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Antisocial Behaviour

Thank you for calling me, Mr. Deputy Speaker; I appreciate that four Members wish to speak in the next 30 minutes. Like many other Members, I should like to address the Minister with some advice based on anecdotal evidence. Having been a Member of Parliament for the past four years, I have had experiences like those of many other Members and I hope that what I say will help the Minister to come to some sort of solution to the problems that many of us have addressed. I want to begin by congratulating not only Essex police as a whole, but my local police in Braintree and Witham; I am thinking not only of full-time police officers, but of specials and police community support officers. Against the backdrop of there being an attack on individuals every 30 seconds in this country, we have seen locally a reduction in the number of incidents of antisocial behaviour. My local police are to be congratulated on that. The problems, however, are numerous. I have five children, and I would not bring any of them into Braintree town centre on a Friday or Saturday night. I would rather take them to the cinema in Freeport, which is at the edge of Braintree, because the town centre has almost become a no-go zone—whether because of the binge drinking or the youths congregating and looking aggressive. It all becomes intimidating, not only for people wanting to bring their families to the town centre, but for the elderly as well. That is the first problem. The second problem is the 24-hour drinking culture that has developed. I had a meeting with my local police chief in Braintree recently, and he commented on the fixed-price, all-in drink promotions. He said that they did not bode well for a reduction in "antisocial behaviour"; he actually used that phrase. The police are very cognisant that the drinking culture, including the cheap alcopops and 24-hour drinking, is a major cause of antisocial behaviour. Youths congregate not only in the town centre, but in the estates and villages, and the problem is not only the fact that they congregate. A number of times, particularly last summer, I have gone out to talk to the young in the town centres and estates, asking them what the problems are. The problems are twofold. First, there are no community centres for them to go to anymore. There were community centres in Braintree 10 or 15 years ago, but now they just do not exist; all the areas have been developed as a result of the pressure for house building and so on. There are not even simple things such as shelters. My council did build a wooden shelter, but a week later the whole thing was torched and it was there no more. The council is now trying to build shelters out of metal, which cannot burn down. Village greens have become centres for drug dealing. During the 2001 election—sadly, I did not win a seat—I distinctly remember speaking against my Labour opponent in Silver End. We were discussing antisocial behaviour and the drug culture, and the audience started laughing because through the window at the back could be seen a youth on a moped dealing drugs with kids from the local village. Village greens also face the problem of antisocial behaviour. There is also the issue of disruptive vehicles. When it is otherwise empty, in the early hours of the morning, Freeport becomes a go-cart centre—people skid their cars around there. The right hon. Member for Salford (Hazel Blears) mentioned motorbikes. I had a meeting up at Cornish Hall End, a small village at the north end of my constituency. On Saturdays and Sundays people there have problems, and not only with young people. Mature adults race their motorbikes through the village. Motorcyclists read that if they zoom through Cornish Hall End and on to Finchingfield, they get a very good run. That is highly disruptive and antisocial to people in those villages. Then there is the major issue of schools. As I am sure that many of us hear when we go to meet our local headmasters, a small minority of children are disruptive and antisocial and cause problems for the vast majority of children. The hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) talked about noisy neighbours. Every single week when I hold my surgeries, I get at least one or two people who come in and talk about noisy neighbours. That becomes very frustrating, whether it relates to loud music or arguing and shouting. What about the concept of neighbourliness? I say, "Can you talk to your neighbour?", and they say, "Yes, we do, but they simply won't listen, and the noise and abuse goes on." When I meet elderly people, including members of Braintree pensioners action group, they often say that fear of crime, not necessarily crime itself, is a major issue in terms of antisocial behaviour. I live in a semi-rural area with isolated village communities where many people live alone, including elderly people, and this issue is brought to me time and again. The town centre of Braintree, in particular, and Witham, to a certain extent, have become no-go areas at the weekend. That takes up a great deal of police time. The police keep telling me how much time they spend on form-filling and transporting drunks and people who are behaving badly. It is similar to the situation in schools, where a few badly behaved children can impact on the learning of the many. So what are the solutions? Locally in Braintree we have a mixture of community initiatives and enforcement. We have hard-line policing policies at closing times. We have two alcohol-free zones. We have street pastors on Friday nights who work independently of the police; I congratulate them on the work that they do. We have a term-time roadshow that interacts with children of all ages. In the past year, there has been a reality show attended by about 1,500 children aged 13 and 14 to try to equip them to deal with the problems that they will encounter. That issue was raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). We have had Operation Marple, whereby the police go around not only confiscating alcohol from minors but trying to provide solutions by finding alternative activities for them. It is not merely a question of punishment but of trying to figure out ways to engage with and help the young children in our community. The schools in my area have done a tremendous job in improving behaviour. I congratulate those at Maltings academy and Rickstones academy in Witham, Tabor school, Notley school and Alec Hunter college, including the heads, for the excellent work that they have done, particularly in the past couple of years, in reducing antisocial behaviour in their schools. When I have gone out with the police, they have targeted hotspots. When I meet small community groups, I tell them that they must report it to the police when there is a problem because the police can then target those hotspots over time and reduce antisocial behaviour in those areas. Most important of all, there is a need for greater police visibility, especially on the estates and in the villages. I congratulate the PCSOs on the excellent work that they do in trying to reduce the fear of crime and on interacting with the community. On a national level, the police must be freed up from at least the perception, if not the reality, of red tape and bureaucracy that keeps them off the street: we want them on the street, as we have heard from many Members on both sides of the House. The police should have the power to remove, not just to disperse troublemakers. As the Conservative Treasury team have said, the price of alcopops should be increased as a way of reducing antisocial behaviour. There also need to be tighter curfew orders against persistent offenders. Most important of all, parents have to take responsibility. That was stressed by the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins). If no other message comes from today's debate, we must point the finger at parents and say, "You have a responsibility for your own children." Finally, I draw the Minister's attention to the good work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) and the Centre for Social Justice on tackling the causes of antisocial behaviour and the breakdown of Britain today.