Crime and Policing Bill (Third sitting)

David Taylor Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Vickers]

Some of the real experts in this Bill are the people on housing lists, feeling that they are waiting to get a house while others are getting ahead of them in the queue. This is an essential measure.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

I have listened intently to the remarks, and I must say it is astounding to hear the shadow Minister suddenly become a champion for social housing. The problems due to antisocial behaviour in my constituency are, first, that families are stuck next to a problem family and cannot move because the Conservative party sold off so much council housing in my constituency and, crucially, did not replace it with new council housing stock; and secondly, my housing associations do not have enough resources from the local police, because the Conservative party slashed police numbers.

[Matt Vickers]

Police numbers are at a record level. There are more police on the streets of the UK than ever before. There is more funding going into the police than ever before. We toughened up sentencing for some of the worst offences. I am sure the hon. Member has lots of views on social housing, but in terms of this amendment, I think the right thing to do is to empower the agencies and ensure that some of the frustrated people in his constituency who want to move house can move ahead of those committing antisocial behaviour.

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As Members have mentioned, antisocial behaviour has a profound impact on entire communities, creating an environment of fear, distress and instability. Persistent issues such as vandalism, drug abuse, public disorder and intimidation erode trust among residents, making people feel unsafe in their neighbourhoods. Local businesses may suffer as customers avoid certain areas, property values can decline, and families may choose to move elsewhere, leading to community breakdown.

[David Taylor]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. In Hemel Hempstead, antisocial behaviour is regularly at the top of my inbox. Ahead of joining the Committee, I carried out information-gathering exercises in addition to my regular surgery and casework, including a recent public event alongside the police and the Police Federation. I found that hundreds of people are unable to go about their daily lives because of antisocial behaviour. A rot was allowed to set in by the Conservatives when they were in government, with crime doubling in my constituency between 2014 and 2024. A retired police officer locally has pinpointed the fact that the cuts that were made to neighbourhood policing during that time is having a massive and detrimental effect on policing in Hemel Hempstead.

I have spoken before about a family who live locally who have suffered from terrible antisocial behaviour, and I will refer to them again today. This family, who have a boy, have been harassed for more than two years, including verbal abuse, trespassing, damage to property and their neighbours generally causing them distress. What is really disturbing is that the child does not feel comfortable going out to play in their local neighbourhood because of the impact that the abuse from those terrible neighbours has had on his mental health. The family have recorded these incidents on their Ring doorbell device, and the recordings have been submitted to the police and local authority. However, despite multiple reports to the council, the police and other agencies, no resolution has been reached. They are currently unable to move away to another area because of the lack of social housing, which I mentioned earlier. It is not okay that the son is fearful of going outside, and that the anxiety is so bad that he cannot sleep alone. I have met the family and have had to console them as they have broken down in tears owing to the stress. It is unacceptable.

In reading the Bill, I have been applying a simple test: what will each clause mean for Hemel Hempstead residents? I strongly believe that clause 1 will have a considerable impact on residents. Why? First, unlike previous measures, respect orders come with criminal penalties for breaches, which paves the way for the police to immediately act when individuals are in breach. It will help to ensure that residents such as the family I referenced will not suffer prolonged harm from persistent offenders, and that authorities have the tools to act decisively.

Secondly, residents have informed me that when antisocial behaviour injunctions and other parts of enforcement measures have been applied, they were too slow to be enforced, so lacked any real deterrent. In contrast, the measures introduced in clause 1 simplify the legal framework, providing enforceable rules that local authorities, housing providers and the police can use. Further, one of the problems reported to me by the family is that the neighbours’ drug use is the driver of much of the antisocial behaviour.

[Jo Platt (Leigh and Atherton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is very kind. In my constituency, ASB is conducted by people who have alcohol and drug problems. Does he agree that the fact that the new respect orders have positive requirements, such as attending drug or alcohol support services, will get to the root of the problem?

[David Taylor]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have spoken about members of my family who have suffered drug abuse; sometimes that did lead to antisocial behaviour and they suffered the penalties of it. It is right that we need to look at dealing with some of the root causes.

This issue is a scourge in my community and it has been for many years. I recall another couple who came up to me at a community event just before Christmas. They said that they lived on a completely normal street but then, at one point, a house on the street turned into a drug den, where there was a drug dealer. They told me, “It is striking. This is just a normal street and all of a sudden, we are dealing with people coming at all hours of the day, leaving drugs and paraphernalia all over the place. There is swearing and antisocial behaviour.” A neighbour went out to confront the people coming to buy the drugs, and one of them turned on the neighbour and drove at him with their vehicle—that is how bad some of these offences are.

