Draft Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (Amendment) Order 2018

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 General Committees

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. May I, too, wish you and the Committee a very happy new year?

I am pleased to say that the Opposition support the draft order, so I shall not detain the Committee for too long. As the Minister said, Transport for Greater Manchester and the Mayor have been calling since November 2017 for these powers, which their safer transport officers need to clamp down on the threat that antisocial behaviour poses on the network. They have been very clear that the powers will be used to combat persistent and well-known troublemakers by setting a clear standard of behaviour for perpetrators, stopping their behaviour from escalating, and placing positive requirements on them without criminalising individuals.

The reality of such civil orders is that they require authorities and personnel with knowledge and intelligence of the transport network to enforce them. Safer transport officers are best placed to identify troublemakers, using the tools at their disposal and, once the order is enforced, to ensure it is complied with, so the Opposition are happy to give the draft instrument our full support.

I will ask just a few questions of the Minister. The power in the draft instrument is clearly welcome for Greater Manchester transport routes, but we know that the threat posed by antisocial behaviour on the transport network is prevalent across the country. The type of harassment and aggressive and threatening behaviour that powers in section 1 of the 2014 Act deal with are regrettably present every single day on trains, trams, tubes and buses across the country. As many as 43% of passengers have said they felt intimidated or threatened by antisocial behaviour while using the public transport network within the last year. What thought has the Department put into ensuring that the public can have confidence that local authorities can use the powers available to them to clamp down on antisocial behaviour, particularly on local bus services, which are fragmented and obviously not under local authority control in all areas?

In Sheffield—the area that I represent—neither the South Yorkshire passenger transport executive nor the Sheffield city region combined authority has those powers. How will this work practically in those circumstances? I know that the West Midlands combined authority has these powers in theory. What requests have the Government received from other combined authorities to take over these powers on transport networks? These powers are clearly best enforced by appropriate authorities with knowledge and intelligence of transport networks. It would be welcome if the Minister could outline what steps the Government are taking to ensure that that happens consistently and effectively nationwide.

Finally, it would be helpful to have—the Minister could perhaps write to Committee members, rather than listing it all now—data on how many times these powers have been used by each relevant authority.