Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips]

I intend to speak to the amendments for which I am at least in part responsible, and which were necessitated by our proceedings in Committee: amendments 1, 17, 45, 46 and 39 to 41. Before I do so, however, let me welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his new post, and congratulate him on his promotion. Let me also welcome the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) to his place on the Front Bench. He has been in the House for only a short time, and I am sure that his promotion is well deserved. No doubt we shall see a great deal more of him in due course.

Having congratulated the hon. Gentleman, however, I am afraid that I must take issue with some of the points that he made this evening. I have to tell him that while there was a lot of hot air about Labour’s great policy of the ASBO, the truth of the matter on the streets—whether in urban or in rural Britain—has been very different. Year on year, ASBOs have been breached in increasing percentages. While the hon. Gentleman, as the former leader of Lambeth council, may well have thought that he had solved problems by securing ASBOs for those who were engaging in antisocial behaviour which was affecting people in the area, the truth is that merely securing the orders achieved precisely nothing. It was their enforcement that was important. As I am sure the Minister will tell us in his response, breach rates now stand at 70%, 80% or 90%.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Drawing the attention of those on the Opposition Front Bench to the speech that my hon. and learned Friend is making may be to their advantage, as opposed to the advantage of the House. Would it be possible for them to stop talking to each other and listen to my hon. and learned Friend, who is making rather a good speech, mainly about the Opposition spokesmen themselves?

[Stephen Phillips]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I fear that it may be counter-productive. I thought I was having rather an easy ride, at least in terms of how my speech will read in Hansard. There has been no intervention so far from the hon. Member for Croydon North, and I suspect that there can be no intervention from him now, because he has not heard anything that I have said. Be that as it may, however, this is not Third Reading, so I shall now deal with the amendments with which the House is being troubled principally as a result of what some would describe as my intransigence in Committee.

Let me begin with amendments 1 and 17. They relate, I am afraid, to words that were inserted in the Bill as a consequence of amendments to clauses 1 and 7, which were suggested by me and were carried in Committee. Clause 1 concerns the general power to grant injunctions. Subsection (5) states:

“Prohibitions and requirements in an injunction under this section must, so far as practicable, be such as to avoid”

a list of occurrences including, for instance,

“any conflict with the respondent’s religious beliefs”.

In the form in which it was considered in Committee, the Bill made no reference to the fact that those against whom injunctions might be granted might have caring responsibilities, particularly in regard to children. Because I thought that that was an important omission, I proposed—and the Committee agreed, in circumstances that I shall describe in due course—that the court should be required to take into account

“any conflict with the respondent’s caring responsibilities including, in particular, any caring responsibilities for a child”.

That seemed to me—and still seems to me—to be particularly important. Children’s life chances are not fixed, and if an IPNA is granted against their parents, they may be significantly and substantially affected by something for which they are not responsible. In those circumstances, it seems appropriate for the court expressly to take into account caring responsibilities, particularly caring responsibilities for children—and, perhaps, for those who suffer from disabilities. The Government’s position is, as I understand it, that those matters will be taken into account by a court under the general powers in the Bill—that is the assurance I have been given. Indeed, the draft guidance produced last week in accordance with the undertakings given to the Public Bill Committee contains wording that requires those seeking IPNAs—regard will no doubt be paid to this by courts as well—to take into account caring responsibilities.

On that basis, and although the decision has not been easy, I am not minded to oppose the Government’s desire to remove my first attempt at legislation in this House, successful as it was, because the Committee did not divide on the amendment I was proposing to clause 1. My amendment was accepted by the Minister who was then in charge, although there was a reservation when the “like” amendment was proposed to clause 27 that the Government reserved the right to come back to this matter on Report, as they have now done. Be that as it may, I am not going to take further the point that the Committee did not divide. The simple fact is—the Minister needs to make this clear from the Dispatch Box, so that it is clear to courts in due course—the one matter that has to be taken into account when an injunction is granted are the caring responsibilities of those against whom it is to be granted. That addresses amendments 1 and 17.

Government amendments 45 and 46 relate to clause 93 —we are see-sawing around a lot because of how the amendments have been grouped—which deals with community remedies and the community remedy document. As the House will know, every Member having read the Bill in detail, that is a list of community remedies—punishments, if one prefers—that can be handed out, which is drafted by a local policing body. Before it came into Committee, the Bill provided no guidance as to what that document might contain. As I pointed out in Committee, it might have provided that one punishment or remedy that could be handed out was to place someone in the stocks for two or three hours and have oranges hurled at them. Many of our constituents would doubtless think that a very sensible community remedy to be contained in a list of punishments or remedies that might be handed out to those guilty of antisocial behaviour. Obviously, the police and crime commissioners who gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee indicated that some form of guidance would be both desirable and necessary, and that has been taken on board by the Government. I tabled, but did not move, a probing amendment in Committee and it has been picked up by the Government, in that they have tabled amendments 45 and 46 to deal with the possible problem that one might have ended up with rogue and inappropriate remedies. Those measures therefore have my full support and I hope they will also have the support of the House.

I do not wish to detain the House for too long, but I wish to discuss amendments 39 and 40, which relate to clauses 70 and 73 and the time within which those who obtain orders must return to court. The Bill specifies a relatively short period—no doubt the Minister knows precisely what it is—but for the purposes of computing time no account is taken of days when the courts might be closed. I proposed to the relevant Minister somewhat longer periods, because it seemed to me that a problem might arise in respect of bank holidays and public holidays, as the courts would not be able to deal with these matters sufficiently quickly to enable the time limits to be complied with. Some of that has been taken into account, because the Government now propose that Christmas day will be removed from the period of calculation in these clauses, but there remains a difficulty with which the Minister needs to grapple.

I wrote to the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice and it was suggested that specifying Christmas day was sufficient in this regard, but what about Easter? As we know, it consists of two public holidays, Good Friday and Easter Monday, so we are talking about a four-day period. The Home Office’s response has been, “The courts are able to deal with this because they may open over the weekend.” The Minister needs to reassure the House that that is the position and that there is therefore enough time over the Easter holiday, in particular, for these orders to be dealt with appropriately and for the Bill’s time limits to be addressed.

Government amendment 41 would alter clause 81, which deals with the recovery of costs against the owner of premises where an order is made—I have forgotten which part of the Bill this relates to, but the Minister will doubtless remind me. The Government’s point is that where such an order is made—for example, against a nightclub—the police should be able to recover their costs, and that is absolutely right. However, as I pointed out in Committee, nightclubs or late-night premises often are not owned by the people who occupy the premises where the nuisance occurs. For that reason, we need to include the word “occupier”, as the Government are now proposing. I am pleased that that piece of advice, which I gave for free—that is rare—was accepted. The amendment is therefore sensible and I hope it will command support across the House.