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—

Crime and Policing Bill (Fourth sitting)

David Taylor Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Joe Robertson]

It is good to hear that there is a universal view—at least among those who have spoken—about the intimidating nature of driving motor vehicles in a manner causing alarm, distress or annoyance. I am pleased that the Bill does not require that to be the intent of the use of the vehicle; if there is flagrant disregard for others, that behaviour is captured here and could and should lead to the seizing of that vehicle. There are clearly issues with existing law that are improved here, not least seizing a vehicle without warning. Plainly, people who use vehicles in this way are likely to be quite clever at avoiding the system taking their vehicle when they are warned that they are being watched and have been seen. Removing the necessity for a warning is welcome.

There are a number of issues that are not dealt with in the Bill. I will not repeat the words of the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West, but I wish to highlight the inability to seize a vehicle once it has entered the home. Again, the sorts of people who are using vehicles in this way will be quite clever about protecting their property when they see the police coming. Can the Minster help with this idea of the home; if a bike is removed into a garage, for example, can it still be seized? Does it matter if that garage is integral to the home or separate from it? Any loopholes that can be closed for those driving their vehicles in this way to avoid having them seized would be welcome.

The shadow Minister and the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, both referred to the idea of a vehicle being seized and then resold—and possibly sold back to the perpetrator of the antisocial behaviour in the first place. That is plainly ridiculous. Crushing these vehicles, with all the caveats around ensuring that the vehicle belongs to the person who had been using it in that way—that they were not joyriding, leading to somebody else’s property getting crushed—is a sensible way forward.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

I want to make a brief point about the noise nuisance of vehicles. We are rightly focusing a lot of remarks on how dangerous these vehicles are for ordinary citizens trying to go about their day, but to reinforce a point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton West, about modified exhausts, I will share mine and my constituents’ annoyance at these things. It is unreasonable that someone in their own house with their windows closed should have to listen to a vehicle going by. Someone going for a walk on a nice sunny day has to listen to this antisocial behaviour, which has no benefit at all, as far as I can tell, in terms of the quality of the vehicle.

[Harriet Cross]

If one way to help reduce the likelihood that someone in their private house with the windows closed would not have to listen to these vehicles—as no one should—was to have powers to seize them from inside someone’s house, would the hon. Member support that?

[David Taylor]

I am not convinced. I am primarily talking about big vehicles such as SUVs and other cars, which are not often inside garages—not many people have garages these days.

I really hope the Bill enables, and gives confidence to, the police to take more action against modified exhausts because, unfortunately, they do not always prioritise this particular nuisance.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

The shadow Minister and other members of the Committee have set out clearly how concerned we are about the antisocial use of vehicles and the real problems they are causing communities all around the country. I think we can all identify with the menace they cause in our parks, on our pavements and in our streets and neighbourhoods. Certainly, as the nights get lighter, the problem seems to get worse. In Orchard Park in my constituency, we seem to be plagued by mini motos causing noise nuisance and intimidating local people, making the situation really unpleasant for people trying to enjoy the good weather as we move into spring and summer. I fully appreciate all of that, and as the shadow Minister pointed out, there are also real issues about the way vehicles are used for crime—drugs, theft and everything else.

It is absolutely right to say that the police have been as innovative as they can be in the use of drones or off-road bikes. The police may, where appropriate, pursue motorbikes and off-road bikes being ridden in an antisocial manner and may employ tactical options to bring the vehicles to a stop. The College of Policing’s authorised professional practice on roads policing and police pursuits provides guidance for police taking part in such pursuits. However, the APP makes it clear that the pursuit should be necessary, proportionate and balanced against the threat, risk and harm of the pursuit to the person being pursued, the officers involved and others who may be affected.

Crime and Policing Bill (First sitting)

David Taylor Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We can probably squeeze in one more quick question.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

Q I want to associate myself with what my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean said and to thank you all for your service. Tiff, I have a question for you. When we met in January—I was very grateful for that briefing—part of what we discussed was neighbourhood policing, which is a key theme of the Bill. Have you done any assessment of the Bill’s effectiveness in helping neighbourhood policing?

