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

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (Amendment) Order 2018.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. May I wish everyone on the Committee a happy new year?

The draft order, which was laid before both Houses on 5 November, will add Transport for Greater Manchester to the list of bodies that can apply to the courts for a civil injunction to address antisocial behaviour on their transport network. We introduced the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to provide police, local authorities and other local agencies with flexible powers to enable them to respond quickly and effectively to tackle and prevent antisocial behaviour. The decision to use the powers will be an operational one for the police force, local authority or local agency entitled to use them under the Act. We are deliberately focusing on local agencies because we believe that they are best placed to decide when and in which circumstances to use the relevant powers to combat antisocial behaviour in their areas.

The powers include a civil injunction, which can be issued by the courts, on application, against any person aged 10 years or over whose behaviour

“has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress”

to others. Such an injunction can include prohibitions to stop certain behaviours by the perpetrator, or positive requirements that focus on addressing the underlying causes of their behaviour. The bodies currently able to apply to the court for an injunction are the police, including the British Transport police; local councils and housing providers; Transport for London; the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales; NHS Protect; and the West Midlands combined authority.

I hope that the Committee agrees that adding Transport for Greater Manchester to the list makes a great deal of sense. It follows a request from TfGM and from the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and will help to ensure that TfGM can take swift action to address antisocial behaviour that takes place on Manchester’s transport network. To put the issue in context, in 2017 some 40 million passenger journeys were made using the Metrolink network in Manchester, while a total of 196 million passenger journeys were made on Manchester bus services.

The draft order will ensure that Transport for Greater Manchester has additional powers to deal with people who behave antisocially on its network. It comes in addition to work at a local level through the TravelSafe Partnership, which has had a great deal of success: in 2017-18, there were a total of 1,692 incidents of antisocial behaviour, a significant decrease from the preceding year’s figure of 3,984. The draft order is very much part of the work of Greater Manchester police, TfGM and agencies to ensure that passengers on the Manchester travel network are able to enjoy their journeys in peace and quiet. We are very happy to have introduced it, and we hope that it meets with the Committee’s approval.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

In the spirit of good will in this new year, I will not disagree with the hon. Gentleman, although I of course reserve the right to campaign robustly in any future mayoral election.

I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, for her support and for her questions on this important topic. She is absolutely right about the interest of other transport providers in being able to access these powers. We make it very clear that it is for individual transport providers to consider whether they may benefit from having the ability to apply directly for injunctions, and if so, to make the case for it. We will consider requests for additions to the list of bodies that may apply for injunctions on a case-by-case basis.

I am helpfully told by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys that when he served the Government in another capacity, the Department for Transport commissioned a review of crime on public transport. We are very conscious of how upsetting and serious it can be to witness not only antisocial behaviour but crime more generally on our journeys to and from work and leisure visits.

I will happily write to Committee members on the number of times these injunctions have been used, but it may be of interest to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, to hear that the British Transport police and Transport for London have used these injunctions on 72 occasions since 2014. Although that is only one statistic, it none the less shows that the authorities rightly use the injunctions, which can be very powerful, on a considered basis. I commend the draft order to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.