Policing and Crime Bill

As the Government set out in the Youth Alcohol Action Plan, we want the police to be able to deal with all children who are drinking in public. I have at length been through how their behaviour can affect them very badly, as well as their communities and a number of other things. At the moment this cannot happen because the police have the power to move along only those children aged 16 and over if they are likely to cause or contribute to alcohol-related crime or disorder. Unfortunately, it is not only the 16 year-olds. At the beginning of this debate I mentioned that a survey of 11 to 15 year-olds in 2008 showed that the weekly alcohol consumption of that age group had increased significantly since the 1990s. Indeed, of that age group, 27 per cent of those who are heavy drinkers drink outside. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, talked about looking at welfare rather than punitive measures. I go back to what we said in the initial part of this debate. We need a golf bag full of different clubs, most to do with helping the children, their families and all those aspects. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, touched on youth work and that whole area, which is very important. I declare an interest: I am chairman of the charity the Cadet Vocational Qualification Organisation and I have witnessed how such organisations can make a difference. We saw a young man who was on drugs and was, effectively, an alcoholic at 15. Through joining the Cadet Force he ended up with four GCSEs, went into an apprenticeship and has recovered. We are well aware of how important that is, but I am afraid that we need a little bit of the stick as well as all those other measures. That is really where we are coming from on this. We have to be a little careful about youngsters judging some of these things to be arbitrary, inexplicable and aggressive. They do not need to be that and are not always that. These youngsters are sometimes a lot cuter in their understanding of things than we give them credit for. The current age restriction on issuing a direction to leave means that when police officers encounter groups of children of mixed ages, as they very often are, they can get rid only of those aged 16 and above. I have talked about this group. The police are very clear that this limits the power’s effectiveness. They have commented on this and would like to have an ability to affect the others. That is why I oppose Amendment 110A. If accepted, it would increase the minimum age at which a person could be issued with a direction to leave from 16 to 18. That would mean that police powers to tackle alcohol-related crime and disorder would become considerably less effective than they are even now. Clause 31 seeks to allow the police to issue directions to leave to persons aged 10 and over. I fully understand the concerns that have been raised that extending this power to 10 year-olds may put very young people in a vulnerable position. We do not want to see vulnerable young people being dispersed with no thought as to what will happen to them. On occasions, where it is better to take these young people home or into a safe place, we expect the police to do so. For those under 16 who are in possession of alcohol and are intoxicated or at risk, we want the police to take them home or to a safe place under the proposed powers in Clause 29.