Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, perhaps I may deal with that point. It is clear that local authorities are likely to be engaged in the compilation of suitable elements for community remedies but we do not see the necessity of putting it in the Bill.

I thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee for raising these issues about this important part of the Bill. Dealing with low-level crime, out of court where appropriate, means that victims get justice quickly. My noble friend is absolutely right: there is a review going on at the moment of informal cautions and the consequences of out-of-court settlements. Damian Green announced this in a Written Ministerial Statement on 19 November. These remedies strengthen the armoury. They mean that the offender has to face immediate consequences for his or her actions which can make her or him less likely to offend in the future. The community remedy will give victims of low-level crime and anti-social behaviour a say in the punishment of offenders out of court. It will also ensure that victims and the public agree that the punishments used are meaningful, rather than a token slap on the wrist.

The Bill provides that the actions on the community remedy menu must have the objective either of assisting in the offender’s rehabilitation, ensuring that they make reparation or providing a punishment. Some actions will have more than one of these elements; for example, cleaning up graffiti is a reparative action but it also has an element of punishment. In other cases, appropriate actions may have only one of the elements required. One of the actions we have suggested in the draft guidance is that the offender could be asked to sign an acceptable behaviour contract, whereby they agree not to behave anti-socially in future. This assists the rehabilitation of the offender but it need not have a reparative or punitive element.

I know that my noble friend is keen to avoid actions that are purely punitive in nature. However, I see no reason why this should not sometimes be appropriate. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 already provides that a conditional caution may impose a financial penalty on the offender. On its own, this would be a punitive punishment and may, in some cases, be entirely appropriate. So we should not rule out that option.

Amendments 56G and 56H would make the community remedy document subject to consultation and agreement with the local authority as well as with the police. The PCC has a duty to consult the chief constable and to agree the community remedy menu with him or her. This is appropriate, since police officers will be using the community remedy document and will take ultimate responsibility for the sanction offered to the offender.

However, I believe that the role of the local authority is a little different. The PCC should consult with community representatives and the public. We would expect this to include local councils, as they are likely to contribute a number of actions to the menu. Professionals such as youth offending teams will know what actions are appropriate and what resources are available locally to deliver the more formal sanctions.

My noble friend has tabled a number of amendments—alongside those in the name of my noble friend Lord Greaves, who is not in his place today—which seek to enhance the role of local authorities in the Bill. In this instance, I believe that it makes a good deal of sense to formalise the relationship between the PCC, the police and local authorities in establishing the community remedy document. There is much to be gained from this relationship and, since the community remedy document will be established in advance—one might say in slow time—there is nothing to lose by making the responsibility to consult a statutory one. However, I believe that the responsibility to agree the actions to be included on the community remedy document should rest with the PCC and the chief constable. PCCs are democratically accountable to the public, and the responsibility of ensuring that the community remedy meets the needs of local people properly rests with the PCC.

For many of the same reasons, I do not believe that the decision about whom it is appropriate to consult in preparing the document should be a joint responsibility of the local authority and the PCC, which is what Amendments 56GA and 56GB, tabled by my noble friend Lord Greaves and spoken to by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, seek to do. Responsibility for preparing the community remedy document properly rests with the PCC, and so, by and large, should the decision on consultation.

Amendments 56HA and 56HB, also tabled by my noble friend Lord Greaves, would mean that the community remedy would be used for anti-social behaviour only and not for low-level criminal offences. The Bill places a duty on the police officer to make reasonable efforts to obtain the views of the victim on whether the offender should undertake any of the actions in the community remedy document.

As currently drafted, that duty applies when someone has admitted to anti-social behaviour or a low-level criminal offence which the officer has decided will be dealt with using a conditional caution. The community remedy provides a means to engage the victim in considering what the community resolution should be or in considering appropriate conditions to attach to the caution. The police officer will take ultimate responsibility for the sanction offered to the offender and must ensure that it is proportionate to the offence committed.

I am firmly convinced that this victim-focused approach should apply equally where it is considered appropriate to deal with a low-level criminal offence with an out-of-court disposal. In particular, where the offending is low-level or it is someone’s first offence, undertaking an action from the community remedy menu, such as apologising to the victim or repairing the damage caused, may have a more positive and longer lasting impact on the offender than a formal court sanction.

As I have indicated, I will give sympathetic consideration to Amendment 56G in advance of Report. As for the other amendments, I hope that, having aired these important issues, my noble friend will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, how will the remedies be evaluated? I am inclined to think that the community remedy is not “one size fits all”. I know that it rests with the PCCs but I have said previously that I am concerned about how the remedies will be reviewed across the country. Can the Minister give me any idea of how that is going to happen?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Each PCC has to consult within his area on what is considered to be an appropriate menu—if one might call it that—of suitable community remedies. I have little doubt that members of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners will discuss this matter in some detail among themselves and that there will be considerable input. However, essentially it will be about local decisions made to address local problems and finding local solutions for local anti-social behaviour and for dealing with low-level crime at a local level and in a formal way.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

I come to this area of problems between neighbours or people in residential environments through my work as a chartered surveyor. I see it in terms of being brought into situations where these problems have turned into some sort of property dispute. I have enormous sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, set out, and with what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said. The difficulty is that when people have annoyed each other there are various phases to this annoyance.