Tiff Lynch: Neighbourhood policing is the bedrock of policing; that is something I have always believed, and we have discussed it privately. The police officers and police community support officers out there work with communities, and this Bill—I come back to what I said before—will go some way towards bringing us into line with how society is changing, so that we can actually use laws to keep the public safe. But, again, it comes down to the investment that is made in policing so that we are able to enact those laws, and when I talk about investment, that is about people, systems and infrastructure.

[The Chair]

That brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions of this panel. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our witnesses for their evidence.

Examination of Witnesses

Oliver Sells KC and Rt Hon Sir Robert Buckland KBE KC gave evidence.

Anti-social Behaviour: East of England

David Taylor Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) on bringing forward this important debate. Antisocial behaviour and disorder is a blight on our high streets and town centres, and I hear all too often from my constituents in Thurrock about behaviour that is making their lives a misery, forcing them to avoid problem areas and, in the worst cases, making them too afraid to leave their homes. Through experiences that have been shared with me, I see how crime perceived to be low level leads to people worrying about themselves and their children, and feeling unsafe in their community. These problems can all too often feel intractable.

At a street meeting that I recently held in west Thurrock, residents told me that their peaceful lives had been made consistently miserable by the menace of dirt bikes. One resident told me that the noise is unbearable, sometimes continuing for hours at a time. Those who work from home have their working hours consistently interrupted by the noise of dirt bikes.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

There are many things about the Crime and Policing Bill that I welcome, but I particularly welcome the action that we are going to take on dirt bikes. I hope in the future that we also look at other types of vehicles, particularly those with modified exhausts. One of the problems that I often hear about from residents, and that I have come across many times myself, is boy racers at all hours of the day seemingly acting with impunity because the police and local councils often do not have the resources to act.

[Jen Craft]

My hon. Friend is right that powers introduced in the Crime and Policing Bill will go some way towards alleviating some of these problems. He raises a good point about how the noise itself is an issue which exacerbates people’s fear of this kind of antisocial behaviour, which makes some areas almost a no-go zone. That cannot be right. Another resident told me that when those bikes are out and about she is worried for her child’s safety. She approaches the distance between her house and the local park with fear, as she knows the bikes are being driven in an illegal and reckless manner. She worries that her child could eventually be hit by one of those drivers, having had a number of close shaves in the past.

I have held a number of coffee afternoons to bring residents together to discuss the issue of antisocial behaviour and crime in their neighbourhood. The problems I hear about are consistent, and ones that all Members in this Chamber will be familiar with—things like graffiti, disorderly behaviour, dirt bikes and fly-tipping. I know there are measures in the Crime and Policing Bill to give councils more powers to tackle fly-tipping. They are all things that add to the overall impression of an area that is run down and undesirable. Our area and places across the country deserve better than that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North spoke about her area having much to offer and great civic pride. Thurrock also has a lot to offer, but we find that too often communities are afraid to come together in that spirit because of the behaviour they see on their own doorstep. One of the things that comes up time and again is the broken link between communities and their local neighbourhood and community policing force. The refrain, which will again be familiar to most of us in the Chamber, is, “You just don’t see a police officer any more.”

The Government’s switch to pushing for community policing is the right move. It allows police officers to get to know the area, the pinch points and the issues that residents have. It offers visible reassurance to people who are afraid to leave their homes that there are police available, and that they are on their side. Quite often residents say, “I haven’t got the time to sit and call 111, or to file a report that goes into great detail about what I saw and when, but if I saw a police officer on the street, I would go up to them and say that I saw this behaviour, at this time, at this place.” That builds an intelligence-led policing narrative that can only be for the best.

That is why I welcome the Government’s move to neighbourhood and community policing. It is the kind of preventive work that stops problems becoming larger, that allows people to feel safe on their streets, and that ultimately allows for the kind of society that we all want to see and live in. Of course serious crimes must be given priority, but in this era of competing priorities, what plans do the Government have to make sure that police forces prioritise community policing, and recognise the importance of a visible police presence on the street and people having a named police officer for their area? How can we encourage police forces to follow through with that?

