Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, we move to the provisions for injunctions to be imposed on people who may be part of a gang that intends to carry out violence—in the Government’s terms. The point of Amendments 67 and 68 is to explore further the issue we touched on in Committee. The Bill provides that an injunction can be imposed on an individual for their own protection. We questioned that at the time and we were not happy with the Minister’s response. The Government are making a big departure if they impose injunctions on people in order to protect them. We have a perfectly good system of statementing people for their own protection when they are not capable of making a decision, but this is quite different, because these people are capable of doing so. Although the Government’s intentions may be good—I am not underplaying the issue of gangs and gang violence at all—that is a very big step. The nanny state is saying, for example, "I am going to look after you by confining you to your house". Amendment 69 is prompted by the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, about definitions in the Bill. He made interesting contributions about "threat of violence" and "intention of violence". The amendment attempts to get away from the concept of violence and suggests that a more reasonable definition of "gang" might be a group of people formed for the purposes of carrying out criminal activity, which could well include violence. We are interested to explore further, even at this stage, whether the Government have got their definitions correct. We have deep concerns about this part of the Bill. I beg to move.