The first stage is to say: “Oh, well. They have done something they should not have done”. The second stage is: “If they do that again, I shall take action”. The third stage is when absolutely anything, however minor, triggers the most violent reaction. People who have got themselves in a sensitised situation cannot get out of that psychological bind. That is one of the most difficult and intractable things that one has to deal with. This may result in the police being called out on multiple occasions or the local authority being endlessly rung. That is the reality.

Yes, people will claim that they are vulnerable, although in a sense that is a self-assessment of whether they are actually vulnerable or it is some self-created vulnerability. What I do know is that on both sides of the argument, the perpetrator and the victim are likely to think that the other is completely nuts, irrational and unreasonable in their attitude. I do not know how this Bill or this amendment resolve that issue. There is a case for taking some of these things out of what one might call a heavyweight approach to dealing with the problem.

Whether one fires off in the direction of some other community means of trying to unpick things—getting people to realise that their neighbours’ children are not ogres and the children’s parents to recognise that the affected person is also not an ogre—is a really difficult issue. I am not sure that we have the solution here. However, I shall certainly give the matter some careful thought between now and the next stage, because there is something in terms of social cohesion and peaceable existence for people in residential environments that needs to be addressed much more deeply.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 56K. For far too long we have allowed concerns about the rights of perpetrators to inhibit communities from addressing this important issue at the expense of the majority of law-abiding citizens, who are simply trying to get on with life, raise a family, work and study. What has to happen before we actually face that what is termed anti-social behaviour is so wide that we cannot sit in the ivory tower of Parliament and honestly tie it down for today and tomorrow? We need to allow flexibility for these powers to be meaningful.

I must congratulate and thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for proposing one of very few amendments that think of the victims. I have seen so many provisions and amendments about protecting the perpetrators’ ethical and religious beliefs and considering their disabilities, but for me, this is the first about the victim. I cannot tell your Lordships’ about the number of times that I have been contacted by victims who are ill, elderly, suffer disabilities—or all three. They have to deal with anti-social behaviour and are scared to leave their home. These people need immediate action and cannot wait for the numerical thresholds to be met. So I, for one, fully support this amendment.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, this has been a good debate and we have addressed the whole relevance of the community trigger and how it might operate in practice. We have had the four trials—the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, referred to the one in Manchester and the report that we have had on it. We can all agree that persistent anti-social behaviour causes significant harm to victims. That has been made quite clear by everybody who has spoken—my noble friend Lady Newlove, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee. However, people can sometimes find themselves being passed from the police to the council, to the landlord and back again, or reporting the same problem over and over again.

The community trigger will give victims and communities the right to demand that agencies that have ignored repeated complaints take action. It is an important safety net and is at the heart of our reforms to put the victim at the centre of the response to anti-social behaviour. I hope that no authority in every instance to has to wait to be reminded three times of anti-social behaviour. Some anti-social behaviour will need immediate response, but the community trigger will give victims the right to a review of the authority’s response when three notifications have been made.

Amendment 56K, from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, relates to the threshold for using the community trigger. The Bill provides that the threshold will include the number of complaints that a victim has made in a certain timeframe; for example, three complaints in six months. However, it will also include an assessment of the victim’s vulnerability, because we know that it is often the most vulnerable in our society who are at greatest risk. Many agencies complete a risk assessment when a case is reported, and will revisit the assessment periodically, because vulnerability and resilience to vulnerability change over time in certain cases, though not in all.

The Home Office summary report on the community trigger trials, which was published in May, contains an example risk assessment matrix. This was the one used by the Richmond Housing Partnership. The matrix asks for details of the behaviour, such as how frequent it is, whether it is getting worse, the vulnerability of the victim—including whether they are being deliberately targeted and how much it has affected them—and the support available to the victim, such as whether they live alone or have a close network of friends and family, and whether their health is affected. The answers are scored and the result provides an indication of the potential harm—I use that phrase definitively, because it appears in the Bill—that may be caused to the victim. It is not a definitive assessment, but it assists the professional in assessing the needs of the victim.

We have added a second limb in response to a recommendation from the Home Affairs Select Committee. It ensures that the potential for harm will be a consideration when setting a trigger threshold, not just the number and frequency of incidents. Amendment 56K seeks to determine that the community trigger threshold will be met if the victim is judged to be vulnerable due to ill health, mental capacity, race, sexuality or religion. I have every sympathy with the intention of this amendment.

I understand that anti-social behaviour can often be motivated by these factors, and that vulnerable people need our protection. However, the broader approach to considering potential harm that I have just described captures these as well as other vulnerabilities. Rather than trying to put victims into categories, we require agencies to consider their individual needs.

I hope that I have reassured noble Lords that focus on vulnerability is already provided for in the Bill. I draw the noble Baroness’s attention to page 58 and Clause 96(5)(b), which refers to,

“the harm caused, or the potential for harm to be caused, by that behaviour”.

So that is in the Bill.