Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan Statement The following Statement
was made in the House of Commons on Monday 27 March. “With
permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement about the
Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, which I published today with my
right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up,
Housing and Communities. I am proud of what Conservatives have
achieved since 2010: overall crime, excluding fraud, is down by
50%;...Request free trial
Anti-social Behaviour
Action Plan
Statement
The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on
Monday 27 March.
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement
about the Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, which I published
today with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
I am proud of what Conservatives have achieved since 2010:
overall crime, excluding fraud, is down by 50%; neighbourhood
crime is down by 48%; and we are within days of securing the
historic achievement of a record number of police officers
nationally. That is all thanks to this party’s commitment to law
and order.
However, we must always strive harder to keep the British people
safe. The worst crimes flourish when lower-level crime is
tolerated. Let me be clear: there is no such thing as petty
crime. Public First polling found that people cited anti-social
behaviour as the main reason why their area was a worse place to
live than 10 years before. The decent, hard-working, law-abiding
majority are sick and tired of anti-social behaviour destroying
their communities. Nobody should have to live in fear of their
neighbours, endure disorder and drug-taking in parks, see their
streets disfigured by graffiti, fly-tipping or litter, or feel
unsafe walking alone at night, with gangs of youths hanging
around, getting up to no good, intimidating us all and degrading
the places that we love.
Personal experience of anti-social behaviour is highest in the
police force areas of the north-east, the Midlands and the
south-east. In the police force areas of Derbyshire, Northumbria
and Durham, at least 45% of adults have experienced anti-social
behaviour. As one of the research participants from our polling
in Liverpool reported, anti-social behaviour
‘makes you feel unwelcome, like you’re not wanted or loved, like
you don’t feel you belong. It does affect your emotional
well-being. You don’t feel safe … you don’t know what is going to
happen next. I’ve felt like this for the three years that I’ve
lived here, and I’ve been planning on leaving for the past
year’.
Such sentiments are why my right honourable friend the Prime
Minister has made tackling anti-social behaviour a top priority
for this Government.
Our anti-social behaviour action plan will give police and crime
commissioners, local authorities and other agencies the tools to
stamp out anti-social behaviour across England and Wales. It
targets the callous and careless few whose actions ruin the
public spaces and amenities on which the law-abiding majority
depend. Our plan outlines a radical new approach to tackling
anti-social behaviour, and it is split across four key areas.
First, there is stronger punishment for perpetrators. We are
cracking down on illegal drugs, making offenders repair the
damage that they cause, increasing financial penalties, and
evicting anti-social tenants. The Opposition cannot seem to make
up their mind on whether or not they want to legalise drugs.
While the leader of the Opposition and the Mayor of London argue
about cannabis decriminalisation, we are getting on with
delivering for the public.
Drugs are harmful to health, well-being and security. They
devastate lives. That is why I have taken the decision to ban
nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, which is currently the
third most-used drug for adults and 16 to 24 year-olds. By doing
so, this Government will put an end to hordes of youths loitering
in parks and littering them with empty canisters. Furthermore,
under our new plan, the police will be able to drug-test
suspected criminals in police custody for a wider range of drugs,
including ecstasy and methamphetamine. They will test offenders
linked to crimes such as violence against women and girls,
serious violence and anti-social behaviour.
We will ensure that the consequences for those committing
anti-social behaviour are toughened up. Our immediate justice
pilots will deliver swift, visible punishment for all those
involved. Offenders will undertake manual reparative work that
makes good the damage suffered by victims. Communities will be
consulted on the type of work undertaken, and that work should
start swiftly—ideally, within 48 hours of a notice from the
police. Whether it is cleaning up graffiti, picking up litter or
washing police cars while wearing high-vis jumpsuits or vests,
those caught behaving anti-socially will feel the full force of
the law.
The upper limits of on-the-spot fines will be increased to £1,000
for fly-tipping and £500 for litter and graffiti. We will support
councils to hand out more fines to offenders, with councils
keeping the fines to reinvest in clean-up and enforcement.
