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Sir Teddy Taylor (Rochford and Southend, East) (Con): Does the Home Secretary agree that excessive alcohol consumption is responsible for a huge percentage of violent crimes and antisocial behaviour? Is he willing to discuss with the Secretary of State for Education and Skills tuition in secondary schools on the nightmares that excessive alcohol consumption can cause? Is he also willing to look again at the consequences of 24-hour pubs?

Mr. Blunkett: Forty-four per cent. of all violent crime is alcohol-driven. It is necessary to provide education and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should undertake to do so. Of course, it is right that we should keep under review the changes—although people keep grumbling that they have made a tremendous difference, they have not yet been implemented—to the licensing laws. We have already made it clear that we would need to take action if we found that greater deregulation and flexibility were damaging.

Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab): I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, particularly with regard to the new neighbourhood policing fund, which will have £50 million. My constituency has four police reassurance wards, and I am willing to offer my constituency if any hon. Member does not want police community support officers or police reassurance teams. Will he look at the hours of operation of police reassurance schemes, because they currently end at 10 pm and we need to consider how to extend them?

Mr. Blunkett: I thank my hon. Friend, who has done a sterling job in her constituency in mobilising the community and working with the police. We need to look at the working hours and we could open up that matter and discuss it with appropriate representatives.

Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): May I gently remind the Home Secretary that all the issues that he has raised today in respect of antisocial behaviour were raised by his predecessor when this Government came to power in 1997? The fact that he is still talking about them today and that the Prime Minister is still sexing them up is the clearest possible proof that the answers that the Government claimed to have in 1997 have not been the overwhelming success that the
 
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Government claimed that they would be. May I invite the Home Secretary to look instead at much tougher and more obvious and readily useable powers to deal with antisocial behaviour in the community, such as taking away tenancies from antisocial tenants, even though that may cost him the vote of confidence that he received from the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), since the Liberal Democrats opposed it tooth and nail and kept antisocial tenants in place?

Mr. Blunkett: Of course we are building on measures that we put in place in our first Parliament. This is the same Government, and we are building on, reinforcing and learning from those measures. That is why we have introduced fast-track and interim antisocial behaviour orders and why we have learned from the problems in implementing curfews. I have revised the arrangements so that we have had dozens of curfew and dispersal orders since 1 April, when the measures came into force. It is also why we learned about what needed to be done with regard to crack houses and antisocial tenants, and why, both in housing and antisocial behaviour legislation, we introduced new forms of tenancy ensuring that permanent, secure tenancies can be reversed. Where people continue to behave in an antisocial fashion, they can be fast-track evicted. All those things build on what was there, expand it, learn from it and put in place measures to allow the community to drive the change. I would have thought that that was very welcome.

Liz Blackman (Erewash) (Lab): What further steps can my right hon. Friend take to persuade the very few chief constables left who have not done so, including the chief constable of Derbyshire, to take up community support officers? Does my right hon. Friend agree that they make a huge difference? The constituents of Erewash look across the border into Nottinghamshire and want a slice of the action. At the moment, we are experiencing some resistance. Can he help?

Mr. Blunkett: I suggest that my hon. Friend recommend that her constituents and those across Derbyshire write to the chairman of the police authority in Derbyshire demanding that the Derbyshire force take up the money that is available so that constituents, including me and the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), can enjoy wonderful, peaceful weekends in the Peak district, including in Baslow, where my car was scratched on Sunday afternoon.

Annabelle Ewing (Perth) (SNP): Asylum and immigration policy is one of the powers that the Home Secretary still has over Scotland. In the context of the five-year strategic statement, will he tell us his plans to expand Dungavel removal centre?

Mr. Blunkett: We have already announced the expansion at Dungavel, which is not for families and children, but for single men and women. The hon. Lady will recall her intervention one week ago and that she must tread carefully when she raises Dungavel with me.
 
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Mr. Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich, West) (Lab/Co-op): I welcome the Home Secretary's statement and in particular his comments about the introduction of a non-emergency telephone number. In my experience, nothing undermines confidence in the police more than communication problems with the local police station. We should have not only a non-emergency telephone number, but adequate back-up staff and a procedure to ensure that such problems are gone for ever.

Mr. Blunkett: The best thing that I can say is, "Spot on." All hon. Members know that that is one of our constituents' biggest gripes, and we must get the issue right. The point is not only whether the phone is picked up, but whether the system can properly judge the weight and repetition of a problem. The new computerised system tracks such calls and makes sure that the police and community support officers get to the area as fast as possible. The system is about not only reassurance, but decent customer service, so my hon. Friend is entirely right.

Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell) (Con): Does the Home Secretary accept that my constituents will not be impressed by his statement, because the police are hopelessly overstretched in our part of the Thames valley? My constituents rarely see a police officer, and one reason why so many of them have stopped reporting crime is because there is no point in doing so.

Mr. Blunkett: We have 10 per cent. more police and 4,000 extra CSOs compared with 1997. Using the same methodology, criteria and year-on-year comparators, crime has decreased by more than one quarter since 1997—sex offences are now counted, which is one of the few points raised by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) that I did not answer. Given all that, why is policing so bad in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay)? We must ask both the police and ourselves that question. That is why Peter Neyroud is so important in driving change in the Thames valley.

Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab): I welcome my right hon. Friend's emphasis on community policing. At the last Greater London authority election, both the Liberals and the Conservatives pledged to cut the money that the Mayor is using to roll out community safety teams across London, so we will take no lectures from them. If the programme is to succeed, we must expand work with young people to divert them from crime in the first place, which is why I welcome the roll-out of the youth inclusion programme. Many initiatives in the local community are led by people from the community, including young people's parents, who want facilities for young people to be expanded to stop young people getting involved in crime in the first place. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to ensure that when the YIP money becomes available, local communities are engaged in finding solutions at the grassroots level?

Mr. Blunkett: I entirely agree with that point. Last Friday, I saw a YIP working extremely well. It was turning around the lives and the hope of young people who had been involved in substantial criminality or who were in real danger of becoming involved in substantial
 
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criminality—the issue is about the hope of a better tomorrow. We must ensure that YIPs are joined up with the extended school programme, weekend and after-school activities and the Connexions service, in which we are investing large sums of money. Getting the matter right is a matter of common sense, but it is also prudent, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would say, because in the long run it will save us a great deal of money as well as heartache.

Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con): In May 2001, no doubt following extensive Cabinet discussion and in order to speed up the criminal justice system, the Prime Minister announced the establishment of night courts. Can the Home Secretary tell me where I can go to watch one of those courts at work? In which cities are they, and what hours do they sit?

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