House of Commons Hansard Debates for 24 Jan 1997 (pt 9)

11.43 am

Mr. Michael Stern (Bristol, North-West): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink) on introducing the Bill, which is thoroughly welcome, although I intend to comment on some of the details of its provisions. I am thoroughly envious of my hon. Friend's success in the ballot; after 14 years, I am still waiting to succeed, but I shall carry on trying.

The Bill is designed to fulfil a great need, which I can see in my constituency, especially around the small suburban shops, such as those in Station road, Henbury; Okebourne road, Brentry; Filton avenue; Gloucester road; and Conygre road. Groups of young people visit the shops, acquire alcohol by one means or another--no mention has yet been made of the phenomenon of young people outside supermarkets approaching strangers and providing them with money to go in and buy drinks for them--and congregate outside in a way that can be regarded only as intimidating by the elderly people who live nearby.

If the young people concerned are encouraged to move on, or decide for themselves to do so, too often it is to an adjoining piece of private land, which they use for an impromptu party. I am glad to see that that point is in part covered in the Bill, which refers not only to public places but to illegally occupied private places. I welcome that, and I believe that the Bill can go some way towards aiding the police, by giving them a power to deal in the most effective way with what is clearly a nuisance to the public.

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As my hon. Friend will know, the devil is often in the detail, and I hope that he will take my various criticisms, comments and queries in the context of my welcoming the Bill and wanting to see it enacted in this Parliament. We shall need to examine various aspects in Committee.

The Bill refers to young people drinking in a private place to which they have unlawfully gained access. My constituency, along with many other urban, suburban or semi-urban constituencies, suffers regularly during the summer months from illegal occupations of pieces of ground--usually public ground--by groups of travellers who arrive, stay until they are moved on, and then depart for another similar piece of ground. There is a continual battle between the local authority and me about whether it is using adequately the powers that the Government have given it, to move on as quickly as possible what is undoubtedly a public nuisance.

I do not expect either my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point or the Minister to answer this query today, but I hope that it will be considered in Committee: will the Bill give the police powers to follow young people on to those illegally occupied pieces of ground, in order to confiscate the alcohol that they have purchased from local shops? My local police would welcome such a power, as an effective way--in spite of the local authority--of putting further pressure on groups of travellers to end their illegal occupation.

I am a little concerned by the power in the Bill for the police to confiscate alcohol from a person aged 18 or over if that person is suspected of being likely to pass the alcohol to someone under the age of 16. I entirely understand the need for that power, but I am concerned that it could allow over-active policing: if an adult, of any age, is seen coming out of a shop with a couple of bottles of Hooch or Bacardi Breezer, the implication could be that the drink is for consumption by a young person, because all the marketing of such drinks is aimed at the young. I would not wish store detectives, especially in large supermarkets, to be forced to note the adults who regularly purchase such drinks, in case the police needed to investigate because of the clear implication of a potential offence.

I come now to an aspect of the Bill that I find rather worrying--the power of arrest given to the police when a young person found with alcohol refuses to give his or her name and address. My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point and other colleagues have said that they would give general support to a future Government Bill to introduce identity cards. They will be aware that that support is not universally shared on the Conservative Benches. I am one of those who have expressed considerable doubt about compulsory identity cards.

It appears to me that the wording in the Bill is framed as if identity cards were already in existence. An officer on the streets in my constituency may see a young person apparently consuming alcohol under age and ask him for his name and address. I accept that in many cases that young person will already be known to the police. However, if the young lad concerned says, "My name is Michael Stern and I live at 131 Westbury road," I would hope that the local police would know that he was giving a false name and address, although I cannot be sure of that. If the young lad is careful and says, "My name is John Smith and I live in Station road," the police officer would be placed in an invidious position. The young lad would be given an obvious way out, simply by claiming

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a false identity and also claiming that he was unable to prove his identity. Without a compulsory identity card, I am not sure how we can get around a problem that is posed by the Bill because it gives that power of arrest.

A number of other provisions in the Bill concern me and I wonder whether adequate consideration has been given to the drafting of a measure which, after all, gives considerable additional powers to the police. For example, I wonder whether a level 2 fine is an appropriate penalty for an offence under the Bill. Clearly, the Bill is aimed at persuading young people not to drink in public places. It gives police the power to confiscate, using reasonable force, when the young person concerned will not stop drinking in a public place. I hope that it would be seen as a total failure of policing if such a case actually reached the juvenile courts and the youngster concerned was subject to a fine on the scale outlined in the Bill. Therefore, I wonder whether it is wise to include such a fine in the Bill, as it might tempt the police to use it.