Nobody should have to endure persistent anti-social behaviour
from their neighbours. That is why we plan to halve the delay
between a private landlord serving notice for anti-social
behaviour and eviction. We will also broaden the harmful
activities that can lead to eviction and make sure that
anti-social offenders are deprioritised for social housing.
Secondly, we are making communities safer by increasing police
presence in anti-social behaviour hotspots and replacing the
outdated Vagrancy Act 1824. The evidence is compelling: hotspot
policing, which is where uniformed police spend regular time in
problem areas, reduces crime. That is why we are funding an
increased police presence focused on anti-social behaviour in
targeted hotspots where it is most prevalent. Initially, we will
support pilots in 10 trail-blazer areas, before rolling out
hotspot enforcement across all forces in England and Wales in
2024.
We will also replace the 19th-century Vagrancy Act, which
criminalised the destitute, with tools to direct vulnerable
individuals towards appropriate support, such as accommodation,
mental health or substance misuse services. We will criminalise
organised begging, which is often facilitated by criminal gangs
to obtain cash for illicit activity. We will prohibit begging
where it causes blight or public nuisance, such as by a cashpoint
or in a shop doorway, or directly approaching someone in the
street.
Rough sleeping can cause distress to other members of the
community; for example, by obstructing the entrance of a local
business or leaving behind debris and tents. We will give police
and local authorities the tools they have asked for to deal with
such situations, while ensuring those who are genuinely homeless
are directed towards appropriate help. We will build local pride
in place by giving councils stronger tools to revitalise
communities, bring more empty high-street shops back into use and
restore local parks.
Thirdly, there is prevention and intervention. Around 80% of
prolific adult offenders begin committing crimes as children. We
are funding 1 million more hours of provision for young people in
anti-social behaviour hotspots and expanding eligibility for the
Turnaround programme, which will support 17,000 children on the
cusp of the criminal justice system. Our £500 million national
youth guarantee also means that, by 2025, every young person will
have access to regular clubs, activities and opportunities to
volunteer.
Fourthly, we will improve accountability to the public. A new
digital tool will mean that members of the public have a simple
and clear way to report anti-social behaviour and receive updates
on their case. We are also launching a targeted consultation on
community safety partnerships, with the aim of making them more
accountable and more effective.
This Government are on the side of the law-abiding majority. We
will take the fight to the anti-social minority. This Government
have set out a clear plan and a clear set of measures to do just
that: more police, less crime, safer streets and common-sense
policing. I commend this Statement to the House.”
20:17:00
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Government for their Statement in the other
place. Anti-social behaviour can inflict real misery on people
and communities across the country. Although it is too often
dismissed as low-level crime, persistent and corrosive
anti-social behaviour can leave people feeling unsafe in their
homes and on their streets.
The problem has been getting worse over the past 13 years. Last
year, the police recorded 3,000 incidents of anti-social
behaviour every single day. Criminal damage in town centres has
increased by 30% in the past year, hitting communities and
businesses trying to rebuild after Covid. It is not surprising
then that YouGov has found that a majority of people do not think
that the police take anti-social behaviour seriously enough.
However, the police are having to fight more anti-social crime
with fewer resources. There are 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police
community support officers on the streets now than there were
seven years ago. The number of people who do not see police on
the streets has doubled in the past 10 years. Now, half the
population does not see bobbies on the beat.
Although good work is being done by many officers, repeated cuts
to budgets mean that the officers who are left simply cannot keep
up with the demand. In polling published earlier this week,
YouGov found that, of the one in three people who did not feel
safe in their local area at night, two-thirds cited anti-social
behaviour as one of the reasons. More than half of people
—58%—who felt unsafe said that a lack of police presence
contributed to that feeling.
This Statement contains many measures that we welcome, in large
part because they are what we have been calling for for a number
of years. We welcome the announcements on hotspot policing and
faster community payback, both of which we have long called on
the Government to implement.
This House also raised nitrous oxide with the Minister very
recently, so I am sure that the ban will be welcomed by many
Members. Nitrous oxide presents an increased risk to the health
of young people and creates a litter nuisance, so we welcome this
ban.
