Antisocial Behaviour

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who touched on many important issues. I thank the Secretary of State and the Policing Minister for the additional resources that have been given to Greater Manchester police recently. That is very welcome, although I would not like to suggest that we would not appreciate more. The additional money is important as it will enable the police and crime commissioner of Greater Manchester, who is also the Mayor, to ensure that there is a fair distribution of resources right across Greater Manchester. There is often concern that Greater Manchester police put too much focus on Salford, Manchester and certain parts of Greater Manchester, rather than the parts of the boroughs of Bolton and Wigan that I represent and have an interest in. There is a strong feeling locally that there needs to be a fairer distribution of policing resources.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North was right to put getting this right in the context of Brexit. After Brexit, antisocial behaviour and law and order more generally is the single most commonly raised issue. Brexit will hopefully be done and dusted in a matter of weeks, but antisocial behaviour and law and order are significantly longer-term issues that need more focused and concerted action over the long term. People write to me, email me and raise issues on social media and at the public meetings that I hold, and antisocial behaviour is a very frequently raised concern.

Recently, the communities in Ladybridge and Westhoughton have held very well attended community meetings. I always think that, if people are prepared to come out to a community centre on a beautiful sunny evening when they could be spending time with their family and enjoying life, it really does show their strength of feeling. The meetings have been incredibly well attended, and people have been very vocal about antisocial behaviour such as the behaviour of their next-door neighbours, and about the inability of the police and other agencies to deal with those disruptive neighbours or with events and activities that take place on the high street and more widely. They sense that there is an inability, or perhaps an unwillingness, to deal with these concerns. Over time, what may be a low-level or relatively small concern can develop and get worse. As the hon. Lady pointed out, if problems can be nipped in the bud early on, that prevents them from getting worse.

In Allerton, a few serious incidents of violent crime, including a stabbing at the library and other incidents on the high street, have led to a greater feeling that things are getting out of hand. I had a meeting with the local superintendent and chief superintendent, and I was reassured to hear that they were confident about reorganising, having a stronger community focus and restoring the relationship with the community. That can help local police to better understand what is going on, but the local community also get to know the local police. Increased visibility has a deterrent effect and improves people’s confidence. We want people to be confident when going around the community so that they feel part of the community. If people do not feel confident about being out and about and getting involved, that can lead them to withdraw. As people withdraw from the community, problems can easily get worse and then out of hand, turning into a bigger challenge for the police.

I recently spent some time with the police on a Saturday night shift. Both the bobby on the beat and an officer in a patrol car can deal with an immense number of different situations. It speaks to the quality and ability of our police that they can deal with such things. One of their biggest worries is alcohol on our high streets and the effect of people who have had a little too much to drink. However, we should also reflect on good pubs, good pub management and good landlords and landladies and the influence that they and the community can have on drinking. Pubs are an important part of our local community, and good management from good proprietors can help to create a good healthy pub environment, which can help to reduce issues that occur on the streets.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that some communities are not interested in going to the pub and want to drink in the street? The street then becomes their drinking place, which leads to antisocial behaviour that frightens residents away from their town centres.

[Chris Green]

I entirely agree. On a slightly different note, residents in Horwich have told me about a small fishing lake where people sit around late into the evening. Whether drugs or drink are involved, that presence of people and the rowdiness and noise that goes with it is upsetting and off-putting. People who want to take their children to the high street should not have to avoid it after a certain hour. They should not have to avoid parts of my constituency due to inconsiderate behaviour.

That is where the police have to react and get involved, because a police presence—a bit of visibility every now and then—can tone down people’s behaviour so that they have more respect, which can improve the environment. If we can get more people and more families on to the high street and elsewhere in the community, that can have a civilising impact, which is better than the sense that people have to evacuate such areas, leaving them to the people who drink in the street.

How the police manage antisocial behaviour links in with sentencing by magistrates courts. The approach needs to be more robust. Constituents frequently raise with me their concerns about sentencing and the opportunities for rehabilitation in prison. We should be looking at the whole criminal justice system and, whether it is policing, the courts or prisons, more resources are required in all those areas.

[Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I concur with the previous speakers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on securing this important debate. Antisocial behaviour is a significant matter for a considerable number of residents in our constituencies and we need to find some better answers.

I did not want to say a lot but, as there is a bit more time, I will try to say a bit more. Antisocial behaviour is so frustrating for our constituents. People without a lot of money, living on terraced streets, have their wing mirrors kicked off and then have them kicked off again a month later. Youths on the street think it is entertaining to act in an aggressive or surly manner that brings about fear in others. Noise nuisance. Neighbours who just want to argue endlessly and disrupt other people’s lives. People who just want to deny others an amenity; they may not do something in person. The actions range from doing graffiti, to destruction, to vandalism, to the way they keep their property or neighbourhood, with open spaces and playgrounds forever being vandalised.

That loss of amenities and that threat destroy communities, yet we do not take it as seriously as our constituents do. This debate is extremely serious to me because antisocial behaviour blights so many communities. My constituency—including Accrington and Hyndburn—is no different from many others. Antisocial behaviour is a bugbear. I listen to constituents who come to my surgeries to talk about issues that are very frustrating or that are being dealt with in an exceedingly slow way. I know that individual is suffering.

I always say to my staff that antisocial behaviour is the No. 1 issue that I want us to tackle for people who come into my office or surgery. I tell them that I want them to give it the highest priority because it is so destructive hour by hour, day by day. There is a dysfunctional family on my cousin Vicky’s terrace. They think it is appropriate to play loud music and shout at 4 o’clock in the morning. She works, so you can imagine the implications. It is driving her around the bend and very little can be done. Resolving the issue is very slow and difficult, which is typical of many of the antisocial behaviour issues that my constituents face.

Antisocial behaviour blights lives in many ways. A lot of the time these incidents are not considered to be serious enough, but they have a huge, scarring and detrimental impact on victims’ lives. I appeal to Members to escalate the issue. The damage often does not affect MPs—how many MPs live in a deprived area and have to suffer the consequences of antisocial behaviour?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I feel a sense of déjà vu. When I became an MP in 1997, antisocial behaviour was one of the biggest issues and, under the guidance of Prime Minister Tony Blair, we took huge action to try to tackle it, whether through safer neighbourhood teams, basing police teams in town centres, introducing antisocial behaviour orders or discussing what to do about antisocial tenants. We are now going backwards on all those issues and we are reinventing the wheel—it was there, but we have resiled from it.

[Graham P. Jones]

I concur with that. Indeed, I think my hon. Friend has seen an advance copy of my speech, as I want to raise a number of those issues. I will not address them directly now, except to say that, on council estates, we have moved away from having the old tenant manager and collecting rents at the door. I do not suggest we should have that now, but the system had some advantages and we have replaced it with one where there seems not to be as much supervision, which brings difficulties and an increase in antisocial behaviour.

I was not highlighting the MPs who are sitting here today, as they are clearly exceedingly concerned about antisocial behaviour in their constituencies. It is worth mentioning that this week we voted on the police funding settlement, which is at the heart of all this. I do not think there is any escape from the fact that if police numbers are reduced—I will go on to comment on other aspects of the police and criminal justice system—police presence is reduced and of course that will have a detrimental impact. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North said, where there is a vacuum in policing, there will be an opportunity for those with a malign or malevolent attitude to others to behave in a way that is not conducive to the wellbeing of the victim, the neighbourhood or the community. We therefore have to put that right. It is wrong that the Government have cut policing so significantly, as the consequences are considerable. I asked my local police and crime commissioner in Lancashire, Clive Grunshaw, who is doing a very good job, about this situation. He said that he has lost a considerable number of officers. He has lost 800 officers in Lancashire and 450 members of police staff—that is never mentioned, but it diverts resources.

In 2002, or thereabouts, the Labour Government under Tony Blair introduced neighbourhood policing. After seeing rising crime year on year, decade on decade, we began to reverse that cycle, no more so than in terms of antisocial behaviour and low-level crime, with the introduction of neighbourhood policing. That was a positive, progressive approach to some of these issues. I know that we must have sanctions, and I will address those in a moment, but at the heart of reducing antisocial behaviour was neighbourhood policing.

