Clause 1 - Closure notice
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
4:30 pm
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
I also welcome your presence in the Chair this afternoon, Mr. Cran. I did not intend to speak to this group of amendments, because my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) put the case admirably for those that we tabled. However, I want to pick up on the amendment to which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) has just spoken, particularly because of the point made by my hon. Friend in his opening comments this morning. He referred to the problems in Cambridge, where two managers were imprisoned for allowing drug dealing on the premises. One of those managers was a constituent of mine, so I was closely involved and have some insight into the issues.
In amendment No. 129, the Liberal Democrats propose that the clause should
''not apply to premises operated by agencies working to aid and rehabilitate drug users and the homeless.''
The work of such agencies is to be welcomed and supported, and the charity concerned, Winter Comfort in Cambridge, does admirable work. I do not want to go over the events leading up to the court cases, for obvious reasons, but I come to the issue with that experience and I do not support the amendment, but not for any partisan reason.
That case caused a huge furore throughout the voluntary organisations that help people who are using drugs, but it is essential for the law to have the power to deal with a situation if it gets completely out of hand. I am not saying that that was so in the case to which I referred, and I do not want to comment on it in detail, but I know that it caused a lot of heart-searching throughout the voluntary sector that deals with those vulnerable people. In many ways, one's sympathy is with them and the need to provide the managers of such facilities with as much support as possible. I genuinely believe that. However, at the end of the day we must accept that, in some circumstances, those facilities can become a focus for local disorder, disruption and antisocial behaviour that affects people in the neighbourhood. It would therefore be wrong to exempt such facilities totally.
It is important that the police, social services and all the other public bodies that work closely with those running such premises—which may be an agency or a hostel—are sensitive to the local situation and the problems of these often vulnerable people. However, it would be wrong—I say this with huge respect for the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole and her presentation of the amendment—to provide the blanket exemption from this aspect of the Bill that she advocates. I hope that anyone would treat such a situation sensitively. If there were evidence that a location was providing a focus for disorder, causing antisocial behaviour in the locality or distress to others who live or work in the vicinity of the premises, action would need to be taken. The Cambridge case shows that people can take action. As I said, it would be wrong to provide a blanket exemption.
Obviously, I do not know what the Minister will say, but I should prefer a ministerial exhortation that, in such a situation, the premises would be treated with great sensitivity, and that one would not seek to end such provision other than in extremis. However, to suggest that such premises should never be closed, which would be the consequence of the Liberal Democrat amendment, would be wrong. Again, I say that with the experience of having had to deal with a difficult situation that was not located in my constituency, but adjacent to it. One of the two people imprisoned as a result was a constituent of mine. Although that might lead me to have sympathy for the amendment—there is sympathy for the cause—it would not be right to go as far as it proposes.