keep their communities safer, and I think we need to get there sooner than we are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DISCUSSIONS between police bodies and the Government, aimed at getting better protection for police response and pursuit drivers, have been \u2018kicked down the road\u2019 again according to Essex Police Federation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6617,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406\/revisions\/6617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}