Violent Crime Reduction Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Such situations are becoming increasingly common. As we all know, in their early years antisocial behaviour orders were barely used at all. I remember the then Home Secretary telling the Home Affairs Committee that he thought that thousands would be used in the first year or two, but such is the bureaucratic nightmare involved that only a few hundred were used in that period. The use of antisocial behaviour orders has increased a lot in the past couple of years, and I congratulate the Government and the courts on that. There is always a very slow run-in period before such orders are used to their full effect. It could properly be said that antisocial behaviour orders are now the norm rather than the exception in such cases, and breaches usually result in a custodial sentence. So his parallel point about the drinking banning order, which, according to the Government, we need to cure an immediate problem quickly, is correct. If the antisocial behaviour order is anything to go by, it will be years before the drinking banning orders get under way and are used to their full effect. What problems do the drinking banning orders purport to attack? The answer is the alcohol-fuelled disorder, to which I referred earlier. No hon. Member doubts that one of the greatest problems that the country faces is binge drinking, especially by young people, both girls and boys. The Prime Minister’s strategy unit’s alcohol harm reduction project was established a year or two ago. It told us—we knew it already—that British teenagers, along with those in Ireland and Denmark, are among the heaviest teenage drinkers in Europe. They are more likely to drink to get drunk and to report problems that are associated with drinking than their counterparts in other European countries. There is a telling statistic: more than one third of 15-year-olds in the United Kingdom report having been drunk at the age of 13 or earlier. That is a desperate figure. Given that an antisocial behaviour order can be made against someone as young as 10, the problem of young person’s drunkenness could be better addressed through such an order. Patterns of heavy and binge drinking, which are especially serious in the UK, lead to an increasing toll of premature death and health problems as well as alcohol-related disorder and injuries.One of the most distressing factors is the number of women who drink well above recommended guidelines. That figure has risen by more than half in the past 15 years. Hon. Members will agree that binge drinking by young women is perhaps even more dangerous in health terms than that by young men. We face big problems and binge drinking is undoubtedly one of them. Come with me, Mr. Speaker, to the streets of some of our towns and cities in the south on a Friday and Saturday evening, and see what happens when people, full of alcohol, are turned out of pubs and clubs at 11 pm or 12 am. It was probably different in our day—I say that as a kindness to all hon. Members—when there was no such thing as spirit chasers. In my experience in the courts, I have encountered many young people who commit alcohol-fuelled crime, who, in between their pints of bitter, have a double vodka or a double spirit shot. That is a relatively new and damaging trend which must be tackled.