Clause 1 - Closure notice
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
11:45 am
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh, Conservative)
With respect to the hon. Lady, that is not my argument. This is not an anti-drugs Bill; it is an antisocial behaviour Bill. Therefore, while it is important to tackle the menace of class A drugs—there is unanimous agreement in the Committee about that—it is also important to tackle antisocial behaviour in this context. That is what the Bill is meant to be about. Our argument, articulately made by my hon. Friends the Members for South-East Cambridgeshire and for Surrey Heath, is that a lot of antisocial behaviour is associated with class B and class C drugs and that if the Government were really serious about tackling antisocial behaviour in the context of the Bill, they would extend the powers to cover those classes of narcotic.