Clause 40 - Extension of powers of community
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
3:45 pm
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Coventry North East, Labour)
This has been a broad debate. I suppose that that is inevitable because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling rightly said, we need to consider clause 40 in the context of clause 38.
My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley and other members of the Committee are concerned that the issue may need to be revisited. Legislatively, however, it need not be. Taken together, clauses 38 and 40 provide for extending the use of fixed-penalty notices in both the directions that may be required. Clause 38 extends the provisions to 16-year-olds, but we also take the power to extend them—with parliamentary approval—down to the age of 10, if necessary.
Obviously, those are decisions for the future, but the powers are available in secondary legislation. There is no need for further primary legislation to extend the provisions to young people who are creating problems. Parliament can take legislative steps quickly if it decides to do so.
Clause 40 gives us the ability to extend the range of fixed penalty notices in a flexible way, giving some powers to issue them to accredited persons, some to CSOs and some exclusively to police officers, so that,
legislatively, we are covered. This debate, and some of our previous debates, have shown that we are being pushed in two different directions. We heard the Liberal Democrats speaking to amendments that urged us not to go ahead, or at least to evaluate before going ahead, and I accept that there is a lobby that reflects that view. Some people are also concerned about the extension of fixed penalty notices.
There are also the views of our own constituents and the lobby outside Parliament—mostly the police—that have been reflected in the discussions in the Committee, and which could be summarised as, ''Don't mess around—get on with it, and give people the powers.'' [Hon. Members: ''Hear, hear.''] All I would say to my hon. Friends is that the legislation does not need revisiting, because it already enables us to do exactly that.
The Government, and Parliament, need to decide at what speed we shall extend those powers, and I know that I—and the Home Secretary and everyone else—will think seriously about what has been said in the Committee. We will, of course, listen to those outside Parliament who urge us to be cautious, but we also need to listen to those who want the powers provided because they can be so effective.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 40 ordered to stand part of the Bill.