However, there is much more that is not mentioned but should be
if the Government want to get serious about reducing anti-social
behaviour. The Statement does not contain more money for youth
service budgets which, according to the YMCA, have been cut by £1
billion since 2010. It does not bring back the drug intervention
network set up to save lives and prevent crime associated with
illegal drug use that has been eroded. It does not deal with the
backlog in community payback schemes, which means millions of
hours of community service work have gone uncompleted. It does
not improve the declining number of people being charged with
criminal damage, nor the decreasing number of community sentences
being handed out. Nor does it provide anything for victims of
anti-social behaviour—victims who are not covered by the victims’
code or the newly published victims Bill.
Perhaps most importantly, the Statement does not mention
neighbourhood policing. Hotspot policing, while welcome and
important in targeting areas where it is most needed, is not a
substitute for long-term neighbourhood policing embedded in
communities. With 1.1 million incidents of anti-social behaviour
occurring in the past year, it is clear that hotspot policing
alone will not touch the sides of the problem.
Dealing with anti-social behaviour effectively means preventing
serious crime later down the line and allowing strong communities
to flourish, but this Statement presents solutions that are too
small and have come too late. Without serious investment in
neighbourhoods and neighbourhood policing, we simply will not see
a reduction in the anti-social behaviour that is causing misery
across the country.
(LD)
My Lords, we on these Benches agree with restorative justice, but
we have to test this plan against what makes good restorative
justice. We know that anti-social behaviour is distressing in
communities, and that it leads to a loss of respect for
communities. I have a sort of déjà vu, because we saw an
experiment of this kind during the Blair Government and I think
that this plan has missed some of the lessons learned from that.
For a restorative justice system and scheme to be successful, we
must recognise that it is complex, expensive and difficult, and
it must meet the ambitions of a truly restorative justice
programme, which has to include things such as catching the
culprits, getting the community view, providing the equipment,
providing appropriately qualified supervision and, crucially,
incentivising success. It must act not just as a deterrent but as
an opportunity.
I will examine some of those issues and question the Minister on
them. Catching the culprits requires a shift in policing
methodology. It means that we have proper community policing.
This is at a time when the number of PCSOs has dramatically
declined right across the country, and this is just the sort of
job they should be doing. The Government have so far failed to
meet their target of 20,000 more police officers, and effective
community policing means putting officers on our streets who are
both visible and trusted. Beyond that, it means providing the
necessary equipment and supervision; think of items to remove
graffiti, sacks for the separation of litter and appropriate
disposal operations, painting equipment, et cetera.
An experience I saw first hand in the 2000s was the danger of
getting larger groups of people to do the same sort of work. I
well remember seeing a group of people with hi-vis jackets, doing
all the things that are in this plan, painting some railings
outside a community hall. There was a minibus full of them, with
one person supervising at one end and another person, who was
supposed to be painting, on his phone at the other end. It was
unclear what support they were getting to ensure that they were
doing the job. If you are going to bring the people who are
making these acts together, you must make sure they are few
enough to be managed well and by the right people.
We think that making nitrous oxide illegal just will not work,
especially when it goes against the advice of the Government’s
own drugs body. It will hand profit and control to serious
criminals. There is a danger here of perhaps confusing the mess
that people make when taking this gas with its usage. One of the
obvious questions I have to ask the Minister is this: we all know
about children, adults as well, and party balloons—the child
holds the string, lets go and asks dad for another one, please.
These balloons are used on a huge number of occasions all around
the country, so we can imagine their purchase becoming a source
of usage as well. Is this a case of a perverse incentive or is
the Minister going to tell us that children’s balloons will be
banned?
I will spend a short moment looking at the costs of a proper
restorative justice system and at the way these figures are laid
out in the action plan. To look at the extra that is being
done—the change from yesterday to today, if you like—we have to
look at the sections in the plan headed
“How we will go further”.
I looked at the amounts in the plan and the figures include £50
million on immediate justice measures. How many extra PCSOs,
police and supervisors will that money provide? Is that £50
million part of the cost of providing the extra police that is
already in the plan to reach the target of 20,000? Is this
additional or part of an existing plan?
