Clause 1 - Drinking banning orders
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
10:30 am
Sally Keeble (Northampton North, Labour)
I shall come to that. It goes to the heart of why some of the powers under the Bill are so important.
To have five police officers and one MP tied down trying to deal with a young man urinating in an alleyway is nonsense; but that is the sort of behaviour that destroys our town centres and makes them unpleasant for others. The Bill provides a range of powers for the police that can be implemented more easily. I am talking not only about the drinking banning order, but of other measures to deal with disorder; in particular, directing someone to leave a locality would deal with both disorder and drunkenness.
The Bill provides the police with a range of powers to manage a situation that has become intolerable in many towns. Of course, it is possible to find some other piece of legislation that applies, but the burden on the police of going through those procedures adds to the public uproar and anger about them not having enough powers to manage the situation.
In the circumstances that I described, the police could have ended up having to arrest a large number of young men, which would have been extremely difficult and would have involved more than five police officers. The range of measures in the Bill strengthens the police arm. I was horrified by the performance of the young man when he was issued with a fixed penalty notice. It is right that the police should have tougher powers with which to manage such situations. We should recognise that the problem is not only with criminal behaviour, but with disorderly behaviour.
I have spoken to representatives of the drinks trade about the situation. They had objections to alcohol disorder zones, with which I do not agree, but they did not have the same qualms about other measures in the Bill. They thought that these measures are important and that they will help to manage a difficult situation.