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8 Apr 2003 : Column 197—continued
Mr. Bercow: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Laura Moffatt: I shall not give way because many more people want to speak.
I fully support the aspects of the Bill that will improve life in our communities, and I sincerely hope that we can say in the near future that the Government have truly tackled antisocial behaviour.
4.24 pm
Andrew Selous (South-West Bedfordshire): Like all the hon. Members who have spoken so far today, I very much welcome the focus of the Government's attention on the whole issue of antisocial behaviour. I have no doubt that this is the most serious issue facing our country today, and I do not say that lightly, given the other issues that we are tackling in all our public services. I believe that to be the case, and I base that statement on the experiences of the constituents I meet as I go round my constituency and of those who come to my advice surgeries, and on the findings of the surveys and questionnaires that I have undertaken since I was elected to Parliament. Time and again, antisocial behaviour and crime are put ahead of people's other concerns about health, education or transport.
The Government are absolutely right to focus on this issue. It is a huge issue; indeed, it is probably so big that we need something comparable, in our own time, to the reformation of manners that Wilberforce wanted to launch in his day. The scale of the problem before us really is of that nature. When we look at antisocial behaviour, we have to look at the long-term causes that have brought about the state of affairs today as well as at the short-term remedies that we are going to bring to bear on the problem. Looking at the long-term causes, I find myself in complete agreement with the White Paper. On page 21, it states:
- "Healthy communities are built on strong families."
- "Parents . . . have to ensure their children understand the difference between right and wrong."
I welcome the Government's focus on trying to support family life. I welcome the measures in the Bill and the expenditure in the Lord Chancellor's Department and elsewhere to try to do something about the scale of the problem involved in putting family life back together in this country. I would say, however, that the amounts being so spent are minuscule compared with the cost to the Government of picking up the pieces. I wonder whether it is time for us all to have an honest debate in the House about whether we need to shift the balance a little more between prevention and cure in this area.
I will judge the success or failure of the Bill on whether it makes a real difference in cases such as those that have arisen in my constituency recently. To preserve the privacy of those concerned, I shall not go into them in detail. The first case concerned a young mother who was desperate to move from her council flat because of the behaviour of the tenants above her. The second involved a young man whose door had been kicked down twice and had paint spattered all over it. The third involved a mother whose daughter had received death threats from people further down the street. In the fourth case, a young couple suffered such continual noise and disruption in their first home that their only option was to move out of the area. Perhaps the most harrowing case of all, however, involved a gentleman who came to see me two weeks ago. He and his partner had been forced to put their two young children into voluntary care to get them out of the street and the immediate neighbourhood in which they lived.
These are unacceptable circumstances for any of our constituents to find themselves in, and the real test of the Bill will be whether it will make a meaningful difference to such people, and whether it will help us to move forward and to solve problems such as the five in my constituency that I have outlined.
To solve such problems, we need more police on the streets. There is no other way round the problem. To enforce the measures in the Bill, we need more police constables patrolling our constituencies. That is why I welcome unreservedly the measures proposed by my own Opposition Front Bench to put 40,000 more police on to our streets over the next eight years. The Government have talked about increased police numbers, and I welcome that, but there is a difference between the establishment that the Government figures describe and the number of officers on the ground. In one of my police stations the other day, there were supposed to be six officers and a sergeant out on patrol. The reality was that there were only two constables. All the others were either elsewhere doing training courses or attending magistrates courts. They were not there to do the job that they had been called to do.
We also need courts that will process cases much faster. One of my constituents had his front door kicked down in January and again in February. He tells me that the court case will be delayed until June by forensic laboratory tests. The spattering of his door with paint, also in February, is still being investigated. That gentleman will have had to suffer the results of extreme antisocial behaviour for five months—150 days—because of the slowness of our courts.
We must ensure that guidelines and regulations, as well as the laws passed here, are intelligible. I learned recently that a local authority felt that it must inform people who had been complained about of the intention to install noise-monitoring equipment. That impression was corrected only by a letter to me from the Minister for Rural Affairs and Urban Quality of Life, citing the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I wonder how many local authorities and housing authorities are not using powers available to them because the guidance and regulations are not clear.
Finally, let me say something about litter, graffiti and fly tipping. I feel passionately about the problem of litter, which, as many Members have said, represents the first step in the descent into antisocial behaviour. We
cannot rely entirely on local authorities and others to clear up litter; we need to realise that we are all responsible for the litter outside our houses, outside shops and outside businesses. Until we understand that we are all involved, not just our local authority litter-pickers, we will not make things better. Schools can play a vital role in teaching children and young people about the importance of picking up litter and not dropping it themselves.When I go for a walk with my family nowadays, we take plastic bags with us so that we can pick up litter. Such action can lead to a staggering change in attitude—a sense of ownership of the street or road in which one lives.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has had his eight minutes.
Dr. Ashok Kumar (Middlesbrough, South and Cleveland, East): I welcome the Bill. I am glad that a Labour Government are finally getting tough on the menaces who plague decent, upstanding citizens. The Bill is about decency, and about tackling what I call the yob culture out there.
I want to comment on parts 3, 4, 5 and 6, and to link them with my constituency and with what my local authorities are doing. Clauses 29 and 38 will be warmly welcomed by my constituents in the Hemlington ward of south Middlesbrough, because they finally give the police and other authorities power to challenge antisocial youths and other groups on our streets. Their behaviour has been a particular problem in Hemlington, on estates and in the shopping precinct. Local shopkeepers tell me that the excessive numbers of youths congregating in the precinct frighten away their customers, many of whom are elderly. Not just the profitability but the very survival of many of those shopkeepers is threatened as a result, and ordinary men and women are forced to change their normal routines because of the behaviour patterns of a small minority.
I also welcome clause 32, which gives powers to community support officers, thus freeing police resources and enabling them to be targeted more efficiently. It also establishes a more flexible and consistent framework of crime prevention, as opposed to reaction to crime. Both the local authorities in my area, Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland borough councils, operate warden schemes. Thanks to mayor Ray Mallon's lead, Middlesbrough now has one of the biggest schemes in the country, tied to a comprehensive database that logs the shifting patterns of antisocial behaviour and can quickly identify emerging hotspots. The Redcar and Cleveland borough council scheme is similarly spread over a large area. The authority deserves praise for being the first in the country to achieve a warden presence in every community. Those measures in the Bill will provide support for the good work already being achieved by local authorities in my constituency. The task now is to align the work of those wardens with the new powers and duties that will be open to them under the Bill.
Cleveland police have reported that there are 2,110 fewer victims of crime on a year-on-year basis. In January to March this year, compared to January to March last year, individual incidents of crime fell by
2,470. With a record number of 1,600 officers and 40 police community support officers, that provides a good base on which to build the new legislation.
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