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Shona McIsaac (Cleethorpes): I want the House to picture the following scene: a person walks out of her front door and sees, tossed over the garden wall, half-eaten kebabs, and chip wrappers and bottles and cans. There is some graffiti on the wall and on the gate, and there is litter on the pavement where she has to swerve past the messages left by the neighbourhood dogs. When she walks across the street, she hears loud music blaring, and there are more bottles underfoot. That is what I had to put up with on a Saturday morning a few weeks back as I walked from my house five minutes down the street to do my advice surgery. It was unusual in that I do not always get graffiti on a Friday night. However, it happens not only to me, but to many of my constituents. I am sure that many hon. Members would echo that.

At the time, I was consulting my constituents about their attitudes to crime and antisocial behaviour, and trying to get to the root of their fear of crime. I do not know why the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) cannot go out and consult his local residents rather than just whinge in this House. I had plenty of time after the Queen's Speech to go out and find out exactly what my constituents thought about the matter. When I did so, they made the same comments regardless of whether they lived in the densely packed terraced streets of north Cleethorpes, the port of Immingham, the market town of Barton or the village of Waltham. Here are some of their comments: "gangs of youths"; "young ruffians, sometimes in groups at the shopping centre late at night—there ought to be curfews for young children and they should carry ID cards"; "drunken youths"; "gangs of antisocial youths"; "loutish behaviour"; "parents have to be shown that they cannot put the blame for their children on others—bad parenting needs to be addressed"; "why are youngsters allowed to have airguns anyway?"; "the misuse of fireworks is a year-round occurrence"; "it takes too long to take away dumped and burned-out cars". That is just a selection of the many comments that I received from my constituents about the antisocial behaviour that they felt was plaguing their lives.

One of my local authorities, North Lincolnshire council, also consulted people about the matter, and it revealed that 39 per cent. of people thought that teenagers hanging around on the streets was a fairly big

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or a very big problem in their neighbourhood. We cannot overestimate the seriousness of what we are dealing with.

Mrs. Brooke : Will the hon. Lady give way?

Shona McIsaac: Should I give way to a Liberal Democrat? I am much nicer than the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, so I shall.

Mrs. Brooke: Will the hon. Lady clarify whether what was disturbed in the examples that she gave was the behaviour of the young people or people's perception of the young people?

Shona McIsaac: If the hon. Lady will pay attention I shall go on to say what was concerning my constituents.

In my survey, 80 per cent. of respondents stated that although they were aware that crime figures had gone down, their fear of crime had gone up. That is a result of antisocial behaviour. The intimidatory factor that creates their fear is the destruction of the environment that results from graffiti, rubbish or young people hanging around on street corners. They do not lack faith in the police and what we are doing to try to tackle the problem of antisocial behaviour.

Chris Grayling: The hon. Lady mentioned crime figures. Does she accept that if, for example, a gang of troublemakers vandalises eight front gates in a street on a Friday night, eight different people feel that they are a victim of crime, but it almost certainly does not show up as eight different crimes in the crime figures?

Shona McIsaac: That depends on where the crime figures are being recorded. In some areas they are based on the number of incidents and in others they are based on the number of perpetrators. In my area, it is the latter. That gives more accurate figures than those produced in an area where the police take the view that if 25 cars are smashed up in one night by a lout, it is only one crime because only one lout has done it. It is not—it is 25 different crimes.

I took up my findings from my constituents with David Westwood, the chief constable of Humberside. In his reply, he wrote:

"In north-east Lincolnshire, levels of crime have fallen and there has been a constant increase in the numbers crimes solved each month."

However, he continued:

"Another problem arising from questionnaires such as yours is what the public considers to be a crime is not necessarily a crime in law. For example, a group of youths congregating on a street may make people feel intimidated and uneasy and therefore their behaviour is construed to be criminal, when in fact they are not committing an offence in law."

That gets to the heart of the debate. People perceive that such acts are wrong and think that we should be doing something about it. They do not want us to wait any longer—they have been putting up with it for years and want us to act now.

