Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Bray of Coln and Baroness Featherstone

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

15. What steps she has taken to empower local communities to tackle crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lynne Featherstone)]

The Government are radically reforming the approach to tackling crime, shifting accountability away from Whitehall and directly to communities. We have provided the public with greater information, invested in neighbourhood policing and police community support officers, and increased direct accountability through beat meetings. This year, the public will be empowered through the election of police and crime commissioners—a landmark reform of policing that will increase accountability at the local level.

[Angie Bray]

Noisy neighbours and noise disturbance often blight the lives of those living in urban areas. What tools is the Home Office providing to help local communities to tackle this problem, particularly when police are unable to intervene?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I am sure that all Members have people coming to their surgeries with noise complaints that have gone on for years uninvestigated. As part of the reforms set out in the recent White Paper on antisocial behaviour, we propose to introduce the community protection notice, which will give front-line professionals a single flexible power to deal quickly with any inconsiderate behaviour that is affecting a community’s quality of life. The notice will also give the police new powers to deal with antisocial noise. We are putting power into the hands of local communities with the new community trigger—