Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones). I recognise some of the points she raised, and her point about police commissioners and the so-called “independence tag” is one to which I am rather sympathetic.

This has been a wide-ranging and interesting debate thus far. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) for her comments on dangerous dogs. As chairman of the Pet Advisory Committee, a group of companion animal welfare charities, I am sympathetic to the points she raised. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who spoke powerfully on the issue of forced marriage.

It is welcome that the Opposition will not be voting against the Bill on Second Reading. I have listened to their overall concerns, but it is good to take advice and support from one’s own police force. Kent police have supported the Bill’s broad approach, saying that the streamlined and simplified toolkit approach to antisocial behaviour is to be welcomed, particularly as it provides a system that would enhance enforcement and make information sharing among partners easier, so I feel it would be wrong of me to disagree with my own police force.

I would like to concentrate on parts 1 to 5, in the light of comments on bullying made by the Home Secretary. She said:

“The Bill aims to diminish the extent to which honest and hard-working people are preyed on by criminals and by bullies who show no regard for the basic rules of civilised living.”—[Official Report, 9 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 168.]

I am a signatory to the BeatBullying campaign to introduce Ayden’s law. The campaign was established by the families of 10 children who took their lives as a result of bullying, the BeatBullying charity and The Sun newspaper’s justice campaigner, Shy Keenan, who lost her son Ayden to bullying. One aspect of the campaign is to try to get justice for victims through legislation. There are other aspects, such as community protection to provide support for victims and families, making sure there is an interventionist approach to working with the perpetrators, providing support to local schools and communities to tackle bullying, and a compulsory support programme aimed at parents who persistently bully and intimidate others.

There is a concern, which I understand, about whether Ayden’s law would too quickly criminalise our youngsters. However, a compromise measure could be introduced through some of the clauses already in the Bill. It is too easy to say that bullying should be dealt with at school, or that it is the responsibility of parents. Evidence shows that the worst, most insidious cases of bullying take place not just at school, but on local transport, social media, via text messages and in areas beyond the school gate.

We know that 44% of suicides committed by young people in the UK are connected to bullying; that one in three of our children are victims of cyber-bullying; that one in 13 experience persistent and intentional cyber-bullying; that one in 20 have resorted to self-harm; that 3% have reported a suicide attempt because of bullying; and that 42% of children in secondary school have been bullied. I have become interested in this issue because, as the House knows, I am still heavily involved in girls’ football, and I speak regularly to teenage girls about their concerns—issues that they might not raise with their parents, peers or school teachers—and one of those is bullying in school. Sometimes they feel they cannot speak to anybody about it or that, if they do, nothing will be done, so we should use the Bill to strengthen the measures in place to tackle bullying.

I know that many are concerned about criminalising youngsters by introducing a new offence, but perhaps we should look at other countries’ experiences. Unsurprisingly, Sweden led the way by introducing legislation on bullying. It did not go as far as making it a criminal offence, but it made it illegal for a school not to act. Recently, South Africa and New Zealand have introduced anti-bullying legislation, as too have 49 states in America. It is unsurprising that Sweden has led the way, because it has a world-renowned bullying expert whose research found that those who have been bullies are 60% more likely to commit a crime by the age of 24. Tackling this at a young age, then, could prevent people from entering the criminal justice system later in life.

I said we could use the Bill to come up with a compromise. By that, I meant that the injunctions in the Bill could be used to impose positive requirements, as well as prohibitions, on youngsters who are bullying, thereby providing an opportunity for professionals to intercede and provide support, such as courses—provided by the likes of BeatBullying and others—and family intervention, which is all part of the campaign around Ayden’s law. As the injunctions do not result in a criminal record, they give us an opportunity to state in the Bill that bullying could have legal consequences while still providing the opportunity for the bully to change their behaviour.

That would be a good compromise for those wary of criminalising youngsters: people would have the opportunity to change their behaviour, but if they failed to do so, they could and should then enter the criminal justice system at a later stage. I recognise the issues associated with the definition of bullying, but those could be worked through, particularly as we know that youngsters are now being subjected to constant abuse, often over social media. This is a real opportunity, then, and I would like to work with the Minister to take the matter forward and potentially introduce amendments making it clear that, as the Home Secretary said a few months ago in her opening remarks about the Bill, bullying is unacceptable in a civilised society.

I want to make two further points. I am chair of the all-party group on alcohol misuse, and, as the Minister will be aware, many of the representations sent to MPs in advance of the Bill mentioned the cost of alcohol misuse to our front-line services, particularly the time the police spend dealing with people misusing alcohol on our streets and in our town centres at weekends—and, indeed, in domestic violence situations, as the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said. The Bill is an opportunity, then, to strengthen the measures and give the police the tools they need to tackle the issue. I recognise that the Home Office is looking through the alcohol strategy consultation and will, I hope, come forward with some proposals, but this Bill is potentially another opportunity for it to do so.

The final issue I want to raise might sound a bit silly compared with the other two, but it is something I feel passionately about. This Bill could have addressed the issue of bogus charity bags, which is a growing crime that we face in society. This is not just about the cost of a bag of clothes; it is about giving people confidence that the clothes they put outside their houses for charity are being delivered to charity, and that they are not being taken advantage of by those intent on criminal behaviour. Kent police has worked hard to deal with the issue, partly because I have badgered it into submission. Kent police is keen to ensure that the county becomes bogus bag-free and is using all the agencies, partly because it recognises that organised crime can lie behind bogus charity bags, which quite often mask other criminal activities. The money raised goes into much more serious crimes. The police in my area feel that if they can nip that in the bud at an early stage, it will save them a lot more time and grief in the long run.

That is some food for thought for the Minister. I hope he will consider adding other issues to the Bill. Bullying is a key part of that, but we also need a statement of intent on alcohol misuse, and I would like much tougher action taken on bogus charity bag collectors.