The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) spoke very powerfully about emotive and clearly tragic cases. I am sure that all Members of the House join her in paying tribute to the families of those victims. She is right that the dangerous dogs legislation introduced by a previous Government did not achieve the desired outcomes; I think that most of us would accept that.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, therefore, I would like to pay tribute to a piece of legislation introduced by Labour. The role of police community support officers in tackling antisocial behaviour has been much maligned over the years, and my party opposed the measure at the
time, yet when I look at the work of Aivaras Krochalev and others PCSOs in my constituency who have done so much work, particularly with parts of the community where English is not the first language, it is clear that many of them have helped in freeing up officer time and delivering value for money on the front line rather than sitting behind desks at headquarters.
That is why I welcome the Home Secretary’s measures in the Bill to strengthen some of the powers available to PCSOs. For example, it is illogical for a PCSO to be able to disperse a group from an area but unable to direct an individual to leave it. The Bill is right to give senior officers discretion to tackle that. It is also illogical for PCSOs to be able to fill out forms in those instances but not to issue them. The streamlining of some of the powers that apply to PCSOs will free up police officer time for doing the things that warrant officers should be doing.
Following that logic, I want to press the Minister to consider extending PCSO powers to take on other responsibilities. For example, a PCSO is able to seize drugs, but not search for them. They can search for alcohol and tobacco, and if they happen to find drugs during the course of those searches they can confiscate them, but if they can smell cannabis they are not allowed search for it; they have to divert the time of a warranted officer instead. The feedback I receive from senior officers is that that is not an effective use of police time.
Minor issues can also be annoying to officers. For example, a PCSO can issue a fixed penalty notice for cycling on a towpath—we do not have many towpaths in my constituency, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) finds that to be a useful option—but they cannot issue one for cycling without lights. There are a number of other similar areas; I cite those two examples simply to illustrate my argument. If we follow the Bill’s logic and its welcome measures on, for example, dispersal, we will see that PCSOs could take on more powers in tackling antisocial behaviour and that that would free up police officer time.
Another issue that the Bill does not tackle is that of potential cross-departmental work to enforce antisocial behaviour measures. Last year, there were an estimated 15,000 foreign vehicles on our roads. Once such vehicles are here for more than six months, they have to undergo an MOT and be insured and registered. It is illogical to assume that every single foreign vehicle on our roads has complied with that requirement, yet last year there was not a single prosecution of an unregistered foreign vehicle. Part of the frustration felt by Cambridgeshire police and others is that there seems to be intransigence on the part of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. It uses automatic registration recognition for stolen vehicles, but not in relation to the licensing of foreign vehicles. That has a knock-on effect in community tension; some people feel that they have to insure and register their car while others do not. Clearly, discussions need to be held between the Home Office and the Department for Transport. I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me to confirm that he will take on that cross-departmental work. From some of the cases that I see at my constituency surgery, the issue is causing considerable annoyance.
Another area where significant time is being wasted and where cross-departmental work is suboptimal is that of licensing. It may surprise the House to hear that an area such as Wisbech in my constituency has more licensed premises in the centre than a student area such as Cambridge. Indeed, we are using existing powers on the accumulated number of licensed premises in order to try to effect change. It is clear that when the police make representations, significant time is spent on compiling long reports that are then often ignored by local councils. It would be beneficial for further work to be undertaken by the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government in order to look at police representations and whether the time spent on cases involving licensing and antisocial behaviour in communities is used as effectively as possible.
The Bill’s measures will be welcome only if they are enforced. In our rush to legislate, one of the traps that we fall into in this place is that we suspect that just introducing a Bill on antisocial behaviour will effect the change that we seek. It is clear that some of the existing measures to tackle antisocial behaviour are not being enforced. For example, an illegal rave took place in my constituency on new year’s eve. It may surprise the House to learn that the police were at the scene but—understandably, because of the numbers of people present—took the view that it was not safe for them to intervene at that point. However, even though the police were on site when the illegality took place, and even though the business owner took countless photos and the Home Secretary, no less, expressed her horror and shock and desire for enforcement when I spoke to her about the case, I discovered last week, without the police having the courtesy to tell me, that after six months they had simply dropped the investigation.
It is difficult for the community to understand exactly what evidence the police need to tackle the crime given that they were there as it happened. I welcome the Bill’s antisocial behaviour measures, but I would be grateful if the Minister took up that issue up with the chief constable of Cambridgeshire and addressed why, in a case that involved more than £50,000-worth of damage on new year’s eve and that caused concern to other business owners, no enforcement action has been taken.
I am conscious of your diktat on time, Madam Deputy Speaker, so with a minute remaining let me finish on a positive note. Under the wonderful leadership of Inspector Sissons in Wisbech, we have launched Operation Pheasant, which has so far raided 80 houses of multiple occupation and has a number of live inquiries. It demonstrates what can be achieved when effective enforcement action is taken. That would not have happened without the active support of the Home Secretary, which, along with the Bill’s measures, will do much to tackle other cases of antisocial behaviour in the months and years ahead.
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