---

Antisocial Behaviour

My hon. Friend is, perhaps, letting Labour Ministers off a little lightly, because the situation in Hampshire is even worse than that which he describes in Avon and Somerset. Hampshire constabulary made announcements on PCSOs and carried on hiring them at a time when the Home Office had decided to cut them back by a third—from a total of 536, I believe. That happened even after community groups had been consulted—as I understand was also the case in Avon and Somerset—and after the PCSOs had been hired and had started patrolling the areas to which they had been allocated. They were making an extremely useful contribution to tackling antisocial behaviour in my constituency—for example, in Eastleigh town.