I therefore welcome that the new respect orders allow courts to impose restrictions and positive obligations, which my hon. Friend referenced. As a result, offenders can be required not just to stop harmful behaviour but to engage in programmes of drug rehabilitation, which I hope will get to the root cause of this problem.

The overarching issue with antisocial behaviour in Hemel Hempstead is that it has been ignored in the past, with one resident telling me that authorities do not really think it is that bad. The new respect orders send a strong message that such behaviour will have real consequences, therefore restoring trust in policing and the justice system. I have made the case several times that Hemel would very much welcome being included in the pilot for the new respect orders, should the Bill pass, and I reiterate that today. I thank the Government for taking seriously the plight of antisocial behaviour, as demonstrated by clause 1, and I hope that we can work together to ensure that it is enforceable as quickly as possible, and to bring about real change for residents across our country and in my Hemel Hempstead.

[Jack Rankin]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. As members of the Committee have said, antisocial behaviour really is one of the scourges of our communities right across the country. Although it might often be described as low-level, compared with more serious crimes, it is deleterious to community cohesion, and it clearly has significant effects on people’s mental health.

I was looking at some YouGov statistics earlier: 28% of people in the country at some point felt unsafe where they live because of antisocial behaviour; 14% said that antisocial behaviour where they live has affected their mental health; and 15% have said that they have been scared at some points to visit their local shop. That is reflected in my surgeries, as I am sure it is in the surgeries of Members across the House.

Last month, I went to Eton town council. Eton is a prosperous place, as people might recognise, but even for Eton as a town, there were two primary issues that the council brought up with me relating to antisocial behaviour. That included from the night-time economy, whether that is shop windows being smashed, indecent exposure or laughing gas. We also have problems with BB guns being shot at swans—indeed, youths not too far in the past killed a swan. What we find, in many instances, is that an incredibly small number of individuals create havoc for a whole town, so I welcome clause 1 and the powers that respect orders will give the authorities. The clause can give them more teeth to get at the repeat offenders who are causing this kind of damage across our town.

I know it is not necessarily appropriate at this point for me to speak to the amendments, but I would like to say two sentences on amendment 31, if you would allow me, Mr Pritchard. I think this behaviour is often done by 16 to 17-year-olds, so it is a bit of a shame that that has been put to one side.

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[Joe Robertson]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. Like every Member in the Committee and across the House, my constituency struggles with antisocial behaviour, particularly but not exclusively in towns. Individual instances of antisocial behaviour often are referred to—perhaps correctly—as low-level crime, but the problem is the combination of those activities, the hyper-prolific nature of antisocial behaviour, whereby a few individuals cause a huge amount of the problems, and the knock-on effect for the rest of the people living in those neighbourhoods, who are law-abiding citizens trying to go about their daily lives. Antisocial behaviour also feeds into the fear of crime, which is relevant—not just the level of crime, but fear of it among a given population.

In the town of Sandown in my constituency on the Isle of Wight, antisocial behaviour feeds into a major regeneration issue, as the state of some key buildings, which have been left to deteriorate, attracts antisocial behaviour. That is not to say that there is any justification for criminality or antisocial behaviour, but it would be false to assume that the physical environment in which people live does not have an effect, particularly on younger people who may be struggling to fill their time, as they look for work or further education opportunities.

I welcome the new respect orders, in line with most of the things that have been said today, because of the beefing up of the current rules and the attempt to add weight to the deterrent available to law enforcement. However, as the measure includes criminal sanctions for an offence that can be tried and heard in the Crown court, the Government have to be alive to the potential—indeed, the almost certainty—that it will increase the workload of the courts. It is all very well for Members such as the hon. Member for Southend West and Leigh to talk about the previous Government not having done enough, but to assume that words, even good words, in a Bill will solve everything on their own, I suggest might be a little simplistic. The Government will have to do more.

[David Taylor]

The hon. Member is being a bit unfair. The Bill is not being presented in isolation. As a Government, we are also recruiting 13,000 new officers, a starting point to getting neighbourhood policing back in a fit and proper state. Does he not welcome that move?

[Matt Vickers]

rose—