Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

56K: Clause 96, page 67, line 30, at end insert—
“( ) The relevant bodies must decide under subsection (1)(b) that the threshold for a review is met where the person making the complaint has notified any of the relevant bodies that he or she has been a victim of anti-social behaviour or is vulnerable due to ill health, mental capacity, race, sexuality or religion.”

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

This amendment is regarding the threshold for review for the community trigger. We are concerned that the community trigger will not be effective unless it takes into account the vulnerability of the victim. We all accept that vulnerability is important and how somebody responds to anti-social behaviour has a huge effect on the impact it has on them and on the community. Our worry is that the proposed trigger is too weak and will therefore be ineffective.

We put in some freedom of information requests about the number of times the triggers had been successfully activated in the pilot areas. The figure was just 13 times out of a reported 44,011 incidents of anti-social behaviour. The worry is that somebody who is vulnerable is not treated any differently to someone who is perhaps more robust and able to deal with the problem.

I feel so strongly about this because I am reminded of one of the first cases I dealt with when I was a reasonably young county councillor in the early 1990s. A lady who came to see me and with whom I was in regular contact for some time was vulnerable. She was easily bullied. Most of us would have thought that the behaviour of some kids in her street was insignificant—eggs thrown at her windows, for example. It was annoying and irritating, and it went on for some time, but her reaction made her more vulnerable. Trying to get the authorities to act in the days before we had anti-social behaviour orders was extremely difficult. It went on for some considerable time.

That situation has not stopped. The Minister will be aware of recent cases and the case of Fiona Pilkington and 18 year-old Francecca Hardwick which goes back to 2009. They complained 33 times about harassment and anti-social behaviour. In the end, Miss Pilkington set fire to their car and they were both killed. Anti-social behaviour can have some tragic and harmful consequences, particularly where the victims are vulnerable. The amendment would ensure that the community trigger takes into account that vulnerability and the need for a 24-hour response if someone says that they are vulnerable. That should be enough to speed up the process. We do not want to see other incidents with such a tragic consequence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

The noble Lord said page 58; did he mean page 68?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I apologise if I misdirected the Committee. There is direct reference to the subjective nature of anti-social behaviour. That was on the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee. It also appears in the guidance, under the heading “Putting victims first”, which states on page 10:

“The Community Trigger can be used by any person and agencies should consider how to make it as accessible as possible to young people, those who are vulnerable, have learning difficulties or do not speak English”.

On the following page, under “Responding to the victim”, it repeats that the potential harm to a particular victim is one of the key matters that has to be taken into account. We have already built in the very issues that the noble Baroness has said she would like in the Bill.

I turn to Amendment 56L, tabled by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. It probes the finer detail of how the community trigger threshold will work in practice. My noble friend seeks reassurance that, for instance, three members of a household cannot report the same problem and have that count as three separate incidents for the purpose of meeting the threshold. This would of course mean that they would essentially jump the queue to get their problem dealt with as a community trigger. The Bill already accounts for this, and I will happily explain how.

Clause 96(11) defines a “qualifying complaint” for the purpose of the community trigger. The complaint needs to be made within one month of the incident occurring, or a different period if specified within the review procedures. This is to prevent someone making complaints about historical incidents in order to use the community trigger. Subsection (12) allows the local agencies to set out what will be considered a “qualifying complaint” where someone makes two or more complaints about the same behaviour or incident, in particular when separate complaints relate to different aspects of one incident. That achieves the safeguard that Amendment 56L is designed to achieve.

We want to ensure that the legislation is robust enough that only genuine requests to use the community trigger meet the threshold, while allowing the procedures to be flexible enough to ensure that the trigger can help those victims who need it most. I hope that I have reassured my noble friend that the procedures are set out in a way that will ensure they will not be manipulated in the manner that she fears.

As I said, we have trialled the community trigger in four parts of the country since June 2012, and the majority of requests to use the trigger were genuine. We have tested the legislation through trials and I am content that we have achieved a good balance between addressing the needs of the most vulnerable victims, which my noble friend Lady Newlove emphasised, and allowing agencies the flexibility to operate the community trigger to suit local circumstances.

Some amendments have been tabled by my noble friend Lord Greaves, to which my noble friend Lady Hamwee referred. I know that my noble friend is anxious to ensure that we standardise the definition of a local authority in the Bill. In this case, however, the wording used in Clause 97 and Schedule 4 is technically correct. His amendment 56LD inadvertently omits line 19 on page 69, which is still required. Given that our provisions are technically correct, I am not persuaded that there are sufficient grounds to make the amendments.

I hope that, having listened to what I have said, the noble Baroness is content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am grateful to the Minister; I think he has heard what I said. I should like to read the details of what he said in Hansard with reference to the guidelines and the Bill, because I am not 100% sure that the points he makes fully address the issues that I brought forward today. First, he said that there is a right to demand that the authorities take action. My understanding is that it is not a right to take action, it is a right to have a review of the case. He is right to say that, sometimes, cases of anti-social behaviour are motivated by someone’s vulnerability, but sometimes it is the vulnerability of the individual that makes the anti-social behaviour more severe, because they are less able to cope with the pressures they face.

I am very grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner. She fully understands the point I am trying to make about how people react to anti-social behaviour. For the trigger to be used 13 times in more than 14,000 incidents gives me cause for concern. If I can go back to read what the Minister said and read the guidance, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 56K withdrawn.