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Antisocial Behaviour

I am sure that my right hon. Friend is right. Such measures are worth implementing. However, I hope that he will forgive me for not going too far down that road, apart from by agreeing with him, because although we have tried a lot of measures and we can try more—they can have some success—I get the message that that approach is not curing the underlying problem. The message for a Government of any party is that while simply trying that approach might help, it will not bring about a cure, because that lies somewhere other than such lists of measures. The way towards the cure lies with serious thinking, rather than hyperactivity. We need long-term thinking. Although we can learn lessons from looking back at what we have tried, which has not been perfect, we must also look forward towards tackling the problem in a different way. Antisocial behaviour is not a short-term problem that can be dealt with by a short-term fix. Our thinking must be wide-ranging. Antisocial behaviour is not just the troublesome activities on that short list that are carried out by a few. Although being self-centred and disregarding others do not appear on anyone’s list, they are just as antisocial as anything on a list that any Government have come up with. Our thinking needs to switch so that it focuses on the causes just as much as, if not more than, on the symptoms. Antisocial behaviour does not just happen, but develops over time. Paradoxically, society itself has helped to create the antisocial behaviour that we are trying to tackle. The behaviour of all individuals, including everyone in the Chamber, owes a huge amount to the values, standards, attitudes and priorities of the society in which they were born and grew up.