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8 Apr 2003 : Column 184—continued
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater): That is a great aspiration. Unfortunately, it is not happening under Somerset county council, which is cutting funding and—guess what?—it is Liberal Democrat controlled. Does the hon. Lady realise that what she advocates is fine in Mid-Dorset and North Poole, but it is certainly not what her party is doing in Somerset—or Devon for that matter?
Mrs. Brooke: That enables me to highlight the fact that councils across the south-west have had an appalling funding settlement from the Government. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has been part of a delegation to a Minister fighting on behalf of his residents. We are aware that because of the funding situation in the south-west, there are cuts in much needed services. My argument is that we need resources for good initiatives.
Let me illustrate how a strong-armed approach can be counterproductive. Wooden benches in my constituency were grouped together in an open space.
Young people congregated there and were perceived to be a nuisance. It is not clear that there was any real problem and no damage was caused. However, the local authority was persuaded to move the benches. They were then spaced out and put in a long line along a path. Since then, every bench has been vandalised. It is clear that we need the right solution for a specific problem.
Huw Irranca-Davies: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Brooke: No, I want to continue.
It must surely be an aim to ensure that children and young people do not get into the criminal justice system, yet across the country we have a serious problem, especially in Somerset, with the underfunding of social services. Eligibility criteria have continually been tightened across social services provision for children, which prevents children from being identified and assisted at an earlier stage. If that were done, it would save police time, cost less and provide the child with a better chance of avoiding an antisocial behaviour order.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) said, I recently visited Sweden and was fascinated to note the lead role that social services play in dealing with behaviour that would have been judged criminal in this country. I was also picked up on using the word "preventive". It was suggested that I should use "encouragement" instead.
Shona McIsaac: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Brooke: No, I want to make progress.
The idea of intensive fostering could be useful, especially if it reduces the number of young people in custody, but ideally work needs to be done with the child and the family together. There is also the issue of where additional well-trained foster carers will come from. Part 3 proposes to extend the use of parent contracts and parent orders. I am well aware that parent orders have been successful, but in the context of truancy and exclusions it would be desirable to proceed by voluntary agreement wherever possible. Although there will be some instances when such orders will be the right tool, there are sometimes complex reasons behind truancy and a child's behaviour at school and that problem will need to be treated differently. Those orders are not a panacea. They are one measure that will be appropriate in some circumstances. Although parents can be made to attend parenting classes, they cannot be made to participate. It is incredibly undesirable for head teachers and teachers to impose fines for truancy: a separation is needed between enforcers and those who are trying to work with children and their families.
The main problem with the Bill is that it is a hotch-potch: it contains a whole range of measures, and it is full of enforcement measures. It is the end of the line, yet the Government have so many good initiatives, such as sure start and the many youth initiatives. Why do they not concentrate on evaluating existing schemes and rolling out successful programmes more widely?
Huw Irranca-Davies: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Brooke: I have only one minute left.
My hon. Friends and I will not be voting against the Bill tonight. We support large sections of it, and we would like the opportunity to improve other sections. What we are really concerned about, however, is that no real consultation has taken place. I am waiting for an answer from the Home Secretary as to whether young people were consulted on the Bill, which would have been a good starting point. We will therefore vote against the programme motion tonight, as the Bill deserves detailed scrutiny and real consultation so that we can get a piece of worthwhile legislation.
3.46 pm
Ms Ann Coffey (Stockport): The range of measures that the Government have introduced are making a real difference in terms of preventing and tackling antisocial behaviour.
When I was first elected in 1992, in response to complaints from residents about youths causing nuisance, I used to hold meetings with angry residents, to which I invited the police. The police would point out how limited their powers were, that they did not have enough officers to deal with the problem, and that, anyway, it was not a priority for policing. Residents complained, however, that their lives were being made a misery, it was a priority as far as they were concerned, and if the police were unwilling to act, that would only confirm to the young people involved that they were beyond the law. In practice, the meeting would result in the police paying particular attention to the area concerned, but, inevitably, when the police went away, the problem came back. Alternatively, I would find myself calling a similar meeting in another area in my constituency to which the youths causing nuisance had moved.
Now, when I have complaints from residents and hold meetings, I have not only the police present but also a representative from the youth offending team. That partnership approach enables young people causing nuisance to be identified and dealt with by the appropriate agency. I welcome the provision in the Bill for dispersal of groups and removal of persons under 16 to their place of residence, which will help with the more persistent and serious problems of groups of young people involved in antisocial behaviour. That would have helped, for example, with a particular situation that occurred recently on one of the council estates in my constituency, in which a group of young people systematically intimidated and harassed residents. If that power had been available to the police, that group of young people could have been disbanded more quickly while the individuals were dealt with. In the event, it was the residents who fled the estate.
