Anti-social Behaviour: East of England

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) on bringing this important debate to Westminster Hall. Although I am the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for this debate, I also declare a strong interest in that I am the Member of Parliament for Chelmsford in Essex—for Members who do not know the geography, that is firmly in the east of England.

I will start by saying a few things about my constituency. Other hon. Members have spoken with pride about their constituencies and how important it is that antisocial behaviour is curbed. Chelmsford is a lovely urban constituency with lots of wonderful things going on—of course, I am slightly biased—but when I am out knocking on doors, constituents tell me about things that are not going quite so well. They worry about drug dealing, as several constituents told me on Saturday when I was in the centre of Chelmsford. They tell me about fly-tipping, which was also raised by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft). They tell me about the noisy car meets around the constituency. I used to live by the Army and Navy, one of Chelmsford’s main junctions, and the noise used to keep me awake at night sometimes, so I know how frustrating it can be.

Structural issues can also lead to antisocial behaviour, including broken streetlights, which make people feel unsafe when they walk around the constituency. We need local councils to be much better at tackling such issues. Constituents are tolerant but understandably a bit fed up of antisocial behaviour, and we certainly need to do more to tackle it.

Antisocial behaviour can very low level, including people riding bikes on pavements—an annoying thing that happens in my constituency and, I am sure, across the country—and when new trees have been planted and somebody comes along and chops them in half overnight. Nobody is going to be very ill off the back of that, but people are understandably frustrated by it.

On fly-tipping, hon. Members mentioned the fabulous volunteers who help to make our constituencies better places. I would like to single out the volunteers of the Chelmsford Litter Wombles, who spend much of their free time going out and clearing up after littering and antisocial behaviour. I have joined them on various occasions to help them clear up.

Many hon. Members raised the important point that everyone deserves to feel safe when they walk around their neighbourhood. Well over half of hon. Members focused on the importance of policing, punishment and tackling crime, which I agree is important, but it is a shame that more of them did not focus on what is driving those issues in the first place, although some did raise it. It was heartwarming, therefore, to hear the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) be the first to substantially discuss the lack of provision and support for young people and the importance of youth services.

Youth services were slashed by the previous Government, which left gaps. The issue is not just about youth services as we think of them being provided by councils; it is also about funding for charities and other organisations that can help, and schools’ extracurricular activities. Schools simply do not have the budget for sports activities, music and drama—all the things that help young people to develop, give them an alternative to getting into trouble, and set them up for life.

The Liberal Democrats would like to see more focus on early intervention and on giving young people something to do. This debate is about antisocial behaviour, but knife crime, which has been mentioned, unfortunately fits into that. We would like to see a public health approach taken to the epidemic of youth violence—an approach that identifies and treats the risk factors rather than just focusing on the symptoms. There should be investment in youth services that are genuinely engaging and reach more people. We must give young people the support and opportunities that they deserve to help our communities and individuals feel safer.

The bottom line is that talk is cheap; it is action that really matters. We need to understand the driving forces behind some of the antisocial behaviour. That is not just about the lack of provision of youth services; we need to see why the people who are in our prisons are there in the first place. When we talk about tackling crime, the ultimate endpoint of that is people ending up in prison, but the endless cycle of crime and punishment, with more crime simply leading to calls for more police and tougher sentences, is just not working. Some studies suggest that 50% of the prison population may have dyslexia or other neurodivergent conditions. When that is the case, we are getting something very wrong, so we need to focus on what is driving antisocial behaviour in the first place.

Unnecessarily criminalising young people makes it only more likely that they will commit crimes in future. We know that high-quality youth work gets results: it has been proven time and again to help vulnerable young people to escape the clutches of gangs. As I said, however, the previous Conservative Government slashed youth services. Unfortunately, that robbed young people of hope and contributed to the rise in serious violence. I thank the hon. Member for Norwich North again for initiating this important debate and for its focus on the east of England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

I am not familiar with the data about those notices for the hon. Member’s constituency. Of course, there is always a challenge in distinguishing between the focus of police and patterns of crime. For example, in this debate we have talked about shoplifting but we have seen, at the same time, a decrease in burglaries, car thefts and so on. The police must always be nimble and not allow themselves to be overly distracted by one particular element of crime, but I take the hon. Member’s point seriously.

Recently, the Essex police, fire and crime commissioner outlined the benefits of an additional £1.6 million for hotspot patrols to tackle antisocial behaviour in 15 areas. The first phase of that initiative, known as Operation Dial, resulted in 101 arrests and the issuance of 112 fixed penalty notices—in keeping with what the hon. Member mentioned—across 13 zones. It is welcome that Essex has not been alone in this practice: police forces in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk are also utilising targeted, visible patrols that have the dual effect of addressing antisocial behaviour and serious violence.

[Marie Goldman]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Conservative police, fire and crime commissioner for Essex recently proposed getting rid of all 99 PCSOs in Essex? Does the hon. Gentleman think that would ever be the right thing to do?