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10.42 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng): By bringing this important matter before the House tonight, my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) has not only done Mr. Webster and his other constituents a service but assisted the Government in addressing an issue that concerns us all. My hon. Friend gives the lie to the notion that crime and concern about crime is the preserve of urban, not rural, areas. We in the Home Office recognise that that is an important issue in rural areas, and we share the real determination expressed by my hon. Friend, his constituents and the local police in south Wales--and the Vale of Glamorgan in particular--to ensure that all agencies concerned with, and affected by, the criminal justice system work in a concerted and focused way to tackle the crime and disorder issues of rural areas.
I had the pleasure of visiting my hon. Friend's constituency during his initial election campaign--it is some years ago now--when his constituents first had the good sense to send him to this place. I visited both south Wales and Dyfed-Powys recently and saw for myself the impact of rural crime. I surveyed the situation from the vantage points of a patrol car, a patrol helicopter and a coastal patrol boat, which I helped to launch. Rural crime clearly deserves the attention of the House and of the police and the local community.
My hon. Friend is right to emphasise partnership in combating rural crime. The countryside suffers its share of criminal activity and disorder. In rural life, issues such as stealing stock, breaking into premises to take animals, damage to crops and the stealing of farm equipment are as current as the problems of burglary, theft and violence that are familiar to us in an urban environment. People in rural and urban areas are fed up to the back teeth with having their property violated, their freedom of movement constrained, their public spaces wrecked in the manner that my hon. Friend has described and their peace and tranquillity threatened by the criminal or anti-social activities of a selfish minority.
The Government have taken action through the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and we are determined to continue focusing on the issues. As strategies have developed, we have been heartened to see how local partnerships have emerged to tackle the problems. I recently had the privilege of visiting the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), where I saw the development of a local strategy that embraced issues of rural crime and the importance of the work of the police, but also properly addressed the need to involve young people as part of the solution to the problem that a tiny minority of them represent.
It is important to put the problem in perspective. We are talking about a minority of young people involved in crime and anti-social behaviour. We should not forget that, but nor should we excuse it. I heard what my hon. Friend said about recreation and access to facilities. The lack of access to leisure and educational facilities is a concern. The Home Office programme development unit is funding a Suffolk-based project aimed at reducing risk factors and offending in rural areas by improving access to facilities and increasing participation in community life. The project is due for completion at the end of 1999. We are determined to learn lessons from it and to roll out some of the good practice in succeeding years.
I do not underestimate the importance of leisure and educational facilities, but we should remember that the examples that my hon. Friend gave involved activity on a Friday night after a disco. The people involved had access to a recreational facility and they subsequently trashed the surrounding environment, making themselves a nuisance and a menace to honest, law-abiding elements in the community. That cannot be tolerated or excused.
One of the lessons that we are learning from the emerging crime and disorder strategies is the importance of identifying problem hot spots such as those to which my hon. Friend has referred where loitering, creating mayhem, vandalism and graffiti are all too often prevalent. We must work concertedly with local agencies to address that. Partnerships are particularly important. They involve the private and public sector, off-licences, other community facilities, pubs and clubs. They must all be part of the solution, or they will constitute part of the problem. We have to ensure that we support the police and local authorities in the leadership that they give in the crime and disorder strategies so that we have a joined-up approach that takes advantage of licensing law and regulation, planning in relation to lighting and closed circuit television.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for corresponding with me about CCTV, which enables me to assure him, as I did in my letter to him, that he and his local authority and the police in Llantwit Major will be able to respond to the prospectus that we shall issue, probably at the end of May. They will be able to demonstrate how they would use that technology as part of a wider strategy to reduce crime in their area. CCTV needs to be viewed in its widest context because it is not designed to be a quick fix; it needs to be linked to the actions of the police and, for example, the door-keeping activities of local retailers and proprietors. It needs to be linked also to neighbourhood watch schemes and various other local schemes that can contribute to the partnership.
There will be an opportunity for local authorities to bid for the resources that will be available as part of the £150 million programme of work over the next three years, which was announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget. We know from work that is already going on that there is much to be gained from that partnership approach.
Neighbourhood watch is a fine example of what people can do together, particularly in rural areas, acting as the eyes and ears of the police. There are many other excellent watch schemes. In my recent visit to Wales, I had an opportunity to learn about schemes such as farm watch, horse watch and country and poacher watch, which are all directly relevant to rural areas and have a contribution to make. They reflect the rural community's willingness to help the police to fight crime. They represent an opportunity for the community to get involved, eschew what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has described as the walk-on-by society and actively watch out for each other--especially the most vulnerable.
The crime reduction programme, which includes £250 million over the next three years, will underpin that partnership and evidence-based crime reduction work. It is the largest-ever single investment of its kind anywhere, and it aims to reverse the long-term rise in crime of 5 per cent. a year since 1980. We recently announced 11 proposals under the programme's targeted policing initiative which have been shortlisted and are now being developed further. Those measures are designed to develop policing techniques that we can spread across the country. Rural areas will be the beneficiaries of that.
As my hon. Friend said, vandalism is a problem. That was identified as a priority in the Vale of Glamorgan's audit. It will be tackled in the first year of its strategy, along with domestic burglary and vehicle crime. The Home Office's retail crime reduction action team and its predecessor, the retail action group, have produced various guidance for large and small retailers. I shall arrange for the team to forward details to my hon. Friend so that he can pass them on to his constituent.
All the evidence demonstrates that we need to maximise effective co-ordinated, preventive action at a local level to identify the means of tackling issues and bringing parties together. We envisage such partnerships developing in the Vale of Glamorgan. They will work towards reducing the unpleasant and extremely expensive menace of vandalism. Vandalism contributes to environmental degradation. It is not to be excused, and will not be excused. The Criminal Damage Act 1971 enables, where the value of goods damaged is more than £2,000, the imposition of a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment for those aged 18 or over, and two years' detention in a young offenders institution for those aged 15 to 17. Within the maximum limit, it is for the courts to decide in the light of all the circumstances; but they will bear in mind the impact of such vandalism on the communities that they serve.
The police are there to stand four square with those local communities, building on intelligence-led policing and using and building on the framework that we provided in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. I have no doubt that CCTV, which my hon. Friend mentioned, can play a major part in the development of that.
Our rural life is precious. It may on occasion appear idyllic, but, as my hon. Friend says, appearances can be deceptive. The fear of crime is real, and must be reduced. The environment must be protected. We are determined that the measures that we have introduced, are introducing and will continue to introduce will support the decent, law-abiding people who constitute the overwhelming
majority by maintaining the safety, security and tranquillity of their communities. In the Vale of Glamorgan, those communities have been served by my hon. Friend's initiating tonight's debate. The House is grateful to him and to his constituent for raising the matter: we will not fail them.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Eleven o'clock.
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