I often talk about Peel ward, which I represented as a councillor before I came here. In 2002, it had 120 anti- social behaviour incidents a month. The neighbouring Spring Hill ward had slightly more—it had nearly 130 a month. We can only imagine having that many incidents, and we must remember that the wards are small in my constituency. There was constant harassment of residents, day after day. When neighbourhood policing was introduced in Lancashire—it came in in my ward at the very beginning of the roll-out—we began to see huge reductions in antisocial behaviour. Within about three years I think we were down to 10 or 15 incidents a month of recorded antisocial behaviour, which is 10% or 11% of what it had been. The residents breathed a sigh of relief, but they were angry. I remember holding a public meeting in Accrington at the council offices just prior to the introduction of neighbourhood policing. The room could hold about 140 people, but nearly 200 turned up and we could not get everyone in. It was dangerous, as people were packed at the back and pushing to get in, and the anger was incredible.

I do not want to return to those days. I do not want to return to the days when I got a telephone call after midnight and was so sick of antisocial behaviour that I just rocked up out of the house and went round to a neighbour’s house where there was a gang of 20 yobs, and confronted them myself on Bold Street. I think there is a video tape somewhere of me confronting them. Residents thought it was the end of it when their councillor was going out to confront these yobs after midnight. I confronted another group of 25 at the bottom of my street and one of them threatened to glass me there and then. That was where we were in 2002. When neighbourhood policing was introduced, it was a progressive answer that caused a huge reduction in antisocial behaviour. It was not, though, only about the police presence on the ground.

I say openly—my constituents may be watching—that I have asked my local police and crime commissioner to increase the police precept by as much as he possibly can. That is my view, and I am going to tell the truth. We have to put police officers back on the beat and get policing back to a neighbourhood level. If the Government want to continue with their cuts, all we will be able to do by increasing the precept is replace officers we have lost.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones). I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for securing this important debate and the Backbench Business Committee.

I think that most Members will agree that antisocial behaviour forms a huge part of their caseload. It is perhaps not the part of their caseload that they came into politics to deal with, but it is the reality of what our individual constituents face, frequently day to day. Indeed, the constituents who come to see us are merely the tip of the iceberg of those who suffer from antisocial behaviour.

I pay credit to Citizens Advice Scotland, which has an excellent website that helps people by guiding them through the world of antisocial behaviour, which is incredibly complex. The website starts by giving a list of definitions of what amounts to antisocial behaviour, including what we have heard about in the debate: noise, shouting, swearing, the gathering of groups, harassment—including, of course, racial and sectarian harassment—verbal abuse, and the bullying of children both at school and beyond, such as at public recreation grounds. Indeed, we have had the benefit today of hearing about two excellent Committee reports on social media, through which bullying takes place, and on the need for intervention early in young children’s lives to give them the best possible support for the future.

I want to discuss two aspects of antisocial behaviour: antisocial behaviour that is perpetrated by an individual, which is frequently described as neighbour disputes; and antisocial behaviour that is occasioned by groups. Neighbour disputes are incredibly difficult to provide help for, and it is frequently the case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North said, that mental health problems sit behind individual cases. Indeed, mental health problems are often passed on to the recipient of antisocial behaviour. Dealing with the situation can be challenging, difficult and, unfortunately, expensive.

I would like the Minister, if possible, to extend a view on situations that occur among people in freehold accommodation, rather than rental or leasehold properties. In such cases, the recipients of antisocial behaviour frequently get to the stage where they say, “I’m just going to move. That’s the simple answer—I’ll admit defeat and move away.” However, under existing law, both north and south of the border, there is an onus to disclose neighbour disputes in sale documents, which will of course make selling a house incredibly difficult. I wonder whether the Government have had any thoughts about how to facilitate a method of addressing that, because sometimes the only answer for the person who is suffering antisocial behaviour is to move away.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the exponential growth in private renting has exacerbated the problems of antisocial behaviour? Landlords often do not care about the behaviour of their tenants because they do not live next door to them. All they care about is that the rent is getting paid, and they see that as the end of their responsibility.

