Clause 1 - Closure notice
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
10:30 am
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I welcome you, Mr. O'Brien, as Chairman of the Committee, as well as the Ministers and other Committee members.
We begin with an important group of amendments. It will not have escaped the Committee's attention that at present there appear to be more groups of amendments to clause 1 than to any other clause. It is good to begin the debate with a significant issue. The amendments address a matter relating to local authorities and the lead amendment would insert a reference to the local authority chief executive. We want to amend the clause so that the chief executive has the opportunity to deal with so-called crack houses. We believe that to be extremely important and so have tabled related amendments to clauses 2, 3 and 5, but amendment No. 4 is the crucial amendment.
I will say little about the amendment because I want to listen carefully to the Minister's response to it. However, I will say that it is vital that the chief executive of a local authority should have the opportunity to take the initiative in these matters—it should not be only for a police officer to take the initiative, because often it is local authorities that become aware of the these major problems through their work. Other parts of the Bill deal with local authorities, so it is surprising that the Government chose not to give such an ability to chief executives such as Mr. Barry Catchpole, the chief executive of Surrey Heath borough council—the main local authority in my constituency—and a leading member of the crime and disorder partnership, with whom I have had many dealings over the years.
The Minister and I are opposite numbers—the Minister is responsible for drugs policy and I am the shadow Minister responsible for drugs policy—and he will be well aware from previous discussions that I take all drug issues very seriously. I know from all my discussions with Mr. Catchpole that he would find such a power useful, and I suspect that if we talked to SOLACE—the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers—we would find that many chief executives take the same view.
If we are to crack down on drug use, we must take into consideration the powers that local authorities need to deal with the menace of drugs. The Opposition believe that it is absolutely vital to involve not only the police, but local authorities as well. The Government's own logic in setting up crime and disorder partnerships and involving chief executives and senior officers of local authorities in work with the police seems to fall in line with the amendment.
There are other important issues to deal with in relation to this group of amendments and I would be out of order if I advanced too far arguments relating to other groups. The amendment is not simply probing, but is a serious attempt to improve the Bill
so that it works better. As my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said, many parts of the Bill are probably unnecessary, but we accept that any attempt by the Government to deal with the endemic problem of crack houses is a serious matter. They have signalled for some time that they planned a measure similar to this one, but we are worried that some of their measures are not tough enough—I will talk about the use of other classes of drugs when speaking to another group of amendments.
If the powers in clause 1 are to be introduced, a power given to the chief executive of a local authority to initiate matters would be useful. That has come home to me in the past few days. There was a massive seizure of drugs in my constituency over the weekend; I congratulate Surrey police and their chief constable, Denis O'Connor, for the work that led to the seizure, the latest of a series that involved large-scale drug dealing and importation rather than so-called crack houses. It was sufficiently significant to make the national press as well as the local newspapers—the Minister may have seen the story: I am sure that his officials brief him whenever major drugs seizures anywhere in the country get into the national press.
Even in a relatively prosperous constituency such as mine there are deprived areas in which people suffer the scourge of drugs and other areas in which prosperous people are involved in drug dealing. To deal with the scourge of drugs, it would be logical if not only the police but people such as chief executives of local authorities to have the necessary powers. Ministers have made many speeches and released many press statements about the scourge of crack houses and how they can damage areas, and we agree with them, but if we are to respond to such problems—not only in my constituency but anywhere in the country—the Government should give chief executives the power to initiate proceedings, especially given that they are involved in crime and disorder partnerships,.
That is all that I want to say in moving the amendment, but I hope that the Minister takes what we say seriously. I shall listen with interest to his response. We feel strongly about the amendment and I am minded to press it to a Division.