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8 Apr 2003 : Column 162—continued
Ms Dari Taylor (Stockton, South): That is the second time this afternoon that it has been stated in the Chamber that landlords do not need orders that define good policies and the way in which good or bad tenants are treated by them. The hon. Gentleman is well wrong. In my constituency we have faceless landlords, who are buying up streets and renting out the properties. Those are often giro drops. We need some control over that if we are to assert that criminality is not acceptable in my community.
Simon Hughes: The hon. Lady and I are not at cross-purposes. She is arguing that we need to regulate the private sector; I agree. That is being done in the housing Bill, which is out for consultation. That is where the parts of the Anti-social Behaviour Bill that deal with housing should be. We should not be debating demoted tenancies, which I happen to support, probationary tenancies and such conditional tenancies in the context of a Bill about law and order. Those should be dealt with in a housing Bill.
We should also consider how we deal with the private, the local authority and the housing association sectors. I am fed up with the fact that in my community there are powers that can be imposed on local authority tenants and their kids, and on housing association tenants and their kids in Rotherhithe, but not on the private sector tenants and their kids who live in the houses next door. Those powers should not be considered in the context of this Bill. The same applies to education. We have had six education Bills in the past seven years. If we want to change the powers that apply to education, that should be done in the context of legislation on education, not in the present Bill.
I end with two points, one of which relates to fixed penalty notices. I urge Ministers to hear what was said from the Conservative Front Bench earlier, what has been said before, and what we say. Fixed penalty notices should not be handed out by people who are not police officers or employees of the police service, with one or two exceptions such as environmental health officers, who have had a traditional role. The Bill tries to do again what Parliament last year said it did not want. Parliament said last year that it did not want the private security officer to be able to hand out fixed penalty notices. We say that today, as we said last year. The Government should have heard that last year and taken it to heart, and should not try again to push at a door that Parliament has already closed.
Simon Hughes: No. I also hope the Government are not serious about fixed penalty notices being given to
under-16s. There may be an argument for new penalties for over-16s. There may be an argument for legislating in relation to over-16s in certain respects. I am willing to accept that there is an argument for banning the sale of spray paint to under-16s, though why on earth its sale to over-16s should be banned I fail to understand. If they are adults who can work, pay taxes and serve the country, I do not understand why they cannot go shopping and buy what they want. If the Government think it reasonable to issue fixed penalty notices—fines—directly to 11, 12 and 13-year-olds, which is the power that the Bill permits the Home Secretary to introduce, I ask them to think again.The Bill contains important proposals for dealing with drugs and firearms. If the Government left it at that, it would have support from the Opposition parties and more widely. The Government have chosen to throw all sorts of other measures into the Bill. It is a muddled Bill, in some parts, unfortunately, it is misconceived, and in many respects it is unnecessary. We will do all we can in Committee to make it a much better Bill, but I sincerely hope that the Government hear the voices in the Chamber and outside, and take out all the provisions that are wrong or which should not have been in the Bill in the first place.
2.19 pm
Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North): I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests.
Again and again in 13 years as a Member of Parliament and as a councillor, I have sat down with groups of residents who are angry and frustrated about the persistent problems of crime, drug abuse and antisocial behaviour on their estates. Although it is probably not stated often enough, it is an article of faith that the more deprived a community is, the more damaging the impact of such behaviour will be, as neighbourhoods spiral further out of control and desirability and can end up exclusively as ghettos of the poor and deprived.
It is often not realised that young people are the victims of crime as least as much as they are its perpetrators. A recent survey conducted among young people by the youth parliament in my constituency drew out the fact that fear of crime, bullying, harassment and intimidation are among the principal concerns of young people living in the inner city. It is extremely important that we recognise that it is for the sake of future generations and as well as of pensioners and other residents, who also live in fear of crime, that we take some of the measures set out in the Bill.
