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Antisocial Behaviour

I listened to my hon. Friend’s question with great interest. The chief constable of Essex is a good and robust officer, and I imagine that he would be keen to take action against gang leaders. I hope to have a meeting with him shortly, and I shall be interested to hear his explanation. In the context of the Serious Crime Bill, we will hear the Government’s proposals for taking action against serious criminals. We will have to examine closely the extent to which that will substitute for proper action that results in offences being taken to court. Just such a substitution has happened in relation to more minor crimes and antisocial behaviour. The Respect action plan concedes that alcohol misuse is a driver of antisocial behaviour, but it has almost nothing to say about how to deal with the problem. Perhaps that is not surprising given that the head of the Respect taskforce supported binge drinking on the grounds that"““Doing things sober is no way to get things done.””" Figures published in June 2006 show that the percentage of people saying that they have a ““very”” or ““fairly”” big problem with drunken or rowdy behaviour in public places in their area increased from 23 per cent. in July 2004-05 to 25 per cent. in July 2005-06. We know that 70 per cent. of peak-time accident and emergency admissions are alcohol-related. We all know the problems faced in our communities—whether rural or urban—from drunken and disorderly behaviour, which blights people’s lives, especially on Friday and Saturday evenings. We shall have to see whether the Government’s deregulation of licensing hours was a sensible response to the problem, but we already know that the Minister’s predecessor, the former Respect Minister, now the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for Salford (Hazel Blears), is deeply pessimistic. She blames the ““Anglo-Saxon mentality”” and says that people ““enjoy getting drunk””. Perhaps they do, but the communities that suffer the consequences do not enjoy it, and any serious plan to address antisocial behaviour should address the problem of binge drinking.