[Martin Whitfield]

I cannot better my hon. Friend’s intervention. Indeed, the only reason why I chose to raise the issue of freehold premises is that it is rarely mentioned. Within my constituency, there have been challenges for people who have admitted problems and subsequently found great difficulty in selling their houses, but that in no way downplays the antisocial behaviour, and the pain, suffering, mental health anguish and challenges, faced by families in rented and leasehold accommodation.

As we have heard, groups can also choose to behave antisocially, and there is one aspect of that which needs to be addressed, because it might be the key to solving the problem. Let me describe some examples from where I live in Prestonpans in my constituency of East Lothian, which is of course in Scotland, where these matters are devolved. There have been great challenges involving our early teenagers who hang around in groups. I know a significant number of the individuals involved, having had the privilege of teaching them at primary school. They are not bad people, but sometimes when they group together, a group mentality takes over, with actions and behaviours becoming acceptable to the group that, in all honesty, its members would never, ever contemplate doing as individuals. Much work needs to be done to address this group mentality, and to aid and abet some of the very best work that is going on to defeat antisocial behaviour.

Let me raise another example from my community. A new playpark was put up predominantly for children under 10, and particularly those of pre-school age. There was a big discussion about how to stop the equipment being damaged, and that was achieved by bringing older brothers and sisters into the park to explain why the equipment was so important to their younger brothers or sisters. Suddenly feeling an identity among the community that was going to use the facilities empowered the older children to look after it. A significant number of those children and young people said to other young people, “Don’t damage the park. It’s for my little brother and sister.”

Antisocial behaviour is occasioned, in the main, by people who become dissociated from others in their communities, be they their neighbour who is playing the television too loud, a group that has nothing to do because of the closure of after-school clubs, or groups of vigilantes who have lost faith in the community, in society and in their politicians—the people they have elected to govern them to look after them and solve problems. There are no simple answers. I could stand here and rail against austerity, because withdrawing assets and funding is a huge problem and it has caused this isolation to increase and become magnified. Responsible leaders and a responsible Government need to admit that that withdrawal has gone too far. We need to re-empower our communities and our society, and that will cost money. Empowerment should come through giving local authorities more devolved power and responsibility so that they, in turn, can devolve that back into communities, with people again feeling connected to what happens around them. They will then not have to phone their councillor after midnight and say, “Come and speak to these 20 people,” but may instead be able to speak to the person in question and say, “Look, you can’t really have a party and invite all these people.” The connection between people will be such that antisocial behaviour reduces.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

For me—and, I imagine, for you, Madam Deputy Speaker —some of the issues that we have been raising this afternoon were ones that we were discussing back in 1997, and considering how to tackle them. Although nirvana never came, certainly progress was made in many of our town centres and cities. In a way, we have lost our way and forgotten what was successful, but we do know what worked.

My constituency of Mitcham and Morden is not unique as a place. Over the past few years, we have again seen a steep rise in antisocial behaviour on our streets. We have always had our problems, but never before has antisocial behaviour, street drinking and petty crime felt as pervasive or hard to tackle. I am afraid that, particularly around Mitcham town centre, the climate of antisocial behaviour has become so intense that the difficulties of suburban shopping centres have become much worse. A multimillion-pound regeneration of the town centre should have meant that Mitcham began to get better, yet when speaking to local businesses I have been dismayed to hear stories of shopfronts vandalised, staff abused and intimidated, and once loyal customers choosing to shop elsewhere, feeling that their local town centre had become unsafe, or was simply an unpleasant place to shop. Mums—principally mums—did not want their children to be in an environment where men urinated in the street or brawled because they had drunk too much.

Antisocial behaviour is a problem that residents often feel powerless to change, but they are by no means apathetic. When I welcomed Sophie Linden, London’s Deputy Mayor for Crime and Policing, and Sally Benatar, commander of our south-west London Basic Command Unit—because we no longer have borough police services in London—to a public meeting in my constituency in June 2018, hundreds of residents turned up. The place was packed. They were spilling out into the playground outside. They stood for hours to make their point in the sweltering heat, and the concern raised time and again was, “We just don’t see police on our streets any more. We don’t see the police community support officers who used to get to know us. We cannot get through to the police.” Anybody who has tried to ring 101 knows exactly how difficult it is just to get the phone actually picked up.

