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Policing and Crime Bill

That idea is much less insidious than a high-pitched noise. I still take issue over the fact that the device is discriminatory, because it is not just young people who commit antisocial offences. Furthermore, young people who happen to be sleeping in the proximity of one of those things can be kept awake. Will the Minister consider whether there should be some form of regulation for such devices? At present, they are available, through the company I mentioned and certain foreign companies, only to police authorities and local authorities. I am glad that my police authority in Sussex has stopped using them, as have many other authorities, but I gather that we are soon likely to be flooded with much cheaper devices from China, which will be available in DIY shops for any householder to put up in the vicinity of their house. That is deeply worrying. My next point is about how we deal with young people and the media perceptions of them; 70 per cent. of media stories about young people are negative, dealing mostly with antisocial behaviour and crime. The Bill says little that is positive about young people. Clause 1 is about the duty of police authorities in relation to public accountability, and inserts in the Police Act 1996 the provision that police authorities when discharging their functions must have regard to the views of the public concerning policing. How will that affect children and young people? Whenever we go to public meetings organised by the police, the usual suspects are there, and they usually get up and say, ““It's all down to young people running riot in my community.”” Under the Bill, the police must have particular regard to the policing priorities that come up in such consultation exercises, so can the Minister reassure me by telling me which provisions will take account of the feelings and wishes of children and young people? They are equally entitled to decent policing. They form 20 per cent. of the population and, as we have seen from the Government's youth crime action plan, suffer a high instance of being victims of crime. How will the proposals in the Bill reflect and protect the particular requirements of children and young people? There are provisions on the selling and procuring of alcohol for young people, but I want to make a couple of other quick points. The first is about gangs. We all know that we have a problem with gangs—often in our inner cities—who have access to knives, guns and drugs. I am glad that the Government have taken a number of measures, within those 66 pieces of legislation, to increase the penalties and clamp down on that, but what I hear in our inner cities is that those gangs are using younger children to act as the carriers of guns, knives and drugs. They are recruiting those younger children, who are known as soldiers. Courts are more lenient with younger children, so the gangs recruit them to do their dirty work. Many people might appreciate it if inciting a child to commit a crime resulted in a stiffer penalty than undertaking the crime itself. That is another thought that the Minister might consider. Again, too many people are cleverly getting round the law, and we need to close off all those possibilities for people to flout the law. The Minister would expect me to make one last point about cannabis cafés. One clause deals with closure orders for brothels, and we should have easier ways to put closure orders on cannabis cafés. I have waxed lyrical about the cannabis café in my constituency, which is still functioning, but a trial is pending, so I will not go into my constituency case in detail. However, when a premises is masquerading as a café, offering office space, when it has a reinforced roof, concrete-filled tyres in rows to reinforce its perimeter, razor wire around the premises, concrete bollards and height gantries to restrict vehicle entry, when it has no planning permission for a change of use, when it has had no health and safety inspections and no disability access requirements, and is not paying business rates, should that place be in business? Yet it is flouting the law, sticking two fingers up at the law and causing people in a residential area mayhem and misery. How on earth can a business that claims to be an innocent café or renter of office space justify needing such fortifications to go about its business?