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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 53, in page 24, leave out lines 35 to 37.
Amendment No. 54, in page 24, line 38, leave out subsection (2).
Amendment No. 55, in page 25, line 6, leave out first 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.
Amendment No. 58, in page 25, line 6, leave out second 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.
Amendment No. 56, in page 25, line 10, leave out first 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.
Amendment No. 57, in page 25, line 10, leave out second 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.
Amendment No. 59, in page 25, line 25, leave out 'in the relevant locality'.
Amendment No. 76, in page 25, line 31, leave out
'if removed to that place'
'if that person remained in that place to which he was removed to'.
Amendment No. 60, in page 25, line 36, leave out Clause 30.
Amendment No. 83, in page 26, line 28, leave out Clause 31.
Amendment No. 84, in page 27, line 1, leave out Clause 32.
Amendment No. 85, in page 27, line 25, leave out Clause 33.
Amendment No. 86, in page 28, line 1, leave out Clause 34.
Amendment No. 87, in page 28, line 11, leave out Clause 35.
Simon Hughes: As well as amendment No. 82, which is in my name and the names of my hon. Friends, in this selection there is a group of other amendments in our name—amendments Nos. 83, 84, 85, 86 and 87. There is one amendment that is jointly in our name and that of Conservative Front Benchers—amendment No. 60. Amendments Nos. 53 to 59 are Conservative amendments that I will leave to Conservative colleagues to address specifically. There are, by my calculation, three Government amendments in the group—amendments Nos. 38, 39 and 40—which are relatively minor amendments to do with locality. The last one is a drafting amendment. Amendment No. 76 is a Conservative amendment that addresses one of the matters that was picked up in the report published by the Joint Committee on Human Rights the other day.
As Ministers will know, this is a significant part of the Bill for my colleagues and me. Indeed, it is significant by any definition, and was flagged up as such in the report on the Anti-Social Behaviour Bill by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. We give thanks to the Committee for its work and for its 13th report, which has helped inform this debate.
There might be time for three debates in the next hour and a half, and I hope that we do, indeed, have time for all of them. The first deals with clause 29, which is in part 4 of the Bill, under the heading "Dispersal of groups, etc.". Whether, at the end of the day, we have to have the word "etc." in the title is a matter that we can no doubt debate; part 4 deals with the dispersal of groups. The title of clause 29 is fairly categorical in terms of the issue that we are debating: it is "Dispersal of groups and removal of persons under 16 to their place of residence".
There was some uncertainty on Second Reading but, to be fair to the Government, it is now clear that the measure contains two proposals. One relates to a power to disperse groups of two or more people, who can be of any age, in certain circumstances. A separate power relates to the removal of under-16s. I want to discuss both those powers, and to signal to the House that we have strong reasons for believing that they are
unnecessary and inappropriate; that they go far too wide; that they probably break the law; and that they will be positively unhelpful in trying to deal with antisocial behaviour. I should say that there is a point of common agreement in all parts of the House that, when behaviour becomes threatening, intimidating or harassing, and when people of any age intervene in the lives of other people to make their lives a misery, it is unacceptable.Like me, the new Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing, and Community Safety represents an inner-city seat. My hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) and for Ludlow (Matthew Green)—who served on the Standing Committee—represent very different seats. One has a large seaside resort with a rural hinterland; the other has a beautiful rural area with a large county town and smaller towns and villages. None of us, however, is immune to the fact that there are people of all ages—although they are generally under 40—who can behave in an antisocial way from time to time.
There is a question as to what antisocial behaviour is, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights has suggested that we should be careful about how we define it. The Liberal Democrats have a fundamental objection to the way in which the Government have drafted this part of the Bill. In Committee, my hon. Friends sought to persuade the Committee to amend the Bill. Had they been able to do so, our fundamental objections would, to be honest, have gone away, because we should have taken out the great iniquity of the drafting. I hope that I can now persuade the House that, as presently drafted, the Bill goes much too far in two respects.
