Crime and Policing Bill

Linsey Farnsworth Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)]

The 317 pages of the Bill make satisfying reading for this former Crown prosecutor—satisfying because I know it is packed full of measures that will make the streets safer for my constituents. Amber Valley is a brilliant place to live, but sadly it is not without incidents of antisocial behaviour. That is an important issue to my constituents, which is why I will focus what little time I have this evening on part 1 of the Bill.

I have heard the concerns of residents in our towns and villages about cars and off-road bikes being driven in an antisocial manner. I have listened to the frustrations of police officers, who explain to me how they are hamstrung, unable to do anything but issue warnings. The Labour-controlled borough council has made good use of the public spaces protection orders available to it, including by issuing fines for car cruising across Amber Valley and dispersing troublemakers in Heanor marketplace. The Bill will mean that troublemakers can be dispersed for longer and that the police will finally have the power to immediately seize and crush their cars and bikes, giving residents confidence that the police will, at long last, have the tools they need to crack down on such antisocial behaviour.

Antisocial behaviour comes in many forms and is often a legacy of Tory austerity. Youth provision has been drastically cut back by Conservative-controlled Derbyshire county council. Youth services are a crucial pillar in Amber Valley, linking young people with the wider community and the neighbourhood police, as I saw recently at the Railway Carriage in Ironville. This environment helps to steer young people away from choosing crime. This Labour Government understand that we need to give our young people chances, which is why, alongside the Bill, we are working at pace towards our opportunity mission, providing more apprenticeships and skilled jobs for our young people.

We know that antisocial behaviour is often committed by a small number of repeat offenders, young and older alike. The Bill will make it possible for individuals who persistently commit antisocial behaviour to be made subject to a respect order without waiting for them to be convicted of a criminal offence, thus speeding up the response, not least because it will avoid the huge backlogs in the Crown courts that we inherited from the Tories.

We must not forget that people who repeatedly act in an antisocial manner often have underlying issues or trauma driving their behaviour. Whether with alcohol awareness classes for those who persistently drink and are aggressive in our parks, or drug treatment orders for those who steal to fund their habit, these tough new orders will tackle the root causes of such behaviour. The 13,000 additional police officers and respect orders are central to our safer streets mission, but the orders will work only if the resources are available to support offenders to deal with their issues and change their behaviour, and I urge the Government to ensure that such provision is in place.

Antisocial behaviour is often described as low-level crime, but it does not feel low level to the people who have to endure it. The people of Amber Valley can be confident that this Government have acted on their concerns and that the antisocial behaviour will be stopped. I wholeheartedly support the Bill.