Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lady Hermon and Stephen Phillips

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I do not wish to detain the House for any great period. I had the great privilege and honour of serving on the Bill Committee with my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), who was not always given an easy time by those whom he was whipping, even on his own Benches. As a number of hon. Members have done, I pay tribute to the proceedings in the Bill Committee. It was a great pleasure of course to work with the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) and with the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice and the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), who was also taking the Bill through Committee.

The Bill has shown the House at its best. It has been improved throughout the Bill Committee, both by Opposition amendments that the Government have taken on board—they have brought changes to the Bill before the House on Report—and by amendments tabled by Government Back Benchers, which the Government have also taken into account. I want to pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for her work during the passage of the Bill, which a number of us were pleased to support and which has led to the vast improvement of the Bill before it leaves this place.

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Delyn for indicating he will not divide the House on Third Reading, but insofar as there is any difference between the two sides of the House on the Bill, it appears principally to centre on whether ASBOs have been a good thing. I understand that there is politics around this and the Labour party is deeply attached to the idea, but as I pointed out in our debate yesterday, whether or not ASBOs were originally effective, as matters now stand they have turned out not to be effective at all. As the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) pointed out, they have become a badge of honour for some teenagers, and the breach rates of ASBOs among teenagers in particular have risen to such levels that they have proved completely ineffective at controlling antisocial behaviour. It is therefore entirely right that the Government have moved to tackle this issue—as, I say to the right hon. Member for Delyn, I suspect that that would have been the position even if his party were in government.

[Lady Hermon]

We had to wait and wait impatiently for years for the Labour party to introduce ASBOs in Northern Ireland, and we were very grateful indeed when we had them extended to Northern Ireland and we have found them very effective.

[Stephen Phillips]

I hear what the hon. Lady says, but the breach rates among teenagers have in some places reached as high as 90% and in those circumstances it is absolutely plain, at least in England and Wales, that ASBOs are not working to control antisocial behaviour. The poll to which I referred yesterday and to which the hon. Member for Cambridge has referred today found that the vast majority of people in this country do not see ASBOs as an effective way of tackling antisocial behaviour. The position in Northern Ireland may be different, but the reality is that whichever party was in government, this issue had to be grappled with. I am pleased the Government have done so and have brought forward measures to deal with antisocial behaviour that are largely welcome on both sides of the House.

As the Bill leaves the House, there are great sadnesses. One of them is that we are yet to have a proper debate on the extradition provisions. We have had the Scott Baker report, yet that has never been debated at length in this House. My hon. Friends the Members for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) and for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) have repeatedly sought to have a proper debate on extradition, and it remains a matter of great sadness to me—and, I know, a number of other colleagues—that we have not yet had that debate. I therefore hope that, as this Bill leaves the House with these effectively undebated provisions relating to extradition, they will receive a great deal of scrutiny in the other place.

When my right hon. Friend the Minister opened the Third Reading debate he pointed out that one of the things this Bill will do is put the victim at the absolute heart of tackling antisocial behaviour. That is greatly to be welcomed. I had some concerns about the way in which community remedies were going to be dealt with in the Bill, but the Government have listened to the concerns I and a number of others had around how those provisions were to be interpreted and whether or not guidance should be given. That is one of the ways in which the Bill has been improved, and it serves to show this House in its best light.

The Government have listened and brought forward measures designed to improve the Bill, so that when it is rolled out across the country, it tackles the things it is designed to tackle. I have paid a number of tributes already, but may I pay a final one? It is fair to say that the officials at the Home Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs were given a great deal of work to do by the Bill Committee during the passage of this Bill, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister would wish to join me in congratulating them on all the work they did. As this Bill goes to the other place for further consideration, I can say that, in its drafting and the way in which it has been improved, it is, in my short tenure in this House, one of the best Bills the House has considered.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.