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Mr. Nigel Evans: Has my hon. Friend seen the reports in this morning's newspapers about three particular drinks that may attract youngsters? The makers of those drinks are violating a voluntary code. I shall just mention two of the names--Purple Passion and TNT Liquid Dynamite. Their very packaging and the advertisements for them may attract young people to experiment with those alcoholic drinks.
Dr. Spink: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A selling point of the one that he did not mention is the claim that the drink is "dangerously drinkable". We do not want dangerously drinkable substances to be pushed at our children through marketing and clever packaging. The House will have to act if the industry does not get its act together.
Even more important than all the measures in the Bill, we need to provide better youth facilities--alternatives that are exciting and available to all youngsters. That means alternatives which are not school-based. Such facilities should include sports centres, bowling alleys, cinemas, youth clubs and dance venues.
We must recognise and promote the excellent work that is already carried out by many adults who give up their time to help our youth at sports clubs and football clubs as well as through uniformed organisations such as the Air Training Corps, the scouts and the sea cadets. We need to provide more recreational sports and social activities for our youngsters. They must offer a real challenge to them. In the meantime, we need to protect our children as best we can, and that is why the Bill must be introduced without delay.
In Castle Point, a former mayor, Peggy Grant, helped to establish a youth forum of which she is now president to promote more facilities for our young people. I congratulate Peggy and subsequent mayors of Castle Point on continuing that initiative and providing more youth facilities. So far, Canvey Island has benefited and the council now needs to deliver facilities for Benfleet and Hadleigh. It has my entire support.
Nationally, the Prime Minister has promoted a new youth honours system to provide encouragement and reward for our youngsters. I also welcome the possibility of expanding the scope of the cadet forces scheme. That gives youngsters respect and responsibility, as well as fostering discipline and self-confidence. I pay tribute to the excellent cadet forces in Castle Point, Basildon, Southend, West and other areas of Essex--they do an excellent job.
We must not forget the contribution of the national lottery, which is providing massive funding for young people. I shall cite just two of the many examples of the help it has provided in Castle Point. It has given £46,364 for the Castle Point brass band and £200,000 for the Deanes sports hall. Those are just two examples of what has been achieved as a result of successful Conservative policy, which was opposed by the socialists. It is, however, delivering real benefits for Castle Point's youngsters and many other people as well.
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I congratulate the Government on providing two new sixth forms for Castle Point. Education facilities are the most important facilities that we can provide for our youngsters. They are much more important than drop-in centres, bowling alleys or anything else. All the more shameful, then, that local Labour councillors in Castle Point tried to stop the provision of those new facilities for our youngsters.
For the past five years, I made the provision of such facilities for my youngsters a personal crusade. Hon. Members are fed up of hearing me talk about the new sixth forms for Benfleet and Canvey Island. [Hon. Members: "Not at all."] I am grateful to my right hon. and hon. Friends for their encouragement. I assure them that I will not have to crack on about those facilities in the future, because the Government have now made them available, despite the opposition of Labour local councillors.
Overall, I believe that the measures in the Bill will provide a strong disincentive to youngsters to start drinking in public, because they will know that they will not get away with it. They will know that, if they do drink in public, they will be wasting their money. As one 14-year-old young man told me on the streets of Benfleet at 10.30 last Friday night, if his dad found out he had been drinking, severe action would follow to control his behaviour. Make no mistake, under my Bill his dad would find out, and that 14-year-old youngster and many more constituents might be saved a lot of trouble as a result.
This is not a killjoy Bill. I enjoy the occasional glass of wine. It is a discretionary measure. I emphasise that it will not be the duty of the police to confiscate alcohol in any circumstances. Police officers would not be expected to seize alcohol from a family having a picnic if a youngster had a sip of alcohol from one of the glasses.
The Bill is a measure that the police can use with common sense, integrity and good will, and within the guidelines, to prevent under-age drinking when it seems set to become a problem. Its effect is therefore preventative, because it gives the police the power to remove the offending alcohol before youths come under its influence, make misjudgments and put themselves and the public at risk. It is an absurdity that the police cannot act now to do that, in order to cut crime and help our communities and our children.
The fact that the police will generally be expected to take the names and addresses of young people drinking alcohol in public and subsequently write to their parents about that is a great strength of the Bill. It puts control and the guidance of teenagers back where it belongs, with families, not with the police.
Mr. Hartley Booth (Finchley):
My hon. Friend refers to the guidelines, but they are not mentioned in the Bill. Does he expect the Home Office to issue guidelines at some point?
Dr. Spink:
Those guidelines will be explained in detail in Committee. They are basically those that I have set out, which my hon. Friend the Minister will outline. They will be fully explained in Committee, which is one reason why my Bill will go to Committee--which I am sure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will be pleased to hear.
If the alcohol drunk by young people is not given up when they are questioned by the police or false details are given, the police will have the power to arrest without
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Mr. David Hunt (Wirral, West):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink), not only on introducing a much-needed Bill, but on making one of the best speeches that I have heard in a Second Reading debate on a private Member's Bill. He has put his case clearly, simply, and cogently, and he has comprehensively covered the reasons why the Bill is needed. I have no doubt that today marks a very important stage in the partnership between Parliament and the police.