The Bill contains much that is very welcome and that I support wholeheartedly, although I have one or two concerns that I want to flag up. Antisocial behaviour lies at the heart of the increase in fear of crime. It has already been mentioned that, despite the fall in crime figures across the board in recent years, the latest British crime survey shows a sharp increase in the number of people reporting fear of crime. I hate to describe some types of criminal behaviour as "lower level", but it is the range of behaviour that we understand to be antisocial that is part of the problem.
Mention has also been made of the fact that there is a lot of good news that we can talk about in most of our local areas. I am very pleased with the progress that has
been made on so many fronts in my constituency as a consequence of actions put in place since the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Some projects have been funded in my constituency by sources such as the neighbourhood renewal fund, and the neighbourhood warden schemes have been positively triumphant in raising community awareness in terms of being eyes and ears on the street, building good connections with the local community and being part of the wider crime-reduction family.On one of my estates, which has been plagued for years with persistent antisocial behaviour, we recently launched Britain's first mobile police station, which was in situ offering local residents a visible demonstration of police presence and a commitment to action. Last summer saw Operation Puma, a police crackdown on crime and antisocial behaviour that occurred during the summer holidays. The operation had a very beneficial effect across our estates. Police have also been working with secondary schools, some of which have had very serious crime and antisocial behaviour problems in the past.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has expressed to me his recognition of the very important contribution made by the rapid reaction crack protocol drawn up in the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is now received wisdom among crack addicts in north London that the one place where they do not want to be is Notting Hill, where the authorities come down on them like a ton of bricks. Unfortunately, one of the perverse consequences of the success of the rapid reaction crack protocol is that crack addiction and crack houses now tend not to open up in north Kensington and are being displaced to Brent and Paddington. I am delighted to say that Westminster police have now adopted the protocol, but other boroughs have not done so. While I welcome the additional powers in the Bill to enable a swift response to crack houses, may I therefore commend to Ministers' consideration the fact that we want every area, and every partnership between police and social landlords or other local agencies, to sign up to that model of excellent practice? In north Kensington, it has resulted in the closure of crack houses within a few days and sometimes within 48 hours. That has been a very successful example of good practice.
The other excellent example of good practice is the youth inclusion project, which has been working for a couple of years in an area with serious problems of crime and antisocial behaviour—the Dalgarno estates in north Kensington. I understand that such projects have managed nationally to achieve a 30 per cent. reduction in arrests. Locally, eight out of 10 young people with previous convictions among the top 50 who are known to be at risk of offending in north Kensington are linked to the youth inclusion project—an example of long-term, in-depth work that diverts young people away from crime and has a proven track record.
Some of my concerns about the Bill and about other ways in which we are responding to antisocial behaviour relate to resource constraints. In my area, policing is a particular concern. Unfortunately, Westminster still has 500 fewer police than 10 years ago. Due to problems with the census count, we have been unable to benefit from any additional police officers through the resource allocation formula in London. Although London is seeing a significant and welcome increase in the number of police officers, in areas of central London such as
mine, we are still under-policed, so the very welcome additional resources provided in respect of neighbourhood wardens and community support officers are still offset to some extent by the fact that too few police are available to work with our local communities.The other worry is that the neighbourhood renewal fund and similar Government resources directed to deprived areas to help us tackle crime are sometimes offset by reductions in local authority discretionary expenditure. Ministers should be extremely aware of that issue. Cuts in important services such as the youth service and children's play facilities mean that young people who would otherwise benefit from such facilities are out on the street and at risk of offending.
Finally, I should like to say a couple of words about the provisions relating to the role of social landlords and evictions. One of my worries is that we may be in danger of not using the powers that already exist to enable landlords to clamp down on antisocial behaviour among tenants. As I hope my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will accept, social landlords have very strong powers available to them, including injunctions, possession orders, antisocial behaviour orders, acceptable behaviour contracts and introductory and starter tenancy regimes. The Homelessness Act 2002 gives local authorities new powers to refuse to offer accommodation or to reduce the preference given to applicants for housing where antisocial behaviour is an issue. Powers are available to social landlords and we must ensure that they are using them in the most effective way and working in partnership. In my experience, we are still in the early stages of securing effective partnership arrangements.
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