The £60 million for hotspot enforcement is obviously very
welcome, but will it reach the whole country, given where these
hotspots are at the moment? If one views the map given in the
plan, one sees that it requires a huge effort to spread this
right across the country. When will the best practice guides on
how they will be operating be published?
Not a penny of extra support for rough sleeping is mentioned.
This country dealt with this matter during Covid and had to spend
quite a bit of money to make it work, but there is not a single
penny of extra money mentioned in that area. Some £2.5 million is
given to improve our high streets and £1 million to improve local
activities across England and Wales. That is for the full rollout
of measures in the next year or so, so the amounts of money given
do not seem to fulfil the plan’s aspirations. Can the Minister
explain how that money provides sufficient resource for a
whole-country rollout, when so much of what is being done already
applies to small, discrete areas dotted around the country?
I am drawn to the conclusion that this plan gives the impression
of not having all the tools necessary to do the job properly. I
am afraid that the Government have put the headline and the
soundbite before the true benefits that a well-resourced
restorative justice plan can provide.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office () (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby and , for their remarks. Since
taking up office, the Prime Minister has been clear that the
people’s priorities are his priorities. That is why, in
delivering on his five promises, he is determined to build
stronger communities and create a better future for people across
the country.
For too long, anti-social behaviour has blighted our
neighbourhoods, making people’s lives a misery and stopping
businesses and individuals from flourishing. As the noble Lord,
Lord Ponsonby, said, this is not just low-level or petty crime,
or kids being kids; it is an attack on the very heart of our
communities. It threatens people’s sense of safety and security
and, as the noble Lord rightly observed, it is a source of
anxiety to many members of the public. That is why we have
launched this plan to crack down on anti-social behaviour: to
restore people’s confidence that these crimes will be quickly and
visibly punished. That means treating it with the urgency it
deserves.
I will answer as many of the questions as I can. As ever, if I
miss any, I will commit to write, having read Hansard properly.
We are on track and on time in recruiting 20,000 additional
police officers by March 2023. All the funding within this
program is additional to that uplift. Assuming we are successful,
that will take us to over 148,000 officers across England and
Wales. That will be the highest number of officers on record.
Since 2019, the Government have invested over £3 billion,
including additional funding each year, and that rolled into
government grants to recruit and support the additional 20,000
officers. We are providing police and crime commissioners with
£22 million next year, and £90 million in 2024-25, to support an
enhanced response to areas most affected by anti-social behaviour
and to roll out immediate justice pilots.
However, as the action plan sets out, local authorities and other
local agencies will also have a key role to play. We expect local
partners to work together to deliver a multiagency approach to
tackling anti-social behaviour and delivering the proposals set
out in the action plan. I feel I should remind noble Lords that
operational policing is a matter for chief constables, and they
set operational priorities in their local areas in association
and consultation with the police and crime commissioners.
Questions about local policing are obviously better directed to
those people who are locally accountable.
This plan is backed by over £160 million of funding. Up to £60
million will fund increased police and other uniformed presence
to clamp down on this behaviour, including targeting the
hotspots, as referred to by the noble Lord, . Although he did not ask me, I
reassure him that this will not impinge on any of the spending
that currently goes into the pilot areas for things such as
violence reduction units and GRIPs. This method of policing has
been proven to work in other areas, and we expect success from
the hotspot areas that we will pilot. The intention is for it to
go to 10 police force areas.
I move on to the subject of immediate justice. We are planning on
investing £50 million to support the provision of immediate
justice by issuing out-of-court disposals with conditions to
swiftly repair any damage. The aim will be for them to start
within 48 hours of the offence. This will start in 10 initial
trail-blazer police force areas and be rolled out nationally in
2024.
I heard what the noble Lord, , had to say on the subject of
making this efficient. The Government are aware of all of his
concerns. There is no denying that the delivery of this program
will be complex, but it is definitely worth doing. It is aimed at
diverting offenders away from the criminal justice system and
will make them undertake practical, reparative activity to make
good the loss or damage sustained by victims. It will be rolled
out to all police force areas in 2024-25. The focus will be on
reparative activity, but that may be undertaken alongside
rehabilitative and restorative services that foster connection
with the local community, and educational interventions. It will
apply primarily to adults and young people in receipt of
conditional cautions for ASB-related offences under the
out-of-court disposal framework. I am quite sure that all noble
Lords will agree that keeping people out of the criminal justice
system as far as possible is a desirable outcome.
