Antisocial Behaviour

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 2:30 pm on 16 December 2003.

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Photo of Michael Foster Michael Foster Labour, Worcester 2:30, 16 December 2003

Thank you, Sir Nicholas, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this debate on antisocial behaviour. I begin by thanking and congratulating my right hon. Friend Mr. Field on securing the debate. As always, he showed himself to be extremely thoughtful, if a tad provocative, when dealing with social issues, which is to his credit. To take on board his comments and debate them properly is a matter worthy of Parliament and this Chamber.

I shall make some brief remarks on how we could do better in tackling antisocial behaviour in our communities. That is not a criticism of the local police, the crime and safety partnerships or the local city council, but I think there is room for improvement in all our public services. It is on those aspects that I should like to focus attention, and I look to the Minister for guidance and support where appropriate.

Worcester is not the crime capital of the west midlands; it never has been and I hope it never will be. However, as with every other community up and down the land, there are issues relating to antisocial behaviour that cause my postbag to bulge and which cause utter misery on some of our estates. The relatively low crime rate in the city as a whole brings antisocial behaviour more sharply into focus, because that is what people can see day in, day out, as crime in their local community.

I fully understand that incidents of antisocial behaviour will not rank highly for emergency response from the police, nor would I expect them to be compared to the assaults and burglaries that are committed in my area. However, a problem that my constituents can have is the long response time from the police to a reported incident. A report is made and a number given, but it may be one or two days or even a week before the police get round to talking to that constituent about the incident. There is no immediate response, a point that my right hon. Friend made. Someone affected by antisocial behaviour wants an immediate response. Improvements could be made locally in dealing with that, which may require extra resources. I hope that the Minister takes keen note of any plea for resources that I make later in my contribution.

Antisocial behaviour orders are, without doubt, one way in which we can get a grip on the antisocial behaviour in our communities. However, in Worcester they are the fourth and final stage of an approach that tries to nip antisocial behaviour in the bud with early intervention. That involves providing distraction and alternatives, and dealing with parents to explain what the behaviour of their youngsters has been and why it is unacceptable in the local community.

An example of an area where that has taken place and come to prominence in Worcester is a local playground at the back of Barley crescent in the Long Meadow estate and Warndon villages. It is designed for primary school children. The estate has matured and grown up, but the playground is still geared towards the children who are not on the estate any more, and it has become a focal point where young people gather. Although I do not wish to condone the actions of those young people, what starts as boredom leads to mischief making and moves on to antisocial behaviour. That is when misery for local people begins. It might take the form of cars being vandalised in the neighbouring streets and closes, eggs or stones being thrown or fires being lit in the playground deliberately designed to draw attention and to show what mischief the young people are getting up to. That is the behaviour that needs to be tackled, ideally through early intervention and moving the young people into something more fruitful and positive.

When talking to my colleagues about ways of tackling such problems, I have seen that there is some good practice in dealing with antisocial behaviour in this country. One idea that came up in a discussion that I had with my hon. Friend Andy Burnham is a system that works in Wigan with the co-operation of the Greater Manchester police. There, a leaflet was printed and distributed to the local community containing a picture of four youngsters who had all been given antisocial behaviour orders. The leaflet described what those young people had done and set out the conditions of the antisocial behaviour order. The final page of the fold-up leaflet explained what residents should do if they saw young people in breach of their antisocial behaviour orders and gave telephone numbers and so on.

That is a positive way of involving the local community and empowering people to do something within the law to tackle what they know is a problem in their area. I am keen to see the scheme move forward and I would like West Mercia police to embrace it. They have promised to consider the data protection and human rights issues, and I would welcome the Minister's clarification of whether local police could produce and distribute such leaflets.

All that got me thinking about how to involve and respond to local communities when positive action has been taken on antisocial behaviour. I have raised with the local city council issues concerning young people—for example, the Barley crescent playground—and it has asked its detached youth team to investigate the problems and to discuss with young people why they become involved in behaviour that causes a nuisance to everyone. I have had full responses from the city council and they have been warmly welcomed when I have passed them on to my constituents. Occasionally, I have had a letter back saying, "Thank goodness someone has told the parents," or that action has been taken and it is good to know that people are listening. That feedback from constituents suggests that there is a real need for local police, through the Safer Worcestershire partnership, to let constituents know more formally and more regularly what is happening in their neighbourhood.

Whenever people are asked what they want, they say that they want more bobbies on the beat, but police officers are rarely seen on the beat because people must be outside or in the garden when the officers walk past to know that they are in the neighbourhood. That will not always happen, but one way in which the visibility of the police presence can be improved is to provide regular information to constituents, perhaps in a newsletter, about issues that they have reported, such as antisocial behaviour orders. That would overcome the visibility issue and provide information about what the police are doing. One of the great problems facing the police is that they feel Joe Public does not value them or their work, and that is one way of moving forward.

Without doubt, one way to deal with antisocial behaviour is with positive distractions for young people. We have seen a decline in youth service provision in our communities over a number of years, but I saw it in operation on Friday evening at the Angels in Exile in Worcester, which is a centre where young people can congregate and the police can distract them and involve them in doing something positive. Funding is an issue because the youth service has never been a statutory service, and when finances have been tight the youth service and facilities have been squeezed. It is time that society took on board the important role that youth facilities provide in our communities. If we want to tackle antisocial behaviour—people always say that they do—we must improve the facilities that we offer to our young people.

The final way we can help to improve how we tackle antisocial behaviour in West Mercia is to examine police funding. The Minister moved smartly to attention at the mention of that topical matter. West Mercia as a whole—it covers the city of Worcester—has a low crime rate and no one would argue with the statistics. My fear is that that means it does not trigger the same police resources as some higher crime areas do. I fully understand the importance of tackling more serious crimes, but a debate will crop up on whether we should provide an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff to deal with the emergencies or funding for a fence at the top of the cliff to prevent people from falling over the edge. It is the preventive side of tackling antisocial behaviour that I think will lead to fewer resources being used up in dealing with the emergency aspects of police work.

So, there is an issue with police funding but, having said that, West Mercia has record numbers of police—the most since the constabulary was formed in 1967. That has to be good news, if people can feel that the police are dealing with the antisocial behaviour on their doorstep.

We need a big conversation on finding other ways of financing and resourcing the police. An example would be to consider placing a levy on nightclubs to pay for the extra police time and effort that we know nightclubs use. Anyone who has been to somewhere such as Worcester on a Friday or a Saturday evening knows that extra resources go to such places. While those resources are being used in Worcester city centre, they are not available in the suburbs for dealing with the antisocial behaviour issues that crop up.

Finally, over a number of years, there has been a change in police housing. One idea that I have discussed with the West Mercia branch of the Police Federation is the impact that police houses would have on some of our tougher estates, and the impact of police being seen, even just going to work and coming back. I have discussed whether such a police presence and having someone in the local neighbourhood as a port of call for information would help deliver a safer community and one less blighted by antisocial behaviour.

I hope that I have made a couple of contributions that are of use to the Minister. I would welcome a few comments on issues such as the newsletters and leaflets that I have mentioned, because the issue will not go away, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead said. It will be a measure of us, as Government Members and as politicians generally, to see how we tackle the issue, which is individualised but affects communities across Worcester.