[Martin Whitfield]

On the point about police officers, it is frequently said—by, I must say, somewhat older residents—that previously police officers, who were part of and understood the community, knew the stories behind what was frightening them. There is clearly much evidence saying that it does not matter whether we have police on the beat, but the truth is that police officers who understand their community have a community that understand the police officers as well.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We got a kickback on this in 1997-98—principally from the police, who felt that the best way to deal with crime was in fast cars—but there was a resulting reduction in crime. That came about from the safer neighbourhood teams, which proved substantially the success of having police on the beat and of having police community support officers, who initially were often rejected by the police and the community, because they had the time to build relationships and get to know people. When people, especially young people, began to get into trouble, as my hon. Friend says, such officers could bring agencies together and start to provide the support that many of those individual youngsters and their families desperately needed.

[Graham P. Jones]

I just want to put this point on the record because my hon. Friend may have somebody in her constituency that she thinks the same about. I would like to say a big thank you to PC Dave Pearson, a local beat manager, because he has done a fantastic job. He has sorted out a lot of antisocial behaviour, and he deserves to have that put on the record.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I am delighted that I gave way to my hon. Friend. Thanking our public servants and our police who go the extra mile to make our areas better is really important.

All too often, disgraceful antisocial behaviour just goes unchecked. It goes unchecked because it is not seen as a serious crime. It goes unchecked because the local police teams simply do not have the resources to follow up every last incident of vandalism or drunken hooliganism. It goes unchecked because we no longer have the bobbies on the beat to control it. However, when a drunken altercation led to the tragic murder of a young man in my constituency last year, it served as a poignant, painful reminder that the gulf between antisocial behaviour and serious crime is not as large as we often allow ourselves to believe.

Mitcham and Morden has been my home all my life, and I am deeply proud of it. I sincerely want each and every one of my constituents to share this pride in our local area, but it can become desperately hard to ask them to do so when they do not even feel safe in their own community. The simple truth is that there is no substitute for a visible police presence in the community. Mitcham needs more bobbies on the beat, and I suspect we are far from alone in that regard.

We did not arrive here from nowhere. The rise in antisocial behaviour we have seen in so many of our communities is the regrettable but inevitable consequence of more than eight years of indiscriminate cuts and biting austerity at the hands of successive Governments. In real terms, central Government funding for the police has decreased by 30% since 2010. We have lost roughly 20,000 police officers in that time, or 14% of the workforce.

In the London Borough of Merton—a small, suburban borough that is the third safest in London—we have lost 90 police officers since 2010. The safer neighbourhood teams, which used to have five officers, a sergeant, two PCs and three PCSOs, are now down to two PCs and one PCSO, and that is when we can get them, because when people go on long-term sick leave or have to move on somewhere else, those vacancies are not filled.

The important Mitcham safer neighbourhood team has gone, so there is now no longer a team for the town centre. Amazingly, the police officers who used to be based in every secondary school in Merton have also gone, because the police cannot recruit quickly enough to fill those posts. Retention rates have plummeted because our police do not feel valued. How could they when, year after year, they are asked to take on more work with less support, fewer resources and, in real terms, lower wages? Even when they are offered more money, it is difficult to fill those posts. Detectives in the Metropolitan police area have been offered £4,000 a year more, but they still cannot recruit detectives. The consequence of that for our safer neighbourhood teams is that many police are forcefully transferred into those roles, and are not available to walk our streets and do the basic policing work that we know our communities need.

The Conservative party has always taken great pride in its image as a party that would put the police first, come down hard on crime, and keep the men and women of Britain safe. With police disappearing from our streets, violent crime on the rise, and many of us feeling more vulnerable than ever before in our communities, I find myself asking the same question as many of my constituents: whatever happened to the party of law and order?