When my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced his proposals for the Bill, I went back to the people I had consulted and said, "These are some of the things that we are proposing to do." Those people were

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virtually 100 per cent. supportive of what the Government are trying to do. Time is short, but I will read a couple of responses that I received. Some of those responses were interesting because the opinions that they express differ from some of the opinions that we have heard today. For example, one Cleethorpes resident said:

"I don't think there is any need for begging at all and a penalty would help."

However, she continued:

"You can't stop gangs of youths gathering in groups as they are not all troublemakers. I find if you are nice to them, they are nice to you."

However, somebody from the same street wrote to say that he hates seeing gangs of youths on the street corner and that, every time he tells them to get a haircut or a decent job, they have a go at him. That made me feel rather sorry for that gang of youths.

An Immingham resident wrote to say:

"Thank you for your letter. I am delighted to read its content and about the proposed crackdown on antisocial behaviour. This should have a great impact on the lives of decent hard-working people."

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, this is not just about enforcement, it is about attitude. The responsibility is not simply that of the Government, the police or the local authorities—although everybody says that the local authorities ought to be cleaning up after people. People have to take responsibility themselves. There should be zero tolerance of antisocial behaviour and I have no trouble saying that. There should be zero tolerance of fly tipping, graffiti, noise nuisance, nuisance neighbours, firework misuse, airguns or whatever. That will require a change of attitude in society—and clearly a change of attitude on the part of the Liberal Democrats, who do not know where they are on this issue. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) is good at saying things from a sedentary position. He would not take my intervention so he is too scared to intervene on me.

One Waltham resident said:

"We must work together as decent honest citizens to make our streets a safer place to be."

Everybody will have to work together. This Bill goes some way towards ensuring that that will happen and I will give it my wholehearted support.

3.37 pm

Mrs. Annette L. Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole): This Saturday afternoon, I was approached by an elderly gentleman who told me how his life was being made a misery by antisocial behaviour. He said that he was disturbed late at night, every Friday, by very unpleasant behaviour from young people, possibly on their way home from a local youth club. I am sure that people such as that constituent, on hearing of the existence of this Bill, will have very high expectations of it. The behaviour described by my constituent needs tackling—as, indeed, do any activities that result in criminal damage to property by people who are perhaps not so young. However, I do not think that this Bill provides any appropriate solutions for such incidents. In my constituency, we need more bobbies on the beat, and I hope that the Minister might consider funding

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some neighbourhood wardens. We have none at all in Poole. A more visible, uniformed presence would be the greatest deterrent that we could have.

In many instances, it is appropriate to use a problem-solving approach at a local level and on a multi-agency basis. If young people are seen as part of the problem, they should be involved in finding solutions. The crime and disorder partnerships make such an approach possible. Some excellent work is being done, but there simply are not enough resources across a range of services to fund and implement enough suitable strategies. We should be funding the existing excellent initiatives.

My simple example highlighted just one type of antisocial behaviour; but we all know that, in reality, the term is used to cover a wide variety of activities and issues, from minor nuisance to behaviour that can almost destroy people's lives. My example also highlighted the common perception that antisocial behaviour is entirely down to young people. We have to be very careful about that perception. As was made clear by an hon. Member earlier, we must remember that young people are also the victims of crime.

I support many aspects of the Bill, including its main aims, and it contains some helpful proposals, but it is also unhelpful in places, especially part 4, which almost demonises young people. Clause 29 allows for groups of two or more children to be dispersed if, by their mere presence, they are thought to be causing distress to others. I am concerned that children and young people will be judged not on their behaviour, but on the reaction of others to their behaviour. That is a dangerous path.

For many years I have been directly involved with groups of young people and sometimes extra policing has been necessary, but the problems have been solved by using existing powers. We need a well resourced multi-agency approach, which includes ensuring that young children are provided with the facilities that they want—shelters, skate parks, safe play areas or whatever—and that can only be sorted out at locally. The emphasis in part 4 risks alienating young people still further without involving them in the solutions.

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