Violent Crime Reduction Bill

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, that is not right. Both of those orders must be made by a court upon the production of evidence that satisfies the court that the appropriate order should be made. A third reason why an antisocial behaviour order could be more appropriate than a drinking banning order is the consequences of a breach. As I understand it, the penalty for a breach of a drink banning order is not the highest. Under clause 10—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—a person who is the subject of a drink banning order is guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine: not a fine or imprisonment, but just a fine. The clause imposes a drink banning order and effectively says to the person who is its subject: ““Breach this order and the result will be a fine””, whereas the breach of an antisocial behaviour order can, and often does, result in a custodial sentence, and rightly so. Let me illustrate further my proposition that existing law deals with problems of the sort that the Minister is trying to deal with. Some months ago, I asked her what powers courts have to ban defendants from entering licensed premises—because, let us make no mistake about it, that is what the drink banning order purports to do. She replied:"““Under the provisions of the Licensed Premises (Exclusion of Certain Persons) Act 1980 a court can make an order prohibiting a person from entering specified licensed premises, following conviction for an offence committed on licensed premises involving violence or threats of violence.””" The power already exists. Undoubtedly a great number of orders should have been made under the 1980 Act, but how many have been made? The Minister went on to say that"““antisocial behaviour orders . . . introduced under . . . the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and first used in 1999 can also be used to prohibit certain people from entering certain specific areas or premises.””—[Official Report, 12 July 2005; Vol. 436, c. 908W.]" If an antisocial behaviour order that carries a custodial sentence in the event of a breach can be used to prevent certain persons from entering certain areas or premises, what does a drink banning order add, if anything, to the existing law? We suffer from a surfeit of laws. The House of Commons passes law after law, and the trouble is that they pile up and fall into disrepute, and quite often existing legislation that is perfectly fit for purpose are not properly used.