---

Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill

My hon. Friend is right: the Bill is disproportionate and unfair. In an intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South mentioned the displacement of crime from burglary to street robbery. Well, that may happen anyway if we are able to bear down on the incidence of burglary; indeed, there has been a rise in street crime as a consequence of the fact that burglary has become a more difficult crime to commit. The problem with the Bill is that it may drive people further into that type of criminal behaviour. I mentioned previously the problem of displacement from properties where the householder may be thought to have weapons to defend himself to the home of a little old lady who could not defend herself. The Bill would inevitably lead to such displacement, and my hon. Friend is right to say that there will also be displacement from burglary to street robbery, perhaps as an alternative way of funding a drug habit. Obviously, we have to deal with street crime, too, but the Bill does not provide the same protection for victims of street robbery as it does for the lord in his castle.