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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I have considerable sympathy with these amendments, in line with the growing concern about the disproportionate imposition of anti-social behaviour orders. For example, in the paper last week, there was talk about an anti-social behaviour order that, if carried out, would have prevented a youngster from travelling anywhere on public transport for the foreseeable future. That cannot make sense. There is a much underused aspect of this: the community impact order, which involves such things as prevalent offences. Quite often the development of anti-social behaviour in neighbourhoods that leads to this sort of closure might benefit from a wider perspective rather than the draconian imposition of the closure of an accommodation with all the consequences that the noble Lord mentioned, particularly on young and elderly people. Although one can sympathise with the reasoning behind that imposition, I hope that the way in which the anti-social behaviour order is carried out—proceeding, therefore, with the Government’s line—will be looked at more closely before being confirmed in the Bill.