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[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) for securing this important debate.

I will start with a quick stocktake of my constituency and the region. I am immensely proud of my community, as I know everyone in this room is of their own, and I do not want to be accused of doing my town down in any way, but we undoubtedly have some important challenges with antisocial behaviour. In January 2024, we were the worst major town in Hertfordshire for antisocial behaviour, with more than 200 reported incidents. The town centre, which should be—and is—a great place to meet friends and loved ones and do some shopping, is now one of the most dangerous in the county. Dacorum has the highest number of vulnerable children at risk of exploitation by drug dealers and county lines in Hertfordshire. Indeed, we have a long-standing issue with drugs. I do not talk about this often, for obvious reasons, but even members of my own family have in the past been affected by drug addiction issues due to scumbag drug dealers peddling horrible drugs.

In Hemel Hempstead, the overall crime rate in 2023 was 95 crimes per 1,000 people. Damningly, between 2014 and 2024, the crime rate doubled. I am proud of my community, but we cannot allow the thugs to win. People often ask why we are in this mess, and it is impossible to ignore the indisputable fact that, in the time that the Conservatives were in power—14 years nationally and longer locally—local crime skyrocketed. They ignored antisocial behaviour, cut our police force by 20,000 officers nationally and took 60p out of every £1 from local authorities. Objectively, that is why we are where we are; this is their mess, and people in my patch are the ones who have to deal with it.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I was delighted to speak last night on Second Reading of the Government’s Crime and Policing Bill, and to vote in favour of it. It is at the heart of our Government’s safer streets mission, and I want to briefly touch on some aspects of the Bill that will help to combat antisocial behaviour in my patch and in the region.

Clause 1 will provide the police, local authorities and other agencies with a new power to tackle antisocial behaviour: respect orders. Like a stuck record, I will once again suggest that Hemel Hempstead should be considered for a respect order pilot. I believe that the orders will make an incredible difference to the hard-working local police force.

Clause 4 will make life tougher for criminals and thugs by increasing the upper limit for fixed penalty notices from £100 to £500. We must make sure that victims are prioritised and criminals face the full force of the law. There must be enough of a sting that they think twice before behaving in this manner.

Part 3 of the Bill will address retail crime, as others have mentioned. I will not repeat what I said in the Chamber yesterday, except to highlight the need to ensure that we are not letting people wander into our shops and steal what they want with impunity.

Clause 14 will introduce a new crime of assaulting a retail worker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) for highlighting this point and I agree with him. I also put on the record my thanks to both USDAW and the Co-operative party for their hard work and campaigning on these issues over many years. We saw during covid that retail workers are not just hard-working, outstanding members of our community, but essential to our very survival, and I welcome the fact that the Labour Government will reflect that in law.

Labour is taking seriously the blight of antisocial behaviour, but so too have our police. As I have said before, I have been out with bobbies on the beat through a ride-along scheme. If any Member of this House has not taken part in such a scheme, I recommend that they do so—indeed, many police forces allow individual citizens to do so—because it is an eye-opening demonstration of the tough challenges that our police face. They are true heroes of our community.

Thanks to local police in Hertfordshire, we have seen some progress in tackling the blight of antisocial behaviour, despite the resource pressures that they have faced. I thank them again for their service. The force’s Operation Clear Hold Build in the Grovehill area of my town and Operation Hotspot in the town centre have brought significant uplifts in patrols and prevention.

I also thank the Minister for her engagement. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet her recently to discuss some of the specific issues in my constituency, including antisocial behaviour hotspots such as Hosking Court, Livingstone Walk, Swallowfields. For too long, people in Hemel Hempstead have been let down, but this Labour Government are showing leadership. I look forward to continuing to do all that I can locally to ensure that the national changes that we make are felt in my town.

Crime and Policing Bill

David Taylor Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

Much within the Bill will bring significant positive changes to communities like mine in Hemel Hempstead, where crime and, in particular, antisocial behaviour continue to be a major issue. Under consecutive Conservative Governments, criminals got an easy ride. The Conservatives left a great mess, and this Bill helps to fix that.

