Clause 22 - Directions to individuals who represent a risk of disorder
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
2:00 pm

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 86, in clause 22, page 24, line 42, after first ‘is’, insert—

‘(a)’.

Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 161, in clause 22, page 24, line 42, leave out ‘is likely’ and insert ‘will’.

Government amendment No. 87.

Amendment No. 178, in clause 22, page 24, line 44, after ‘disorder’, insert ‘by that person’.

Amendment No. 52, in clause 22, page 25, line 23, at end insert—

‘(e)from attending the offices of his legal advisers by appointment; or

(f)from attending his normal place of worship.’.

Amendment No. 53, in clause 22, page 25, line 30, after ‘who’, insert ‘unreasonably’.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

The clause provides the police with a new power to issue a direction to an individual to leave a locality if the presence of that individual is likely to cause or contribute to the occurrence or continuance of alcohol-related crime or disorder in that locality. The aim is simple; it is to minimise the risk of alcohol-related crime and disorder.

Amendments Nos. 86 and 87 amend the test that will be applied by the constable when considering whether to issue a direction. They introduce an explicit necessity test, so that the direction to leave should be given only if it is necessary to prevent alcohol-related crime or disorder. The test that will apply as a result of the amendment will be that the presence of the individual in that locality is likely, in all circumstances, to cause or contribute to the occurrence of alcohol-related crime or disorder in that locality, or to cause or to contribute to a repetition or continuance thereof and that the giving of a direction under this section to that individual is necessary for the purpose of   removing or reducing the likelihood of there being such crime or disorder in that locality during the period for which the direction has effect.

It will be for the police to decide on the area or locality from which an individual should be excluded. That might be the operational area that needs to be policed during the evening in the entertainment district of a city centre where all the pubs and clubs are, and the test might be applied by the police within that area when they consider that an individual’s presence would contribute to crime and disorder in that area. The direction will have to be given in writing by the police and may require the individual to leave the area immediately or by such time as the police may specify.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

Amendment No. 161 would take out the word “likely” in clause 22(2) and replace it with the word “will”. It is a matter of raising the bar, because clause 22 allows the police extremely broad powers to give directions to people to leave an area.

Although I appreciate that Government amendment No. 87 tightens the directions, I am not sure that it goes far enough. A breach of such an order after 24 hours is a criminal offence, which moves the bar further into criminal procedure. However, the main problem is that the person who is subject to the order does not necessarily under the test in subsection (2) have to be involved in or the cause of the disorder. It would be sufficient for a police officer simply to judge it likely that a group of young people or an individual would contribute at some point in the future to disorder. As the sanction ends in a criminal offence, we believe that the definition should be tightened up.

Similarly, we would suggest that no offence needs to be committed, merely disorder, to justify making the direction should there already be evidence of disorder or rowdy behaviour such as that described in earlier discussions. Furthermore, the criminal offence of being disorderly—in addition to public order offences, offences of violence and criminal damage and even antisocial behaviour orders—exists to restrain drunken criminal behaviour. Anyone can be seen as posing a risk of disorder, and we do not have a time machine to see into the future.

Exercise of the power could interfere with the convention on human rights, noticeably under article 11 and article 2 of protocol 4, which protect freedom of movement. The test in clause 22(2) is difficult to determine as a matter of objective fact and we are concerned that such broadness of power might be applied arbitrarily—on grounds of ethnicity or clothing, for example. It may be that disorder is caused among drunken people by the mere sight of someone they do not like. To direct an individual to leave a locality may well be for that individual’s protection, but they will not be the cause.

Sally Keeble (Northampton North, Labour)

Does the hon. Lady accept that in a case such as the one I raised earlier, if a young man is quite drunk at half past nine and causing bad behaviour, the police can currently issue him with a fixed penalty notice or arrest him, whereas this provision gives the option of directing him out of the area? That seems a good way   of preventing him from spending four extra hours drinking and almost certainly getting into further problems.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Lady makes a reasonable point, but that was not the point that I was addressing. The point was that an individual might be directed to leave a location because of the risk posed by others who are intoxicated; they might be attacked because of their clothing or their ethnicity. It seems unfair that such individuals should be asked to leave a locality if they have not been drinking. It is the opposite of what the hon. Lady suggests.

Sally Keeble (Northampton North, Labour)

Does the hon. Lady not accept that one of the problems is that people do not go into areas because they are afraid of binge drinkers? The people of whom she speaks are likely not to be there. The real problem is the people who go there, who need to be moved out of the area.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

We shall have to disagree. The amendment is a probing one, to test whether the provision is unfair on individuals who are not drunk and who are not the direct cause of the disorder.

The police have expressed concern because it is unclear whether they need to inform parents of under-18 who are directed to leave such an area. I should be grateful if the Minister clarified that point and said how that would be done.

