Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the powerful speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay).

The shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), described the Bill as a Christmas tree Bill. In keeping with the theme of Christmas, let me start on a positive note and address one of the Bill’s good features—clause 134 on the new protection arrangements for persons at risk. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 states that specific groups of people, such as witnesses and jurors, are protected if their safety is at risk from criminal conduct. The Bill extends that further to anyone whose safety may be at risk from another person’s possible or actual criminal conduct, meaning family members and others who will have close contact with that person. That is an extremely valuable addition.

I am rather more concerned about other aspects of the Bill. The Home Secretary dismissed ASBOs a little too readily. She spoke of how they became a “badge of honour” to some people. I suspect that in three years’ time, we may be sitting here deliberating how CBOs and CPIs have become badges of honour in certain quarters. To me, that is not the point. The point is that ASBOs worked successfully in many areas. It was only the breach of them that was a criminal offence. That made them very powerful. They were not and should not have been the only tool.

With the criminal behaviour order and the crime prevention injunction, I am concerned that the police and local authorities must pay to pursue civil proceedings against the person. I worry that in these straitened times the incentives may not be there to go ahead with the orders and injunctions in circumstances where the police or local authorities would otherwise have been required to do so.

There are long and large debates to be had about CCTV, but we are living on planet Zog if we do not recognise its importance in detecting crime around the country. If CCTV is not used by the police and local authorities, we will see the proliferation of its use privately, which is surely not something that we want. I am concerned that under the Bill it be more costly and difficult for the police and local authorities to have CCTV.

Thirdly, the shadow Home Secretary was right when she spoke about community resolution, restorative justice and domestic violence. Although there are many instances of community resolution and restorative justice being very powerful, we do not want the danger of a situation in which victims of domestic violence are coerced into a settlement being put in place, because time and again that is not what happens. I urge the Government to consider that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) spoke of a register for police and crime commissioners. That is a very good idea, especially if it means that my police and crime commissioner registers the fact that he is a Liberal Democrat, which he seemed to forget to put on the ballot paper.

More seriously, the point that the shadow Home Secretary made about firearms was absolutely right. Although the proposals in the Bill are welcome, the Home Secretary needs to do more to stop people with a history of domestic violence owning a gun. I hope that the Government consider carefully who should have a gun licence. I say that as somebody who comes from a rural constituency and who met two game shooters on Friday night and got on to this subject. Responsible gun ownership in rural areas is totally different from firearms crime. We must have zero tolerance of it and the law must be much stricter about the possibility of people with a history of domestic violence owning a gun.

Finally, I turn to the horrific subject of forced marriage. The new criminal offences in the Bill are welcome. As someone who thankfully has not encountered this issue through my casework and has only read about it, I fear that one of the great problems is that we are dealing with non-equal relationships and vulnerability. The work of community groups, support networks and third-sector groups is crucial. I worry about how justice is to be obtained. Somebody who has been put in what must be one of the most horrific situations will hardly just pick up the phone, dial 999 and say, “I’m sorry, I have a problem. I’m in a forced marriage.” Justice in this area will not come cheap. I fear the effect of the cuts to women’s refuges, legal aid and especially legal aid practitioners of particular ethnic and cultural backgrounds in whom people are more likely to confide.

Will the staff who deal with those issues be back or front-office staff? At first, one thinks that they would have to be front-office staff. However, I asked that very question of the Home Office. I asked

“whether operators who respond to 999 emergency calls and 101 non-emergency calls to the police are classified as front-line or back-office.”

I was told by the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice:

“As such, some of the activities involved in call handling and control room functions are considered to be ‘front-line’”

but that

“Some call handling and control room functions are considered in HMIC’s report as public facing ‘middle office’ roles.”—[Official Report, 29 October 2012; Vol. 552, c. 72W.]

If we are not talking specifically about front-line police, I worry that the police who deal with people who are reporting forced marriages may be extremely vulnerable to cuts.

This is a Christmas tree of a Bill; a Christmas tree of suggestions. I hope, especially on the issue of gun ownership and domestic violence, that the Minister will respond.