Clause 1 - Drinking banning orders
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
12:45 pm
Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)
No; I shall not give way.
I met a lady on Saturday who gave me something to think about. She lives in Kingston—I do not know London that well, but I believe that is a fairly affluent area and a lovely place. I was talking to her about respect and about tackling binge drinking. She wished that the debate was not always centred on people from poorer communities, and she was right. She told me of incidents she had witnessed at Henley, saying that the drinking on many occasions was appalling. She told me about young women falling about drunk, and about hooray Henrys whose behaviour was appalling and arrogant. She said to me, ''Hazel, you are right that we need all those powers. The police need the power to issue drinking banning orders.'' In future, we might see drinking banning orders preventing people from going to Henley, just as they might prevent people going to the Rat and Parrot or whatever the local pub is called.
We will be enforcing those powers without fear or favour, and I am sure that they will be effective.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.