I could speak at great length on many parts of the Bill, but I will focus on two that are almost always at the top of my postbag in Hemel Hempstead: antisocial behaviour and the current epidemic of shoplifting. I recently met a couple called Gary and Margaret—not their real names—whose case shocked me. For two years, Gary and Margaret have been harassed, including verbal abuse, trespassing and the damaging of their property, by an offender who lives on their street. The family feel unsafe and isolated, with the harassment worsening the mental health of their eight-year-old son, who suffers from severe anxiety and is too scared to play outside. They inform me that they have been in constant communication with the council and the police, but have faced rejection from the local council’s antisocial behaviour department, which stated that they would not intervene due to the low-level nature of the antisocial behaviour.

It is not just antisocial behaviour affecting people in Hemel Hempstead; we also face an epidemic of violence against retail staff, as other Members have mentioned. I met employees from the Co-op in Queens Square in Adeyfield, and I have also met people from the post office in the same square. I was grateful to those from the Co-op for the time they took to show me their store, including their CCTV room, but I was shocked by what I saw there: an entire table of CD after CD, each containing evidence of shoplifting in the store, with many people brazenly walking out of the shop, not even attempting to conceal their theft. What is more disturbing is what one of the store employees told me. A shoplifter had been caught, and the store had managed to get the police and the criminal justice system to take the case to court. That brave employee had been to court to testify against the shoplifter. Unfortunately, the case was thrown out and the perpetrator let off and able to walk free. Even more shockingly, the employee had to sit on the same bus home as the person she had just given evidence against.

Thankfully, provisions in the Bill will make a difference for that employee, for Gary and for others who have been the victims of crime and antisocial behaviour. First, clause 1 and respect orders will give the police and local authorities what they need. I have in the past asked for Hemel Hempstead to be considered for a respect order pilot, and I hope the Minister will forgive me for making another pitch for that today.

It disgusts me that hard-working people in Hemel Hempstead pay for their shopping while others can simply storm out without paying. It disgusts me that people in my constituency have to put up with antisocial behaviour on an almost daily basis, while the perpetrators walk away with impunity. I have been out with the police for ride-alongs, the purpose of which is to see at first hand the challenges that the police are facing. I have had meetings with Police Federation reps, so I am well aware of the extra equipment and support that they need. I will continue to do everything I can to support those brave police officers facing antisocial behaviour, and I am strongly in favour of this Bill, which I believe will give the police extra powers to do more to crack down on these yobs.

There is much more I would like to say, but much like our police force under George Osborne and Theresa May, I have had to subject my speech to brutal cuts, so I will finish there.

Respect Orders and Antisocial Behaviour

David Taylor Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

The definition that I gave earlier—causing harassment, alarm or distress—will be used when respect orders are applied for. I ought to say that civil injunctions will remain in place when it comes to housing, so those can be used. Respect orders will be only for adults; for young people, the youth injunction will still be available, and there are sanctions within that. There will be a range of ways that antisocial behaviour can be tackled, using either respect orders or the reformed civil injunctions.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

Hemel Hempstead has some of the worst antisocial behaviour in our part of the county. We have hotspots such as Livingstone Walk, Hosking Court, Waveney and Swallowfields, where there are issues such as drug use, boy racers with modified exhausts, abandoned vehicles, shoplifting and drunken noise; I have seen the evidence of that while out on the streets with local police. Fortunately, Hemel police are carrying out a great pilot project in Grovehill to try to clear the area, rebuild relations and deal with the thugs there. Could the Policing Minister kindly outline how the new respect orders will help Hemel police to do that great work, and will she join me in paying tribute to them for the work that they do to clean up our streets?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I will absolutely join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the police and other partner agencies, such as councils and housing associations, for the work that they already do. There is a great deal of good work going on around the country, and we need to build on that and give the police and others the powers that they need to take the action that they want to take on antisocial behaviour, which has just grown and grown in recent times. I wonder whether my hon. Friend would like to add his constituency to the list of pilot areas.