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Antisocial Behaviour

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. It is all a matter of greater accountability and making sure that once boxes have been ticked, a case is not pushed off to someone else and does not disappear from sight. A number of colleagues have made reference to that. I close with one final issue. It is an old chestnut, but the older I get, the more true I think it is. Once we start to deconstruct authority, what do we put in its place? Not long ago there was an automatic assumption that the teacher was always right, the head was always right, the policeman was always right, and the adult was always right in any situation where there was a conflict of opinion with a child. It was rough justice, but there was certainty. Now we know that adults are flawed and make flawed decisions, but we have so deconstructed authority that we have taken away the certainty that the old system provided and put nothing in its place. Instead of certainty with a bit of rough justice, we have uncertainty with a lot more justice, and a lot more people losing out because that authority and that sense of certainty have gone. There is a continuum in the deconstruction of authority that leads to people feeling, "I can do what I like, because I can challenge anyone I like and I will get away with it. It will take the system so long to catch up with me that I can do what I please." That is how people feel that a sense of justice has slipped out of the system. It has been cumulative over a long period. From what Labour Members have said, it seems that they have not quite been able to deal with that. It will thus fall to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench to do so when they get the chance.