Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, there are some welcome provisions in the Bill, but I am concerned that many of the reforms will cost money, yet no additional budget appears to have been proposed to make the necessary changes, at a time when police and local authorities are facing significant financial challenges.

I shall focus on just a few of the specific issues. There is no doubt that if the dispersal powers proposed in Part 3 of the Bill are used well, they can prevent tensions rising in an area, and can also prevent other serious illegal activity. But although dispersal will give short-term relief at a particular site, longer-term work will be needed to avoid displacement to a nearby location. We must also recognise that “intelligence-led” preventive dispersal orders on, say, a housing estate may be unfair if those subjected to such an order are resident on that estate.

Very significant powers are already available to the police for public order offences, so care must be taken to see what value will be added by creating these new powers. The most effective solutions to anti-social behaviour tend to be community based rather than legislative, so the focus of our attention should be on rebuilding coherent communities, which would produce all kinds of social benefits besides reducing anti-social behaviour. The proposed “community remedies”, whatever their merits, are not a substitute for this.

Part 5 of the Bill makes provision for the possession of secure tenancies on anti-social behaviour grounds. In practice, this would usually apply to social housing. But there could be real conflict about the definition and threshold of anti-social behaviour. I believe that this is better tackled by clear application of tenancy terms and by mediation between tenants.

There is also the question of alternative accommodation. The lack of alternative accommodation and the capacity needs of many of the tenants already severely limit local authorities’ capability to evict, as they have a duty of care towards the tenant. Moving tenants of social housing may mean moving them significant distances, particularly outside densely populated areas. What will be the consequences for schooling the children? Will this create more problems than it solves?

Part 7 of the Bill covers the problem of dangerous dogs. I very much welcome the fact that the new legislation will extend current police powers into private premises, which means offences committed on private property can now be dealt with. However, I am concerned that the Bill does not address the problem of dogs being deliberately bred as weapons, or for fighting, or to be used as “bait” in fights, which is quite common. This is quite distinct from the problem of irresponsible owners. The Bill is a missed opportunity to put things right. Indeed, the proposed “trespasser” defence risks encouraging the keeping of dogs as defence weapons at home, and provides an unacceptable defence in court against charges of deliberate ownership of such dogs.

The increased powers proposed for the Independent Police Complaints Commission in Part 11 of the Bill, are broadly welcome, but we must ensure that any reforms restore public confidence. The main reason for the lack of public confidence is that the IPCC conducts relatively few investigations itself, but in the vast majority of cases allows the police to investigate themselves. The Bill provides an ideal opportunity to remedy this failing.

It is not simply a question of the IPCC carrying out a higher proportion of investigations. These investigations should not be carried out by police officers or former police staff working for the IPCC; otherwise there will remain a lack of public confidence in the independence of investigations. For this reason, transferring resources from individual police forces’ professional standards departments and other relevant areas to the IPCC is the wrong approach. There are already far too many former police officers working for the IPCC. According to the IPCC’s annual reports, in the past two years all senior investigators have been former police officers or police staff, as have half of all deputy senior investigators and over a quarter of all investigators. The IPCC must live up to its name and build an independent investigation team large enough to do its work, which is drawn from other investigation services, in a similar manner to the way in which local authority and fire authority investigation and enforcement teams work.

There are some very welcome provisions in this Bill, but I remain concerned that many of its provisions could have unintended consequences. I trust that the Government will listen to concerns from noble Lords in all parts of the House and respond by tabling amendments to address some of those concerns.