Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of street racing on the A435 at Wythall; and what steps her Department plans to take to help increase prosecutions for these offences.

Tackling anti-social behaviour (ASB) is a top priority for this Government and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission.

The Government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee sets out our ambition to have a dedicated lead officer for ASB in every police force, working alongside communities on developing a bespoke ASB action plans for their area, in order to address the issues that matter most in local communities.

As part of that Guarantee, we will also put 13,000 additional neighbourhood police and community support officers into local communities up and down the country by the end of the Parliament.

We are bringing forward new powers in the forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill to ensure police and other agencies have the powers they need to tackle ASB, such as allowing the police to more swiftly seize vehicles being used antisocially, with officers no longer required to issue a warning before seizing them. This will allow them to better deal with vehicles involved in street racing and car cruising.

We will also introduce Respect Orders, which can be applied for by the police and local councils and are issued by the courts. They will enable courts to place wide-ranging restrictions on the behaviour of the most persistent and disruptive ASB offenders. Breaching a Respect Order will be a criminal offence, allowing police officers to immediately arrest offenders and disrupt ongoing ASB.