Violent Crime Reduction Bill

I join the tributes to the two hon. Members who made their maiden speeches. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Lynda Waltho) paid an elegant tribute to Debra Shipley, and I am sure that many hon. Members who have been friends with Debra very much appreciated her words. One reason why I particularly welcome the Bill—I take issue with the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) in this respect—is that it deals with the type of violent crime that my constituents experience most and that causes them most concern. Mercifully, most of them are not the victims of some of the very serious crimes, such as murder, but many of them experience crimes that result from alcohol, or if they do not experience them, it is because they are frightened by them and keep out of the town centre. Tackling alcohol-related crime will have a huge impact on the quality of life of many of my constituents and, indeed, on the environment that they enjoy. I want to talk about the measures on binge drinking, but I also want to ask my right hon. Friend the Minister whether she might say something about so-called happy slapping. The Bill contains a measure about mobile phones, but it is very restricted and I want to ask her some questions about that. I shall deal first with binge drinking. I warmly welcome the proposals on alcohol disorder zones. I have been convinced of the need for such zones since going out on the beat with the Northamptonshire police in the town centre a good number of years ago, when I saw huge pressures on the police as a result of the weak management of late-night drinking in the town centre. One night, there were 13 or 14 arrests, which is probably the equivalent of a small riot, and young people suffered serious injuries. Of course, the town centre becomes a complete no-go area for anyone over the age of 25, in a family group or not either very drunk or interested in getting drunk. The issues that have arisen in many of our town centres have been caused by weak approaches by the drinks industry, sometimes a lack of thought in town-centre design by the local authority—my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge referred to that in discussing her constituency—and, of course, the attitudes of young people to drink. Quite a few hon. Members mentioned the issue of fashion in crime. All those issues need to be tackled. On the drinks industry, a number of hon. Members talked about the state of the insides of venues and the fact that there is nothing to do other than stand up and drink. There is a lack of mix in entertainment and, in particular, a lack of food. Going around some of the venues that must make provision for eating as part of their licence, one commonly finds that the restaurant is shut for one reason or another. The hon. Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway) talked about people standing and drinking. He struggled to think of what else they were doing and then said that they were enjoying themselves. In some venues, one wonders how much of what is going on is enjoyment and how much is just drinking for the sake of it. The management of young people by club staff is also a major issue. Young people go into such places, have as much alcohol poured down their throats as possible and are then chucked out on to the street, thereby creating an immediate problem that the police must deal with. It seems completely inappropriate that the police should have to manage that, which is one reason why alcohol disorder zones are so important. I take issue with hon. Members who have criticised the new licensing laws. Although I probably err on the side of wanting to see less drinking, the new licensing laws give local authorities more flexibility to think carefully about how they will stagger the opening and closing hours, thus raising issues that they have not considered before, such as the mix of business and how to provide licences. Roads and transport are also serious issues. I am pleased that the explanatory notes specifically mention of the use of income from such zones for transport schemes, which will, of course, also have a major impact on improving public safety, given that drink-driving is a fairly logical consequence of too much drinking if there is no other form of transport. Alcohol has an impact on crime and several hon. Members have talked about its impact on policing. It leads to increased costs if policing is funded by overtime, while police resources are drained if that is managed by routine rostering. One often wonders why burglars do not wait until Friday and Saturday nights to operate because they know that all the police are safely in the town centre dealing with alcohol-related problems.