I have another concern about the age limit. I understand the that the phrase “appears to be 18 or over” is used in similar legislation to safeguard officers, so that if they wrongly presume that someone is over 18 they will not be caught out. Will the Minister explain why such a provision is not included in the Bill?

Sammy Wilson (East Antrim, DUP)

I do not share the concerns expressed by the hon. Lady. However, I am concerned about the practicalities. It may seem to be an easier way of dealing with people when there are fears they may cause disruption later in the evening. The police officer has to give instructions. We should not forget we are dealing with a group of unruly youths or people who are working themselves up to be extremely unruly.

Once the officer has identified them, he will want to get them out of the area. He has to give them a note—it must be given in writing. They have to be told in what direction they should leave the area. They may not be capable of walking in a straight line, let alone taking the prescribed route given by the officer. The officer must draw for them the locality that they must stay out of, and he can impose requirements on the manner in which they leave the locality.

I can see the sense of having such a power, but I do not know how practical it will be, given the situation on the streets that the Minister wants to deal with. I would like some indication of whether it has been run past the police. What view have the police given on how an officer on the street might implement this? If we make it law, then find that it cannot be delivered, we will have made life more difficult for the police.

James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the practicality of the proposal. As with the Bill’s other proposals, they will be judged on their practicality and their contribution to reducing disorder.

I do not go with the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green along all the avenues that she explored. I strain to see how the question of ethnicity or human rights comes into it, although human rights seems to creep into many measures nowadays.

It is important for the hon. Lady to take on board—I am sure that she has—the fact that no offence will be committed until the person concerned has failed to comply with the direction given by the police officer. After a little research, I found many comparable provisions under which people are expected to comply with directions given by police officers. However, as the Minister said, the provision in clause 22 is hedged around with conditions. Under subsection (4), directions may not be given that would prevent an individual from having access to the place where he lives and going to work; there are four other things that a person cannot be prevented from doing.

We have tabled an amendment simply to explore the issue of enabling somebody to attend his place of worship. We do not want one of the directions to prevent somebody from attending his place of worship—presumably at a later stage, after the direction has been given, when the disorder has died down. We would like to know the Minister’s thinking on that point.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I had hoped that Government amendments Nos. 86 and 87 would satisfy the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green that we have considered the matter carefully to ensure that there is a necessity test. The powers will be operated fairly and with regard to people’s rights in the circumstances. It has to be necessary to issue the direction, which makes a real connection between someone’s behaviour and the exercise of the power. As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) has said, we are talking about a range of powers to ensure that there can be early intervention to stop problems escalating into the kind of serious violence that we see. If a problem starts on the street, a police officer can think about whether a fixed penalty notice is appropriate. It may well be, but if a gang forms, the police officer might need to intervene and use the power to disperse people from that area in order to bring a sense of the rule of law to those streets and to ensure that they are properly reclaimed. We seek to give the police a range of powers that it might be appropriate to use.

The hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) rightly raised the issue of whether what we are planning is practical. If people are in the early stages of drunkenness, it might be possible to issue a direction or a fixed penalty notice. If they have gone beyond that point and are on the verge of unconsciousness—unfortunately that does happen on the streets—it may be necessary for the police to arrest and prosecute   them and take other action. Again, the police officer will have to make a judgment about the practical steps that he or she can take.

We find that in those circumstances the police are grateful that they can take a range of measures. In the past, they had only the option of prosecution or doing nothing. That is a difficult choice to make when they are faced with 30 or 40 people on the street and are trying to restore order. Now they will have a range of tactics, which means that they do not simply have either to prosecute or do nothing. They will find that extremely useful. There have been discussions with the police throughout. Stakeholders have broadly welcomed the powers and there is a great deal of support for them. I am sure that the police will be able to exercise their discretion properly. This power will be a useful addition to the powers of the police when it comes to dealing with problems of alcohol disorder.

Amendment No. 52, from the Conservatives, is about a person having access not just to a place of worship, but to their legal advisers. I am sorry, but I am not minded at all to exempt somebody from the direction because he needs to see his solicitor. If he needs to do that, he can rearrange his appointment. He may well be seeing his solicitor about some rather unfortunate behaviour that he indulged in the night before. I am sure that he can reorder his life. On someone having access to their normal place of worship, I gave an undertaking to consider that issue in relation to a previous, similar amendment on drinking banning orders. I certainly undertake to consider the matter. If people are genuinely going to a place of worship, that can help them combat some problems that they might have with alcohol misuse and I would not want to prevent that from happening.

Amendment No. 53 relates to an individual “unreasonably” failing to comply with a direction to leave. Again, I want to resist that amendment. The offence has to be simply the failure to comply. I do not want to leave a loophole so that people can wriggle out of their responsibility to comply with the direction. It is an expedient power and I want to see it properly used by the police. I ask hon. Members to consider those issues and not to press their amendments.