Antisocial Behaviour and Off-road Bikes

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Peter Gibson

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I want to begin my congratulating my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), on securing this important debate. He knows, as do I, that antisocial behaviour and the fear of it is of great concern to our constituents. It is a blight on our society, imprisoning people in their homes, making them fearful of venturing out, and turning parts of our community into perceived no-go areas. That cannot be right in a civilised society.

Off-road bikes have long been a cause for concern in Darlington. Having raised this matter a number of times in the House before, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the issue again today. Off-road bikes and quad bikes are the vehicle of choice for those in my community who want to tear-arse around our estates and parks, creating noise pollution, posing an intimidating danger to pedestrians and making life grim for those who live nearby. Parents are fearful of the danger to their children. Pedestrians are fearful of being knocked over. The all-pervading drone of the engines can make parts of our community feel inhospitable. We must do more to rid our communities of this problem.

I praise Durham constabulary’s Operation Endurance, which is focused on tackling this scourge and has had an appreciable impact on tackling this form of antisocial behaviour. Since February last year, section 59 warning signs have been erected to notify offenders of the new powers. Anyone now seen riding an off-road bike, quad or 4x4 in Darlington will have their vehicle seized straightaway by the police, if they can catch them. Durham constabulary has issued a number of fixed penalty notices, speeding tickets and barring notices. We have seen a significant number of illegal quads and off-road bikes seized. These actions are working. They are removing the ability of offenders to offend and acting as a deterrent by demonstrating real consequences to those involved, but we need even more action.

Durham constabulary and Darlington Borough Council have worked closely to tackle this problem over the past year, and I hope that the new Labour and Lib Dem coalition administration will continue to work with me and the police so that we can continue to make progress in this area. I will soon be meeting with Robert Potts, our police and crime commissioner candidate, to ensure that he is fully up to speed on this issue. He is laser-focused on the steps needed to go further in our community.

It is vital that local communities play their part in tackling the scourge if enforcement is to be successful. I repeat my message that every sight and every sound of off-road bikes should be reported, so that our police force can gather the intelligence it needs to eliminate the problem.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Many of those who are responsibly using off-road bikes do so on uninsured and unregistered vehicles. Does the hon. Member agree that the current legislation is not a sufficient deterrent to those perpetuating antisocial behaviour on road bikes and must be reviewed swiftly?

[Peter Gibson]

It is a pleasure to see the hon. Lady in the Chamber, and I wholeheartedly agree with her point. Insurance and registration are important matters, which I raised in my earlier intervention and will address further in my speech.

For my part, as the MP for Darlington, I have continued to share Durham Constabulary’s messaging of reporting the problem to 999 if people feel they are in danger, or to the 101 service if the incident has passed. I could say much more about our Labour police and crime commissioner’s ability to improve the response times for the 101 service, or the closure of our custody suite in Darlington, or the threat of the closure of Cockerton police station, but I will remain focused on the topic at hand.

In tackling this problem further, which I know is not limited to Darlington, I would ask the Minister to respond to the simple, practical and sensible suggestions that I outlined earlier. Compulsory insurance for off-road and quad bikes would dissuade the casual user from illegal use of bikes on the road. Compulsory registration of off-road bikes would make the identification of these vehicles much easier for law enforcement. Mandating manufacturers to install immobilisers on these vehicles would also help to reduce theft and the misuse of them by unauthorised riders. These points have been raised in discussion with Ministers in the past. I encourage Home Office, Transport and indeed Justice Ministers to work more closely on a package of measures to tackle the antisocial behaviour associated with off-road bikes.

A further point about off-road bikes is what happens after the vehicle is seized. Currently, the police recoup their recovery and storage costs for seized vehicles by auctioning them off in order to recover costs. That leads to a merry-go-round of offenders buying back vehicles. Our forces need a ringfenced pot of money to enable them to crush these vehicles and meet the costs of recovery.

But off-road bikes are not the only issue; we face many other types of antisocial behaviour in Darlington. The illegal and unacceptable fly-tipping in our alley ways by fly-by-night operators who will rock up in a transit van or flatbed truck is a real issue. They will offer to take a household’s rubbish away for a tenner, avoiding the inconvenience of contacting the council or taking a trip to the tip. Having done shifts with Street Scene, Darlington Borough Council’s environmental services department, I have seen first hand the impact of this issue on local residents and the town as a whole. Street Scene is continuing to work hard to tackle this scourge, with increased prosecution of those found to be fly-tipping, and with Street Scene responding speedily to incidents and taking a proactive approach to rooting out those responsible.