I have another point, which I do not expect my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point to deal with today, but which I hope can be dealt with in Committee. Why does not the Bill extend to Northern Ireland, in the way that so much of our legislation now rightly does?

I am concerned about the general power of disposal of seized alcohol that is given to the police in the Bill. My hon. Friends will know that on a number of occasions I have spoken in the House about the similar power available to Customs and Excise when it seizes bootlegged alcohol. It is a continuing problem for Customs and Excise. I hope that the Bill would encourage, if no more than that, the disposal of any alcohol seized down the nearest drain, rather than being carried back as an exhibit to the local police mess. As I said in an intervention earlier, the police would be well advised to dispose of seized alcohol down the nearest drain as quickly as possible, to avoid any challenges over whether it was indeed alcohol.

I am conscious that other hon. Members wish to speak and that we are short of time. It is a good, worthwhile and necessary Bill. The police undoubtedly need the sort of powers proposed in the Bill. However, I fear that there is still a great deal of work to be done in Committee.

11.54 am

Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham): My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink) is to be congratulated on being lucky in the ballot. I was lucky a couple of years ago, so I know that from the moment a Member of Parliament scores a low number in the ballot, every pressure group in the United Kingdom is on his doorstep trying to persuade him to adopt its Bill. It is to the great credit of my hon. Friend that he chose this Bill, which I wholeheartedly support. It is a valuable Bill that will give the police an important new weapon in their armoury to deal with the problem of under-age drinking in public places.

It is important to recognise what the Bill is not--it is not an answer to the ills of alcohol and under-age drinking. In fact, the Bill is an assault on yobbery, which is why I support it. Although yobbery may not come high up the scale of criminal offences, its effects are widespread and distressing for many people. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) told us how people are intimidated by gangs of under-age youths

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drinking in bus shelters and other such places. I know that in my constituency many people--not just elderly people--are frightened to go into the centre of the market town of Hexham at night because of gangs of youths with drink. It even affects villages in the Tyne valley. The village of Wylan--which my hon. Friend the Minister knows well--has recently suffered from visitations by youths from surrounding areas, causing problems for local people. These are quality-of-life crimes, which people are increasingly coming to understand are very important.

Fear of crime is often far worse than the crime itself--that is certainly the case for many elderly people. One of the causes of that fear is the yobbish behaviour of groups of irresponsible young men. Indeed, the vandalism and criminal damage that result from that bring down a neighbourhood. The pride of the neighbourhood goes when trees newly planted by the local authority are broken, litter is left lying around and graffiti are sprayed about. Therefore, I am especially grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point for introducing the Bill.

What has surprised me--I think that it is a misunderstanding of what the Bill is about--is that interested groups, such as the Portman Group, oppose the Bill. In its submission, it said that the Bill

"strikes us as excessive and an undesirable precedent to create a blanket power of confiscation from people where there is no suspicion that disorder or nuisance might occur."

That group misunderstands the Bill. It is not a Bill designed to solve the problems of drunkenness--it is intended to stamp out a particular form of drunkenness.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) may be too legalistic in his attitude. When I spoke to my local police about the Bill, they said that it was a great idea. They said, "We won't be using it to its limits. However, when we see young men in the streets with cans or bottles of drink in their hands, we can tell them to pour it down the drain or we shall nick them." The police want the Bill so that they can remove the problem before it arises. Currently, they can move young people on, but they cannot make them dispose of the alcohol. I understand my hon. Friend's concerns, but with some legislation we simply have to launch it and hope that the good sense of the police will make it work properly. I am confident that it will work properly.

At the risk of being out of order, may I say that the Northumbria police have had a successful five years in the fight against crime? A few days ago, they announced for last year a further 15 per cent. fall in crime. That is one of the biggest drops that the force has had in a year and it has resulted in a 30 per cent. drop in crime in Northumbria over the past five years. Northumbria started off badly, with many problems, one of which is that, compared with other parts of the country, there is a high conviction rate for drunkenness. Merseyside normally has the worst rate and Northumbria is usually second. It is a sad record that neither region appreciates. We have a higher rate of drunkenness per 100,000 people than that in even the Metropolitan police area.

The police in Northumbria have been tackling the issue in various ways. They were successful in reducing under-age drinking in Wallsend near Newcastle where, along with the local authority, they have clamped down especially on licensees who sell drink to those who are

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under age. Some licences have been withdrawn from off-licences, and that should set an example. In Gateshead, the police reduced street vandalism and youth disorder by 20 per cent. in a month through a drive to tackle those problems.