I am grateful to noble Lords for the discussions that we have had today. I will start by saying something that I hope is helpful and which is meant to be helpful. Respect orders are not something in their own right. They are part of a suite of tools that the Government are looking at to help tackle anti-social behaviour.

I take some issue with what the noble Lord, Lord Davies, has said about police numbers. I was Police Minister in 2009-10, and immediately after we lost office, the coalition Government reduced police numbers by around 20,000. The figure of 20,000 officers that the noble Lord says are being put on the streets really represents a replacement of ones who were taken off the streets by the very same Government that he supported.

The noble Lord asked whether we have additional police officers on the ground. This year we have put around another 3,000 police officers on the ground, and we are looking at providing around 13,000 extra pairs of boots on the ground—specials, PCSOs and, indeed, direct warranted officers—during this Parliament. That is again a commitment in the manifesto that we are doing. Many of the measures in the Bill that we will come to later around phone theft, the use of anti-social vehicles and all sorts of other measures are still part of the suite of measures to try to tackle anti-social behaviour as a whole.

If I take the challenge from the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, head on, I cannot give him a figure as to what the impact is going to be directly on those matters as of now. I will reflect on what he said and see whether I can bring further light to that. The key point is that this legislation before the Committee today—this Clause stand part notice that the noble Lord is testing the Committee on—is a measure whereby in the event of a breach of those orders, speedier criminal action can be taken, which is different from where we are currently with other forms of anti-social behaviour legislation.

Again, I reaffirm what I said in earlier contributions: we are not seeking to be punitive; we are seeking to be preventive. I hope that nobody will be sanctioned by the legislation for breaching an order. The whole purpose is to put some behaviour modification in place to stop a poor behaviour or to encourage help and support to overcome the reasons why that poor behaviour has taken place in the first place.

This goes to the heart of what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said because, from my perspective, this is part of a suite of measures. That is the point I want to put to the Committee today. We know that the powers in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 did not always go far enough to tackle anti-social behaviour and I believe that the whole Committee wants to tackle that anti-social behaviour. It is why the Government committed in our manifesto to introducing the respect order and cracking down on those making our neighbourhoods, town centres and communities unsafe and unwelcome places.

The 1 million police-recorded incidents and over a third of people experiencing or witnessing some form of anti-social behaviour are key issues that any Government should address. The respect order partially replaces civil injunction powers for persons aged 18 or over but, like the civil injunction, will enable courts to set prohibitive conditions by banning disruptive ASB perpetrators from town centres or engaging in a particular behaviour or by providing a rehabilitative, positive requirement, such as attending an anger management course or, potentially, a wider drug or alcohol awareness course to help tackle the root causes of their offending.

If this legislation is passed, authorities—including the police, local authorities and registered social housing providers, among others—can apply for a respect order. That means that the people who are closest to the ground in a community, such as a police officer, local council or housing association, can identify when they want to provide some support for the potential victims of anti-social behaviour. The respect order is not a punishment unless breached, as I have said already. It is intended that, upon receiving a respect order, the offender would cease the behaviour and that there would be no further sanctions. Can I measure that for the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, at this moment? Possibly not, but I hope I can measure it down stream. Provision is made for punishment only where an offender ignores their respect order and continues to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

The important point again is that there is a criminal sanction if someone breaches that order. Unlike in a civil injunction, breaching the respect order will be a criminal offence that is therefore arrestable. Again, that is significant. In a sense, an individual would be warned not to do something or encouraged to do something. If they do neither, they would be subject to arrest.