I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point for responding to a problem in my own constituency, about which the police wrote to me just before the ballot on private Members' Bills. In my 20 years in the House, I cannot recall an occasion on which a senior police officer has written to me to ask me to introduce legislation. In November, however, Chief Inspector Garnett, the operations manager of Merseyside police, based in Wallasey, wrote to me. He said:
The background to the matter goes much wider than that, however, because we have had a series of meetings in Wirral, which have been conducted by the Merseyside police authority. On 15 May 1996, we had one such meeting--at the Holy Trinity school, in Hoylake--with the Wallasey and Hoylake police and community forum. The minutes of the meeting show that it was dominated by the issue of youth disorder, and particularly by disorder associated with under-age drinking. Problems were experienced in the Kings Gap, which is just round the corner from my home, in Kale close, and in other key
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Action is required elsewhere in Wirral. My good friend and colleague Les Byrom--the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate in the Wirral, South by-election, who I hope will soon be joining us on the Government Benches--shares my belief that the problem of under-age drinking in public places is one of several law-and-order issues on which action must be taken, and that a closer, stronger and more positive partnership is required between the public, police and Parliament. Les Byrom has already told me how delighted he is that the Bill is receiving such strong support, not only across the political spectrum but from many people across Wirral.
The problem of under-age drinking has become very serious in the Woodchurch estate in my constituency. I became aware of the problem in August, through correspondence with my constituents in The Meadow, which is part of the estate. One local resident wrote of
Fridays in the House are always interesting, because we often deal with private Members' Bills that express good notions which one should like to support, although there is often very little time to make progress on them. I could not be more delighted that today we will deal with two Bills--this Bill and the Road Traffic Reduction Bill; the first two Bills on today's Order Paper--that I very strongly support. However, I believe that this Bill is more immediately relevant to our problems. Road traffic reduction is a more difficult problem and will require much more time to deal with, whereas the problem of under-age drinking can be dealt with immediately.
I again congratulate my hon. Friend on his marvellous speech. Until I became aware this year of the extent of the problems in my constituency, I had not realised--which is my fault--that it is not an offence under current legislation for a person under 18 to drink alcohol, whether in public or in private, or for an adult to buy alcohol for someone under 18 to drink away from unlicensed premises. The gap in the law is another good reason why we so strongly support the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point.
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My hon. Friend has told us that the Bill's purpose is to introduce preventive measures, which is what the issue is all about. I especially support him on his point about reinforcing parental responsibility. The Conservative party is all about opportunity and choice, particularly for parents, whereas from other parties we hear too much about rights and too little about responsibilities.
The Bill gives us an opportunity to remind parents that they have considerable responsibilities for their children and teenagers. It is a common-sense measure that will not only help to make our streets safer for young and old people alike, but will keep teenagers out of trouble by placing the primary emphasis on alerting parents to the problem.
The Bill will permit police to confiscate alcohol held in public for use by young persons, and establishes the right to take names and addresses so that police can write to young people's parents, thereby placing control and guidance of teenagers where it belongs--with families and parents--and not with police. Particularly in key areas of our constituencies, police have enough to do without having to tackle the problem of under-age drinking. Parents have the primary duty and responsibility of dealing with the problem.
The Bill also contains no powers of search on the street, which I welcome. The absence of such powers could be controversial, but I believe that the way in which my hon. Friend explained the matter makes it clear that it is right and appropriate not to have them. If a power to search were in the Bill, unseemly confrontations could develop between police and youngsters who like to show off in front of their peers.
Under the Bill, if the alcohol is not given up, or if false details are given, the police will have the power of arrest without warrant and can take the youngsters straight to the police station--where, as my hon. Friend pointed out, they usually become sensible very quickly, especially when their parents turn up. I hope that that power, together with the increasing community dimension to policing, means that we will be able to tackle the problem positively.
I greatly welcome the way in which the police are becoming more involved in their local communities. In many parts of my constituency, we are at last seeing more police on the beat, which I also welcome. For too long, we have been denied more policing in Wirral because of the over-emphasis on policing Liverpool, especially the inner-city areas. However, I know that the chief constable is aware, from what fellow Wirral Members of Parliament and I have told him, that there is a need for more bobbies on the beat.
"Dear Mr. Hunt,
As it was the first occasion on which I was able to enter the ballot for many years, the House can imagine my disappointment when the ballot was held for private Members' Bills and I lost. However, in the ballot, I noticed that my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point had come in fourth, and I immediately made approaches to him on the matter. To my delight, he took up the cudgels on behalf of my local police, and I cannot thank him enough for enabling me to respond so positively to their concerns.
You may be aware that I am researching problems associated with drinking in public places, particularly amongst the young people on Wirral. The recent coverage given to this subject by the Wirral News Group and in the National Press has highlighted that it exists, not only on Wirral, but elsewhere in the Country . . .
My purpose in writing to you is to seek your views on whether you would be prepared to sponsor a Bill and monitor it through Parliament . . . it would go some considerable way in helping to solve some of the Youth Disorder incidents now faced by many Police Forces".
"the numerous problems we are having regarding the youths who congregate on The Meadow.
sadly--
The youths who are aged between 13-18 use the area adjacent to my property as a local meeting area for drinking and"--
"drug abuse."
Soon after I received that letter, I was able to attend a meeting of all interested parties on the estate--including the excellent staff of the Woodchurch Young Persons project, other local representatives and police--and I was asked to approach the local authority to discover whether a byelaw banning under-age drinking could be introduced. After I approached the Home Secretary and my local council, however, I became aware that we required more than a byelaw, as a byelaw cannot identify a particular age group but must apply to all local people. It therefore could not single out those under 18. That limitation has reinforced my view--which is shared by the Woodchurch Residents and Tenants Association and the Woodchurch Community Association--that primary legislation is required.
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