The noble Lord, , asked about banning nitrous
oxide and pointed out that, in its recent report, the ACMD did
not recommend that we criminalise this. That is true, but we take
the broader context into account. There are health concerns with
young people using nitrous oxide. As I said at the Dispatch Box a
couple of weeks ago, it was an offence under the Psychoactive
Substances Act to supply knowing that it would be used for these
purposes. This gives the police the opportunity to confiscate or
take possession of the drugs. I do not think that there is a
particular intention to criminalise the lots of young people who
use it. I reassure the noble Lord that his balloons will not be
banned—there will be exceptions for legitimate users. We talked
about some of those the other week, and they include medical,
dental and apparently whipped cream producers—which amused me at
the time but did not seem to amuse the House. Everybody should be
reassured that this is the right thing to do. I note that the
only other country to have criminalised this so far is Holland.
The Dutch did so because they discovered that it was having a
fairly significant impact on drug-driving. There are good reasons
for doing what the Government have chosen to do, despite the
advice—which I might add did not say that we should not do it—of
the ACMD.
There was a good deal of discussion about youth services, and I
will go into a little more detail on some of the things that we
are doing. As part of the national youth guarantee, we will
invest over £500 million to provide high-quality local youth
services so that, by 2025, every young person will have access to
regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home and
opportunities to volunteer. That directly reflects young people’s
priorities, and includes up to 300 new and refurbished youth
spaces delivered through the Youth Investment Fund. We are also
giving councils the resources they need to deliver important
local services, with an additional £3.7 billion, which will not
be ring-fenced, made available for things such as youth services.
I could say more on this subject, and I am sure that I will be
asked more on it.
Finally, the noble Lord, , asked me about the fact that
he could not find any funding dedicated to rough sleeping and
high streets. As I said in my opening remarks, this is a
multiagency approach and there are many ways to tackle these
problems. The high street in particular, and things such as the
empty dwellings Act and the tenant Act, do not really require
vast amounts of investment; they just require some new thinking,
and that is what the Government are doing.
(Lab)
Before the noble Lord sits down, I have a question. When he
talked about out-of-court disposals, which we approve of in
principle, he used three words: reparative, rehabilitative and
restorative. Traditionally, those three things are managed by
probation, YOTs, charities or NGOs. On the reparative activity in
particular, which, from what the Minister said, is hoped to be
done within 48 hours, who will manage that part of the process?
It is different from what that group of agencies does at the
moment.
(Con)
The noble Lord asks a very good question. I note that none of
those three words is easy to pronounce, particularly not at the
Dispatch Box. As I said in my answer about the high streets and
so on, it is a multiagency approach. A number of different
agencies will be involved on a case-by-case basis. It depends on
the circumstances of the case. It may be that there are
opportunities for drug referrals or maybe other things. I cannot
be more specific at this point, but I am sure I will be able to
update him in due course on the more precise details.
20:37:00
(Con)
My Lords, like other noble Lords I welcome the Statement, but
does my noble friend recognise that there is a connection between
absence from school and anti-social behaviour? The figures for
the last 12 months indicate that 27% of secondary school children
were persistently absent—the “ghost children” we have been
reading about recently. As part of the multiagency plan that my
noble friend referred to, will he be in touch with the DfE to
ensure that more is done to promote school attendance and thereby
reduce the risk of children coming into contact with the judicial
system?
(Con)
My noble friend raises a very good point. I have read some of the
articles about the so-called ghost children with similar alarm
and concern. I have spoken to the Department for Education about
this; it has asked me to stress that it is worried about these
stories as well. Without being an expert on this, I can say that
there are three strands to its work. The Secretary of State
regularly attends an attendance alliance. I am afraid that I
cannot give much more detail about it because I do not know much
more about it, but it is very good that the Secretary of State is
taking this as seriously as I have been told. Local registers are
being set up. They are voluntary. The intention is to collect
data on the estimates from local authorities as to how many
children are “ghost status”, if you will. We are also using
certain specialists that exist in multi-academy trusts.
