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Antisocial Behaviour

I welcome this debate on antisocial behaviour—a problem that blights too many communities across the country and one that has a marked impact on the quality of people's lives, the confidence people have in their own communities and their sense of safety. The Minister himself mentioned these factors in his opening comments. I need to take the Minister to task, however, over what he said in that opening statement about the Government's sustained or continued approach. Given that on the Home Secretary's own admission, the Government have been "coasting on" for some time, that amounts to a serious indictment of their record on an issue that we were told—we have been again this afternoon—was a priority. It all seems a far cry from the promise of the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid) when he said:""We should and will be unremitting in our efforts to drive up standards of behaviour and enforce a culture of respect, for the benefit of all."" Yet we know that the Government's own neighbourhood crime adviser, Louise Casey acknowledged that the Government had "let people down" on crime and antisocial behaviour. If today's newspaper reports are true, Sara Payne, the Government's victims champion will warn later this week that the Government need to take antisocial behaviour "a lot more seriously". Apparently, the current Home Secretary believes that tackling antisocial behaviour has been a good idea that the Government had simply stopped talking about—hence today's debate to talk about antisocial behaviour. It puts me in mind of the comments in the "Respect Handbook", which notes:""Communicating action taken is as important as taking action"." In some ways, the problem has been too much talking and not enough doing.