My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hampton for putting his name to these five amendments, which seek to ensure that victims of persistent anti-social behaviour are swiftly identified, protected from further harm and, above all, given the opportunity to have their voices heard. These amendments have the full support of the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales.

Although the Bill forms part of the Government’s very welcome determination to crack down on anti-social behaviour, it fails to address some of the underlying issues victims currently face and risks maintaining the status quo, leaving many victims without meaningful recourse and allowing harm to persist. So the status quo, in effect, does not bring about the degree of change called for by the Victims’ Commissioner herself and by HMICFRS in its October 2024 report, just 12 months ago, called The Policing Response to Antisocial Behaviour.

The policing, local authority and housing authority response to how to tackle anti-social behaviour is painfully reminiscent of the repeated attempts to tackle stalking. All around England and Wales there are examples of good practice or best practice in tackling anti-social behaviour, most of them existing in relative isolation, in geographic or organisational silos, which have never been brought into a proper, focused and prioritised national structure with very clear dos and don’ts.

I am most grateful for the time that Jo Grimshaw of Surrey Police, its head of anti-social behaviour, partnerships, youth engagement and tactical lead for serious violence, has spent with me explaining the holistic way in which she and her team tackle anti-social behaviour countywide and across multiple agencies, steered by deep specialists, all of whom, very importantly, are non-serving police officers; many of them are ex-police officers. The advantage of not being a serving police officer is that you can stay in role for years at a time. You will not be moved around, so you can develop profound and very deep expertise and knowledge. I know that Andy Prophet, the chief constable of Hertfordshire and the NPCC lead on anti-social behaviour, who the Minister may well know, is extremely keen, like other leaders, to work across all 43 police forces to identify and syndicate best practice. I think the Government would find that those people would be very supportive of the intent behind these amendments.

The noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, herself brought some of the challenges into painfully sharp focus in her September 2024 report entitled, Still Living a Nightmare: Understanding the Experiences of Victims of Anti-social Behaviour. I do not need to remind your Lordships’ House that if there is one person who knows at a profound level what anti-social behaviour can do, it is the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, herself. Amendment 27 stems from the battle that many victims of anti-social behaviour face when they try to escalate their complaints. The first of these is the challenge of even being recognised as a victim of persistent anti-social behaviour, defined as experiencing three incidents within six months—the threshold for triggering the anti-social behaviour case review. But as each incident is often viewed in isolation by multiple different agencies, victims are frequently dismissed, ignored and, ultimately, failed. They are left to endure the dripping tap of repeated harm, routinely minimised as neighbourhood disputes, and this is despite some cases involving threats, criminal damage, arson, and even assault.

The ASB case review was designed to act as a vital safety net for those victims of persistent anti-social behaviour, and by prompting multiple agencies to consider the case, it was designed to offer a pathway to resolution—a source of hope in breaking this continuous cycle of harm. This is why I want to see Amendment 27 place a statutory requirement on police to undertake an assessment of harm on the third call-out within a six-month period. This would help identify victims earlier in the cycle and build a clearer picture, sooner, of the cumulative impact it is having on the victims.

Moving on to Amendments 28 and 31, we have the opportunity in the Bill to give ASB case reviews real clout when agencies repeatedly let victims down. The ASB case review must serve its intended function in offering a route to redress for victims and not simply yet another way for agencies to mark their own homework and ignore the issues that victims face. Amendments 28 and 31 would place the ASB case review threshold in statute. If implemented, this would provide absolute clarity for agencies and victims, eliminating local caveats, removing extra hurdles for victims and preventing the inconsistent application currently enabled by legislative discretion.

Amendment 30 would introduce further oversight of the reasons why victims’ requests for a review are rejected, addressing local variation and ensuring that victims no longer face a postcode lottery when attempting to access it. However, it is vital that the review process restores victims’ confidence. Amendment 29 would ensure that every ASB case review has an independent chair and that victims are given a voice at the table, guaranteeing transparency and fairness.

The deaths of Dr Suzanne Dow, Fiona Pilkington, Bijan Ebrahimi, Matthew Boorman, Stephen and Jennifer Chapple, David Askew and Louise Lotz can all be directly linked to sustained campaigns of anti-social behaviour. Whether through suicide, homicide or, in David Askew’s case, as the south Manchester coroner said in 2011, unlawful death after years of torment, these lives were lost due to a lack of action.

I invite the Minister to please consider these amendments in the spirit in which they were tabled. I hope to be able to work with him and his colleagues between now and Report to see whether we can insert some additional elements into the Bill that will give victims real hope—and give hope to the exponents of best practice in tackling ASB, who are keen to share their expertise and insights. I beg to move.