The introduction of crime and disorder partnerships has made a real difference to the way that disorderly and antisocial behaviour can be dealt with. It means that agencies must work together to meet targets for community safety, and recognises that that is not solely the responsibility of the police. The introduction of antisocial behaviour orders has been very effective in Stockport in dealing with those young people who have histories of offending, burglary, taking and driving, combined with behaviour designed to terrify and intimidate anybody who might give witness to their behaviour. I would, however, like more attention to be given to making exclusion orders from shopping centres
part of the conditions of an ASBO when the offender has a history of shoplifting and intimidation of shop staff. Shoplifting is not a victimless crime, as countless shop workers will testify. The increasing level of intimidation, abuse and assault on shop workers is alarming and should not be tolerated.I would like, however, to bring a problem to the Minister's attention and to that of the Lord Chancellor: the length of time that it takes to apply for and be granted an ASBO. In Stockport, an application is always based on previous offending history, relying on previous convictions. Those offences have already been proven to a higher standard than required by an ASBO, so it seems perverse that they can be the subject of a legal aid application to defend them a second time. What happens, of course, is that the case is strung out for months while defence solicitors extract large amounts of public funds, particularly in the case of appeals for which no grounds have to be given.
For an ASBO to be granted, the applicant has to show two things: first, that the defendant behaved in any antisocial manner and, secondly, that an order is necessary to protect the public. If an application relies on previous convictions and the court accepts that such behaviour is antisocial as well as criminal, legally aided argument should be reduced to whether an order is necessary to protect the public. I wonder whether the Minister will look at that point.
The measure of a crime and disorder partnership's success is not just the number of ASBOs applied for and granted, but the systematic application of the range of measures at its disposal to improve community safety. Critical is how well the agencies work together locally, and I wonder whether the Minister has any plan to publish the outcomes for crime and disorder partnerships, so that we can see the progress being made.
In Stockport, acceptable behaviour contracts are an effective mechanism for defining to young people the behaviour that needs improvement, while enabling the involvement of the necessary agencies. So a young person may be forbidden to leave his home after 8 o'clock at night, but he will also receive help for alcohol abuse problems and his parents will be asked to attend parenting classes.
The parenting contracts introduced by the Bill will be equally effective. Like ABCs, they will not be legal contracts, but, when I inquired last year, I was informed that only 3 out of 28 such contracts had been broken. Of course, those who break the contract know that the next step will be an ASBO. Similarly, the next step for those who break a parenting contract will be a parenting order, so those contracts will be viewed as having authority.
However, some of those young people's backgrounds include chaotic families, often known to a number of agencies, with histories of drug and alcohol problems, and their parents have poor parenting skills because they themselves were badly parented. When those children started primary school, they were unable to learn because of underdeveloped language and social skills, and they almost immediately began to fail. School can only do so much. The earlier we start to break that terrible cycle, the better.
Although ASBOs are very welcome in dealing with serious antisocial and persistent criminal behaviour, the problem is very deep-seated in young people by the time that they become subject to them, and changing that behaviour is all the more difficult to achieve. That is why the investment in the early years is very welcome. Using money from the standards fund, language development teams are going into nursery classes and making a real difference to language development. Sure start schemes are helping to improve parenting in the crucial early years, enabling children to take advantage of the education that they are offered and helping them to succeed in the education system. It is right that that kind of support is backed up with pressure on parents, particularly to send their children to school—a child who is not there cannot be educated.
When children are born into such chaotic families, agencies should intervene effectively to support that those children, as they are clearly at risk of developing into antisocial adults. Such investment would have a worthwhile return if it were to keep those children from failing at school, turning to criminality and costing the state thousands in secure accommodation, youth custody and years in and out of jail, not to mention the cost to victims and the wider community.
Prevention versus enforcement is an old argument. Of course, there must be both, but that combination is more likely if the resources of councils and other agencies are used, rather than simply asking social services departments to take responsibility for such families. Resources involve not simply cash, but innovative ways of looking at delivering services. One of the values of the sure start initiative is that it changes the way that existing services are delivered.
Part of the Bill is about dealing with graffiti, litter and dog fouling. Recently the children of Tame valley, as part of their citizenship curriculum, wrote to me about such problems near their school. When I visited them, they showed me, among other things, the bus stop that had been vandalised, the litter and the dog fouling. The council has responded very positively to their concerns. I am sure that the whole House would like to congratulate the children of Tame valley and their teachers on their successful efforts to improve their environment. I am sure that those children will welcome the increased powers in the Bill to deal with those problems. Through the citizenship curriculum, schools are teaching children to care for their community and to understand how to achieve what they want appropriately. That makes an important contribution to the wider agenda of preventing antisocial behaviour by encouraging children to be good citizens from an early age.
In conclusion, I very much welcome the Bill as a positive step towards enabling agencies to take effective action in combating antisocial behaviour.
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