Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I seem to have spent most of the afternoon arguing against the miscellaneous points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. I am glad on this occasion to be able to support her—in part, anyway. Notwithstanding the government amendments, for which I thank the Minister, I have a great deal of sympathy for the noble Baroness’s concerns. I agree with her that the novelty of imposing constraints on adults for their own protection makes a measure of post-legislative scrutiny a necessity. I share her dislike of the Government’s definition of a gang, although, as I said in Committee, I would prefer her alternative to specifically mention anti-social behaviour. Those weaknesses could easily lead to two equally unattractive outcomes. The injunctions may turn out to be impossible to implement and subject to legal challenge. Alternatively, the lack of detail in the drafting of Clause 34 will tempt police forces to use injunctions inappropriately, either applying them to innocent bystanders or using them in place of arresting and then charging serious criminals who should be prosecuted for a criminal offence. As to what level of post-legislative scrutiny would be appropriate, I do not quite gel with the noble Baroness, but almost. We all know that there is a problem with gang violence in some communities in this country and that the police certainly need the proper tools to tackle that. We want the Government to take steps to improve the provisions once any failings had become apparent, not just give up and return to the current, clearly inadequate, situation. One year is far too little time to see how the injunctions work. Not only can they be imposed for as long as two years in the first instance, but I sincerely hope that there will not be so many taken out as to give enough examples of their operation in the first year to allow the Government to conduct a proper review. We would therefore prefer a review of how the injunctions are working after, say, three years. Such a review should be made public and laid before Parliament in order for a proper debate to be held with all the evidence to hand. With that speech, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to give me at least half marks.