| Anti-social Behaviour Bill
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Mrs. Brooke: I thank the Minister. I am pleased to have made the points I did, because when I hear that youngsters should be shown on television it appals me. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill. Caroline Flint: I rise to ask for clarification. This is the only part of the Bill where I can raise the issue, because it deals with sanctions against breaches of antisocial behaviour orders. Have the Government considered the nature of breaches? A problem that has occurred in my area is that the initial order can be handled by the police or the local authority—in the case of Doncaster it is the antisocial behaviour unit—and their legal representation, but breaches are handled by the Crown Prosecution Service. I want clarification because in our experience the Crown Prosecution Service has tended to come to such cases without a great deal of knowledge of the background and the impact on the community. In meetings with magistrates, they have said to me that often when breaches occur and the case comes back to court, the person who has breached the order has been with their lawyer for a considerable time, even though they may be a young person or a child. The lawyer puts a well-rounded case on behalf of that person, relating all the ills they have met along the way, yet the CPS can come along as if the case is part of the job lot for the day; it has not been involved with the case and Column Number: 280 it does not put forward a particularly good case on behalf of the community.I have raised with the Solicitor-General the issue of guidance to the CPS on how it deals with antisocial behaviour orders. She said that the Government are concerned about that and about the issue of breaches being handled by the legal representation that initiated the legal order in the first place. Whether it is contained here or dealt with elsewhere, breaches are important. We pass the orders and if they are breached people, must have a sense that the case will be put forward on their behalf as thoroughly as it was when the initial order was made. Mr. Hawkins: I understand entirely the question that the hon. Member for Don Valley raises and I have no doubt that the Minister is getting some advice to enable him respond to that sensible contribution even as I speak. On the clause in general, I agree with the point that the hon. Member for Gedling made in his intervention on the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole. Concerns about the way in which publicity will work should be addressed through giving the court discretion. I want also to mention the view of the chief executive of my local authority. The hon. Member for Gedling and other hon. Members will understand that the court retaining discretion over publicity is an important safeguard. However, we must recognise the frustrations of senior police officers and chief executives of local authorities, who have found that the restrictions placed on the operation of ASBOs have meant that they have not been as effective against the worst offenders in areas such as mine as the police, the local authority and the crime and disorder reduction partnerships wanted them to be. That is why I said in my opening remarks on the first group of amendments to the clause that we welcome the fact that the Government are making the system more workable. The last complete year for which the Home Office has produced figures, which I have had from the Library, is the year ending November 2002. At that stage only 789 ASBOs had been issued throughout the whole country, although there have obviously been a lot more since. When compared with the Government's original notion that there might be 5,000 a year, which I remember vividly from the first debates, that figure of 789 in four years is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere said earlier, very disappointing if we want ASBOs to work. I hope that the way in which the amendment to the law contained in clause 37 makes the process more flexible and enables more publicity and a greater deterrent effect will bring some improvement. We still think that further improvements could be made—we have put forward some suggestions and there are one or two more to come in subsequent groups of amendments, although I would be out of order to talk about those now. However, we think that as the clause a whole is a helpful improvement and I shall listen with interest to the Minister's response to the Member for Don Valley. Column Number: 281 Mr. Ainsworth: Breaches are and have been a problem. The latest available figures, for June 2000 to December 2001, show that 29 per cent. of ASBOs were breached and the cases prosecuted, and that 43 per cent. of those who were prosecuted received immediate custodial sentences. We need to ensure that the CPS is at the centre of prosecution for breaches. We are talking to the CPS and the Lord Chancellor's Department so that they establish procedures to ensure that the local authority concerned and the police are called in cases of breach, in order to ensure that the courts are fully aware of the impact of that breach on the wider community when deciding how to act. On the other issue, I refer my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley to subsection (3). New section 1C(9A) to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 will allow the local authority to prosecute for a breach, so we are doing precisely what she wants us to do. Although we want the CPS to perform that function, we also intend to give the ability to pursue that breach to the local authority that sought the order and in whose area the antisocial behaviour took place in the first place. Matthew Green: On a point of information, are there any other circumstances in which a local authority can bring criminal proceedings that might end with imprisonment? Mr. Ainsworth: Yes, a fair few. Question put and agreed to. Clause 37 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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