Apparently they are very good at collecting some of this data on
missing children and they are advising in areas where there seems
to be a particular problem. If I can enhance that answer in any
way over the coming days, I will certainly do so.
The Lord
My Lords, I declare my interest as vice-chair of the Children’s
Society. I read the Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan with real
interest. Criminalising young people through tackling anti-social
behaviour is counterproductive, not least given the pressures on
the criminal justice system. I am therefore pleased to see a
focus on preventive work with at-risk and vulnerable children
with expanded funding for youth offending teams, for example. Can
the Minister commit to look again at a definition of child
criminal exploitation that recognises the abuse and manipulation
of vulnerable children, which catches them up into what can
become quite horrific spirals of crime? Such a definition would
offer them greater protection.
(Con)
I take what the right reverend Prelate says very seriously. She
raised very interesting points. She will appreciate that it is
above my pay grade to commit to look at definitions and so on,
but I will certainly take that back and make sure that
discussions are advanced on the subject.
(GP)
My Lords, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local
Government Association. Paragraph 71 of the Anti-Social Behaviour
Action Plan refers to the youth investment fund, which it says
is
“investing over £300 million in … new and refurbished
facilities”.
Can the Minister confirm a report this afternoon from Civil
Society that said that the Department for Culture, Media and
Sport has, given the “challenging financial climate”, just given
£31 million of what was previously a £380 million capital fund
for this programme back to the Treasury? This programme was
announced as a £500 million plan in 2019 by the then Chancellor,
. Can the Minister confirm that
this is indeed a cut in the provision for this capital programme?
Further, can the Minister comment on the fact that local
authority spending on youth clubs in 2020-21 was £379 million—a
74% real cut over the previous decade? How will the Government be
able to deliver on this plan without youth clubs, which are an
important way of involving young people and children in
communities, giving them a place to go and a route towards the
future?
(Con)
I can neither confirm nor deny the first part of the noble
Baroness’s question because I have not seen the report, so I do
not have detailed knowledge of the situation to which she refers.
I go back to my answer in my initial remarks, which is that 1
million extra hours of youth services are planned under this
programme. We will invest over £500 million to provide
high-quality local youth services so that, by 2025, every young
person will have access to regular clubs and activities,
adventures away from home and opportunities to volunteer—the sort
of life-enriching stuff that we would probably all take for
granted. I hope they make the most of those opportunities.
(GP)
My Lords, on a different subject, the Statement refers to
cracking down on illegal drugs. This would seem to be entirely
going against the advice of the National Police Chiefs’ Council,
which in December was recommending the extension nationwide of
its very successful schemes piloted in Durham and Thames Valley
where, instead of prosecuting users of hard drugs such as heroin,
cocaine and ecstasy, users were offered access to addiction
services. At that time, when the Government were talking about
being harsher on drug users, the Association of Directors of
Public Health wrote to the Government to protest at the plan to
criminalise the vulnerable and double down on a failed model. Has
the war on drugs not clearly failed over decades? Why are the
Government not taking advice from experts and the police on the
direction of travel on how to deal with what is clearly a huge
blight on the lives of individuals and on communities?
(Con)
My Lords, it sounds to me as if the noble Baroness is asking
whether we should decriminalise or go in that direction. We have
no plans to do so. Our approach on drugs remains clear. We must
prevent drug use in our community, support people through
treatment and recovery and tackle the supply of illegal drugs.
There is a substantial body of scientific and medical evidence to
show that controlled drugs are harmful and can damage people’s
mental and physical health and our wider communities. The
decriminalisation of drugs in the UK would not eliminate the
crime committed by the illicit trade, nor would it address the
harms associated with drug dependence or the misery it can cause.
Of course we take the plight of addicts seriously, and I do not
think anything in this anti-social behaviour plan will make life
harder for them. The point is to go after the anti-social
behaviour; it is about the behaviour, not their plight.
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