Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, I have put my name to the amendment, but the whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dear, for causing the Government, in the words of the Minister in his letter to a number of us, to “reflect carefully” and conclude that pragmatism was the right way.

I am pleased that the Government have decided to propose this change. I did not agree and I still do not believe that the original wording was the threat to freedom of expression which was argued, but it clearly troubled many people a great deal, and whatever the technicalities, I do not think that it is good law to have provisions which trouble people as to precisely what they mean.

I am pleased, too, that the Government have dealt with the tenure point, which was one that I and others picked up at the previous stage. What matters is that it now looks as if we will be able to shift away from the criminalisation of anti-social behaviour implicit in the current legislation and move to a new way to tackle the problem.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, I of course welcome the amendment. It is, as the Minister said, substantially the same as the amendment in my name on which we voted on Report. I readily agree the inclusion of private housing in the same context as social housing, which has been on the statute book for a while.

I extend a vote of thanks at this juncture, first, to those who voted in support of my amendment on Report. I am very grateful to them for helping to preserve and protect fundamental rights under the law. I thank the Public Bill Office staff, who were, as they always are, unfailingly helpful to me in the progress of the amendment through to Report. I thank the staff of the Christian Institute, who gave me invaluable administrative help in the run-up to the vote on Report. Finally, I thank the Minister for his unfailing courtesy and help in what were not always the easiest of discussions to make progress on in this part of the Bill. Those of us who have had the pleasure of working with him before will know that that is his default mode, and I am very grateful to him.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, sweetness and light is clearly breaking out after a slightly more difficult passage of the Bill at earlier stages. We should all be pleased that the outcome of this has been to strike a compromise between the very real concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Dear, my noble friend Lady Mallalieu and others expressed about the original provision. That had to be balanced, as it was in debate, by the real concern about problems faced by many tenants in both the public and the private sector, and I think that the Government have sought to strike an acceptable balance. To strike the slightest of sour notes, I think it was clear that that balance had to be struck from our debate in Committee, a very full and detailed debate. Perhaps, had the Government come forward with precisely this formulation at an earlier stage, they would have avoided a defeat. I also wish that a similar attempt to try to meet the genuine concerns of noble Lords in respect of other provisions in the Bill might have borne fruit before we got to this stage.