PROPOSED laws to protect firefighters from a growing risk of assault as they tackle blazes will be blocked by the Government, The Northern Echo can reveal.

Ministers are preparing to stop a backbencher's attempt to ensure yobs who attack emergency staff are given tougher penalties when they reach court.

The Bill, backed by the Fire Brigades Union, is designed to give fire crews the same protection as police officers, who are already covered by laws.

But the Home Office is insisting magistrates have already been given guidelines allowing them to give harsher sentences, without the need for new legislation.

The Northern Echo revealed last month that Cleveland firefighters were being attacked at the rate of one a week.

The 54 assaults in the year to the end of March was the highest in the country outside the big cities of Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.

At present, less serious attacks on emergency staff, such as spitting, threatening staff or obstructing vehicles, are treated as civil offences, with authorities reluctant to prosecute.

Under legislation to be brought forward by Alan Williams, Labour MP for Swansea West, all attacks would result in a nine-month jail term or a £5,000 fine.

However, a Home Office spokeswoman said: "The Government is committed to ensuring tougher sentences for all involved in attacking public sector workers.

"But we do not believe there is a need for further specific offences to achieve that, because sentencing guidelines have already been distributed across all courts."

The guidelines, published in December, urge magistrates' courts to consider the fact that a victim works in the public sector as a serious aggravating factor.

Mr Williams' Bill is due to come before MPs early next year, but Ministers are expected to arrange for it to be blocked.

Cleveland Fire Brigade chiefs warned that lives could be lost if the attacks -some carried out by children as young as seven - are not stopped.

In one incident, two Stockton firefighters attending a rubbish fire at a house needed hospital treatment after they were both punched in the face by youths.

Only a few days earlier, yobs attacked two firefighters, knocking one unconscious, as they tried to steal equipment from a fire engine in Stockton.