I shall deal later with clause 29(6), which relates to the power to remove young people. Clause 29(1) states:
- "This section applies where a relevant officer has reasonable grounds for believing—
(a) that any members of the public have been intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed"—
- "as a result of"—
- "the presence or behaviour of groups of two or more persons in public places in any locality in his police area . . . and"—
- "(b) that anti-social behaviour is a significant and persistent problem in the relevant locality."
That will immediately lead to the difficulty—although it is not the biggest difficulty—of determining what the locality is. Could it, for example, be the whole of the London borough of Southwark, in the case of my constituency, or the whole of the metropolitan borough of Salford, in the case of the Minister's? Could it be one of the places in a borough, such as the Poole part of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, or a ward, a council estate or a street? That has not been sorted out. There may be guidelines, but if there had been persistent antisocial
behaviour in part of the London borough of Southwark, which I know best, that may be enough for someone to be covered by the second precondition.
Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Simon Hughes: Let me make the case, and I shall give way in a second.
My judgment is—I am being absolutely honest about this—that it is probably possible to find enough antisocial behaviour to get over the first threshold in any constituency in the United Kingdom. Most constituencies contain areas in which there are problems, and if they occur more than once or a few times, they could be said to be persistent. The difficulty comes when there is a trigger that can suddenly have a consequence for a wide area even though the problem has an impact on only a small area.
Jonathan Shaw: The hon. Gentleman is making a reasonable point about defining an area, but there should be guidance. Area crime prevention partnerships could identify problem areas. As well as the police, other agencies and individuals that make up those partnerships could define the locality when there is a particular problem in their area, and they could give community constables the power to act.
Simon Hughes: That is true, although we do not have those definitions as yet. The hon. Gentleman will remember that the Labour Government introduced, and Parliament legislated for, the power to place curfews over areas designated either by the local authority or by the police. As we know, no such curfew areas have yet been designated, although the powers have been available for some years
Jonathan Shaw: That is different.
Simon Hughes: It is different, but it is the same concept. Authorities were given the power suddenly to intervene on anyone who came within the designated curfew area. Under this Bill, once the area has been designated, the authorities will be allowed suddenly to act in relation to people in the area. The arguments do not stand on their own: they stand together. The major objection to this provision is that, because of some previous behaviour by some, we will be punishing what may be perfectly respectable behaviour by many. By acting on the situation in the past, when there may have been antisocial behaviour by a few, we may infringe the civil liberties of a large number of people.
I shall explain why that would be the consequence of the Bill and why the hon. Gentleman, on reflection, may decide that he should not support this provision. Once the location issue has been sorted out, what does the Bill provide? It says that all that is needed is for a relevant officer to have reasonable grounds for believing that any members of the public—it could be a member or two members—have been alarmed or distressed as a result of not just the behaviour but the presence of groups of two or more people.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow put the point clearly in Committee. If members of the public have been intimidated, harassed or alarmed as a result of the behaviour of groups of people, action could reasonably follow, but it is not reasonable to provide that when any members of the public may have been alarmed or distressed, however unreasonably, by the presence of two or more people, the authorities can go in.
Let me tell the hon. Gentleman why the provision is completely unacceptable. It means that, if someone who for no good reason does not like people hanging around at the bus stop, gets into a state about people hanging around the park bench or is troubled and anxious—distressed—because a group of people come with their bikes, mountain bikes, motor bikes or scooters and gather at the village pond or at the bottom of the stairwell, that is sufficient—[Interruption.] Yes, it is. It is sufficient that members of the public are distressed or alarmed as a result of the presence of groups of two or more persons. There does not have to be any behaviour at all, let alone antisocial behaviour. They just have to be there.
My colleagues and I will not sign up to legislation that allows the perception of one person, the views of one person or the reaction of a group of people to determine who shall be on our streets, in our parks or at our bus shelters. The reality is that the provision will most often be used—not necessarily always—by groups of adults who do not like young people hanging around outside somewhere near them. Sometimes they may go further than that. They may use it because of prejudice, because of the hairstyles of a group of people, or because of what they do, or because of their colour—
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