Clause 55 - Anti-social behaviour orders
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
6:00 pm
Ms Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I must extend a belated welcome to you, Mr. O'Brien, as this is the first time that I have spoken this afternoon. I am also seeking some tolerance from you, because I will address a series of amendments and it would help me if I could make a few general comments before speaking more briefly on each amendment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes and I tabled the amendments largely because the subject has not received any debate. Amendments on antisocial behaviour orders were tabled in the House of Lords, and it was generally felt that there was so much detail that there was no time to get into discussion on the subject. I genuinely have several questions to ask and issues to raise. There should be some debate in public on ASBOs. I accept that the wording of some of the amendments is not perfect, but I hope that the Minister will accept the spirit behind them. The point
is to achieve clarification, and possibly to ensure that some extra guidance goes into the guidance notes when they are finally published.
I agree with the principle that antisocial behaviour orders should be weapons of last resort to be used with lots of other measures. I find it quite difficult to consider them in isolation in the Bill. There is a presumption that we need more and more ASBOs. That is reflected in hon. Members' questions to the Minister. Indeed, in last week's Prime Minister's questions it was asked why 5,000 ASBOs had not yet been made. I guess that the Government might be responding in the Bill by saying, ''Well, we're making it much easier. There will eventually be 5,000.'' That is not the right approach.
The Minister himself has cited Wrexham, where only one ASBO has been made. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) is not present, because there seems to be good practice in Wrexham. There has been real success there, with 1,500 incidents being resolved through partnership working. That is excellent. Islington is another famous example where acceptable behaviour contracts are used in preference to, or at least as part of the hierarchy before one gets to, ASBOs. To say that we must have more ASBOs and legislation to make that simpler is the wrong premise. The whole package is important.