Crime and Security Bill

It has been an extremely interesting debate so far, and I hope to add to it. First, however, I will set in context how I think the Bill—and some amendments that I hope to table if the opportunity arises during its progress through the House—will affect my constituents. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) discussed the vast amount of new legislation introduced over the past 12 or 13 years. That toolkit of measures has been extremely useful, but my concern is that unfortunately, some councils, including Stoke-on-Trent city council, have been hesitant even to look into the toolkit, let alone take out the pieces of equipment inside. That has now improved. The situation is markedly different from what it was three or four years ago, when it was up to me as the local Member of Parliament to hold meetings to bring communities together and to get the agencies into the same room to listen to the concerns of the communities about issues such as section 30 dispersal orders. It was a nightmare. Inspector Asha Kaur, who was the local neighbourhood police inspector at the time, had great difficulty in satisfying the local authority that the huge, 1-foot-thick volume of correspondence, information and statements was sufficient to get a section 30 order, but that situation has now improved. We now have a much better situation in Stoke-on-Trent. We have police and communities together—PACT—meetings, for example, and we have police community support officers out there doing a fantastic job. Indeed, only recently a couple of PCSOs in the Longton area were on the front page of the local newspaper, The Sentinel, because they had given chase on their pushbikes to a criminal on a motorbike. They apprehended the criminal and justice was subsequently done. There have been some incredible improvements. Unfortunately, one of the issues for Stoke-on-Trent—and, I think, for much of the country—is that they are quite patchy, and there is still room to improve. Some of the other local successes involve Inspector Sharrard-Williams, the neighbourhood inspector who covers the south-eastern part of the city. He has had some fantastic successes on Cornelius street, and I recently attended court to witness the closure order for the crack house. The legislation involved has been on the books for a while now, but that was the first instance of its use for that purpose in Stoke-on-Trent. That troubles me greatly. As I said, we have some great tools in the toolkit, but their use is very patchy. My thanks and praise go to Inspector Sharrard-Williams and the force solicitor for taking that case through to Fenton magistrates court and getting the job done. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) mentioned statistics earlier. Some of the statistics for the south-east region of Stoke-on-Trent in the past five or six months speak for themselves. In that period alone, there has been a 43 per cent. reduction in serious acquisitive crimes, including robbery, theft of or from motor vehicles, and household burglary. That means there were 158 fewer victims in that period than in the same period in the previous year. Breaking down that figure, we see a 44 per cent. reduction in thefts from motor vehicles. That means there were 81 fewer such victims in that period than in the same period in the previous year. That is an incredible improvement for the 81 people who did not did not have to go through the trauma of waking up one morning to find that their car had been broken into, or who came back from the shops to find their car still intact. I could go on. Customer satisfaction figures for that same period show that 94 per cent. of victims of antisocial behaviour said that they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the police response. I hope the Minister will pay tribute to all the officers in Stoke-on-Trent, and particularly to Inspector Sharrard-Williams and his team, for achieving such fantastic results. Successful working together on these issues can be patchy, however. I attended a raid on a property in part of the Meir to deal with drug use on the premises. The police arrived and gained entry to the premises, which were in a horrendous condition. Anyone keeping animals in such conditions would rightly be arrested and prosecuted, but there was a small child running around these premises. It was absolutely horrendous. The city council officer turned up within about 15 minutes of receiving a call from the police, and secured an agreement from the tenants that they would vacate the property within 28 days. That was an extremely good result, which showed how the police and the city council can work together very well. Unfortunately, as I have said, such good responses can be patchy; they are not happening uniformly across the city or, indeed, across the country. An extremely effective local resident, a gentleman called Brian Jones, came up with the fantastic idea of mobile CCTV. This involves great long columns with wireless cameras at the top, which can be moved around the footprint of the area, as and when problems arise. That system should certainly be taken up elsewhere, and I give credit to Brian and all those involved with it. Another local resident is Fred. I will not use his surname, but he will know who he is. He is a very forthright man who lives on the eastern side of my constituency. He and his neighbours were having problems with the local yobbos and idiots, as he put it. He got them into his front room, sat them down and asked them what the problems were. They explained that they had nothing to do. They certainly would not argue with Fred. I am sure he will forgive me for saying that he is no youngster, but he embraced the problem, got to the heart of it and came up with a solution. So there are good, positive things happening, but there is still room for improvement. Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members mentioned antisocial behaviour orders being ineffective, being used far too liberally—if I can put it like that—and being a badge of honour. I wish that that were the case in Stoke-on-Trent, because only 12 antisocial behaviour orders have been issued there in the past year. What is the point of our meeting here, having these debates and passing legislation if local authorities are not going to make full use of the powers available to them? On empowering local officers to issue fixed-penalty notices, I asked the city council nearly two years ago to allow people to go through the training and get a warrant card so that if they saw some mindless idiot throwing a bag of chips into the middle of the street and walking off up the road, they would be able to tackle them. Nearly two years later, I am still waiting for that training to take place. Gating orders are a wonderful thing. They result in instantaneous improvement to an area by getting alleyways and passageways—places where teen gangs can gather and cause a nuisance—gated off. In Stoke-on-Trent, however, there is a requirement for a 100 per cent. take-up by local residents. What nonsense! What is the point of having the legislation if councils are going to use it in such a way that it becomes very bureaucratic and difficult to get through? The legislation that we have is extremely good, but some of it is just not being used. We need to see a recognition of that in the Bill. Some of the powers in it could be improved further, and I will go on to talk about that shortly. The provisions in clauses 37 and 38 are certainly welcome, however. They include a requirement for family circumstances to be taken into account and reported on when considering ASBOs—that is, of course, if we can actually persuade our local authorities to make more use of ASBOs in the first place. I was interested to receive a briefing from an organisation called Catch22, which outlined a number of elements that it would like to see included in any parenting assessment. I know from my previous experience outside the House, working with a Birmingham-based charity—the Malachi Community Trust—that works with young people with behavioural or mental health difficulties, that some of those elements are absolutely crucial. For example, sometimes, something as simple as improving a person's housing situation can make all the difference, and even provide a miraculous outcome not only for the family but for the whole neighbourhood. If we solve someone's housing problem, we often solve the deeper problems that are manifesting themselves in antisocial and criminal behaviour. Catch22's briefing also mentioned the need to take into consideration a family's financial situation, debt, family breakdown, conflict and bereavement. In my experience, family breakdown can have a huge impact on the way in which families behave, and can result in antisocial and criminal behaviour.