Finally, while our Government and constabularies are tackling antisocial behaviour, more can be done with cross-Government working to tackle issues and ringfence pots of money to support the steps we need to take to reduce these problems. I know the Minister will have listened closely to this debate, and I take this opportunity —as I did in the last debate on antisocial behaviour I attended—to invite him and others in his Department to Darlington to see first hand the problems we are experiencing and the actions and the further solutions we need to tackle antisocial behaviour in Darlington.

Anti-social Behaviour Awareness Week

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Peter Gibson

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituent for his valuable intervention extolling the virtues of working together. I would like to draw the attention of the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) to the proposal to bring forward an all-party parliamentary group on this issue. I encourage him to speak with his colleague the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), who I have had extensive discussions on this particular topic with.

As the MP for Darlington, I have continued to share the powerful messaging from Durham Constabulary and Darlington Borough Council to ensure that everyone reports these incidents to the 101 service. I could say much more about the Labour police and crime commissioner’s ability to improve response times on that service in County Durham, but I will not. It is vital that local communities play their part in tackling this scourge if enforcement is to be successful. I repeat my message that every sight and sound of off-road bikes should be reported, so that our police can gather the intelligence they need to eliminate this problem.

The problem, as we have heard, is not limited to Darlington. I would ask the Minister to respond to some simple, practical and sensible suggestions on how to tackle it. Compulsory insurance for off-road bikes and quad bikes would dissuade the casual user from illegal use of the bikes. Compulsory registration of off-road bikes would make the identification of these vehicles much easier for law enforcement. Mandating manufacturers to install immobilisers to these vehicles would also help to reduce theft and misuse by unauthorised riders. These suggestions have been raised in discussion with the Minister’s predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), and I do believe that the time has come for Home Office Ministers and Department for Transport Ministers to work more closely on a package of measures to target this issue.

One further point on off-road bikes is the question of what happens after the vehicle has been seized. Currently, the police recoup their recovery and storage charges for seized vehicles by auctioning them off. This leads to a ridiculous merry-go-round of offenders buying back the very same vehicles the police have seized. Our police forces need a ringfenced pot of money to enable them to pay the recovery and storage charges, crush these vehicles and get them off our streets. There are many other types of antisocial behaviour, but the essence of today’s debate seems to have concentrated on off-road bikes, which are a scourge on all our communities.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Another issue I have seen in my constituency is graffiti. It upsets residents, who take a lot of pride in their community. Cambuslang Community Council has taken a great initiative in brightening up Cambuslang with some beautiful murals. Does the hon. Member think that cleaner, nicer surroundings that people can take pride in can deter graffiti, or is it something we will always see happening?

[Peter Gibson]

The hon. Member raises an important point. I think we can summarise this as the “broken window” theory. We all want to live in good, clean and smart communities. Graffiti is a symbol of decline in our urban environment. I think we should continue to double down on addressing it.

Darlington also faces illegal and unacceptable fly-tipping in our alleyways by fly-by-night operators, who will rock up in a Transit van or a flat-bed truck and take household rubbish away for a tenner, avoiding the inconvenience of contacting the council or taking a trip to the tip.

SMEs: Access to Finance

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Peter Gibson

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered access to finance for small and medium sized enterprises.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am grateful that this timely debate was granted. Following the UK’s departure from the European Union and our ongoing economic recovery following covid-19, the UK has a unique opportunity to shape a diverse financial services sector that serves a fair, robust and competitive economy with small and medium-sized enterprises at its heart. Research by the Industrial Strategy Council, economists at Sheffield University and the International Monetary Fund concluded that the UK is the most regionally imbalanced country in Europe when it comes to the productivity of its economies.

It is worrying that the job opportunities and livelihoods of most UK citizens depend on where they live. We know that skills and talents are spread throughout the country but opportunity is not, and so it is with SME finance. The Prime Minister has rightly made levelling up his key mission, examples of which I am already beginning to see in my constituency, with the establishment of the Darlington Economic Campus providing life-changing new opportunities for the Tees valley. I and my Conservative colleagues look forward to the levelling up White Paper and the opportunity that it will provide to right some of the imbalance in our country that has perpetuated under Governments of all colours for decades.

How does regional inequality relate to small businesses up and down the country? As Mark Carney said when Governor of the Bank of England in his speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet for bankers and merchants in 2019, SMEs across the country face a £22 billion funding gap. A recent inquiry by the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), my good friend, found that SMEs report significant problems in accessing finance.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I recently met representatives of the British Business Bank, who ran through their full range of offerings, including optional learning modules for entrepreneurs, which are an excellent way to mitigate lending risk and provide entrepreneurs with the knowledge they need to be successful. Does he agree that that is an excellent initiative and should continue to be funded and expanded?