Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

We want to remove those words because there is a significant difference between people being alarmed by someone and being intimidated or harassed by that person. I live in a quiet, small town called Much Wenlock in my constituency which has, to all intents and purposes, zero crime. Nowhere actually has zero crime, but it is as low as anywhere in the country. Only 1,500 people live there and kids gather on the bench in the town centre and on street corners. Elderly residents have asked me what I am going to do about those kids gathering on that bench. They do not actually do anything or even say anything to the elderly ladies concerned. They do not swear at them and so on, but those elderly ladies feel alarmed by the mere presence of those kids. I have told them that those kids have exactly the same right to be in that locality as they have to stand and chat to each other.

This part of the Bill is clearly aimed primarily at young people and the problem is that they are being labelled as the sort of people who must not gather on street corners, but if a group of pensioners has a chat outside the post office after collecting their pensions, that is fine.

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