Violent Crime Reduction Bill

The Government continually argue that the new licensing laws will lead to a continental café culture, whereby everybody comes out of the clubs and behaves beautifully. However, the hon. Gentleman is na&-uml;ve if he believes that extended licensing hours will help. I understand that the Government always support the police and, if the police say something, the Government appear to believe that it must be right. The police have said that they are terribly worried about late drinking hours and the Judges Council has made a statement to the effect that alcohol consumption over a longer period of time—the extended licensing hours—is much more likely to fuel alcohol-related crime. I therefore urge the Government, even at this late stage, to think again, given that so many people are against them on permitting alcohol to be drunk round the clock. The problems of alcohol-related disorder are clearly there for all to see, but there is already a range of offences and orders to cover everything that happens on our streets in relation to drunkenness and drunken crime, and according to the Home Affairs Committee, which is dominated by Labour Members, those powers are grossly underused at present. So what is the point of introducing a new Bill with a complicated new kind of order when the existing law is wholly adequate? The whole issue is about the proper enforcement of those existing laws, and I shall give the House some examples. If a person is drunk, there is an offence of simple drunk. If they are drunk and disorderly, there is an offence of drunk and disorderly. It is interesting to speculate on the number of people who are prosecuted for being drunk or drunk and disorderly. In truth, the numbers are dropping dramatically, yet there is more drunkenness and disorderliness on our streets. Why, then, have the prosecutions dropped from about 124,000 in 1980 to fewer than 44,000 in 2001? I suspect that the Government would answer that most offences of drunk and disorderly are dealt with by issuing fixed penalty notices. That can sometimes send the wrong signal, however, because some people deserve to appear in court. When we referred to fixed penalty notices at the Standing Committee’s second sitting, I remember the Minister saying:"““From January to August of this year, 86,000 fixed penalty notices were issued across the country””." When I asked her how many had been paid, she replied:"““Something like three quarters: 50 per cent. straight away and 25 per cent. after a little delay””.—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 18 October 2005; c. 63.]" I then referred the Minister to a written question that I had put to her Department in June this year. I had asked for the total value of fixed penalty notices handed out by the police in the Greater London area in the past 12 months, and the percentage that remained unrecovered. One would have thought that the Minister’s answer to that question would have been the same as the one that she gave in Committee. However, her answer was that the total value of fixed penalty notices issued was not collected centrally. So, in fact, she was able to tell us very little about the effectiveness of fixed penalty notices. Apart from the offences of drunk and drunk and disorderly, there are the offences of common assault and actual bodily harm, as well as four or five offences under the Public Order Act 1986, ranging from riot right down to using abusive words and behaviour. And so the list goes on. Offence after offence can and should be used by the Government but they are simply not being used at the moment. Antisocial behaviour orders are the subject of new clause 1, and I believe that changing the time for which they operate from a minimum of two years to three months could fit the bill. I want to ask the Minister some specific questions. Does she accept that an antisocial behaviour order can prohibit persons from entering specific areas or premises? Does she also accept that such an order could prevent a person from entering a licensed premises? She must accept that the answer is yes to both those questions. Will she therefore tell me how many such orders forbidding persons to enter such licensed premises have been made so far by the courts? How many have been breached? How effective have they been? How many people have been sent to prison—as is possible under an ASBO but not under a drink banning order—for such breaches? Will she also confirm that another restriction that can be laid upon an individual is, before trial, to impose bail conditions forbidding a defendant from going into specified premises. The Minister has said that antisocial behaviour orders are not appropriate for dealing with alcohol-related disorder. May I gently suggest to her that she is completely out of step with the courts, which, I can tell her from my own experience, are using ASBOs to deal with exactly the sort of alcohol-related disorder that we are facing? I repeat the point that they are stronger than drink banning orders, simply because the penalty for breach can be up to five years in prison—I will be corrected if I am wrong—whereas the penalty for breach of this drink banning order is only a fine. That troubles me, because if the breach only results in a fine, our means courts will be flooded with cases of people who have a drink banning order made against them, who breach it, and who do not pay the fine, which is the maximum sanction. That is the reality. If you and I were to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I knew at one point—the percentage of unpaid fines in the Greater London area in a particular year, we would be absolutely astonished at the volume of them. The question of breach is important. The Minister said, during the Committee’s third sitting, I think, on 18 October, that custody is not appropriate if people have merely breached a community penalty. I happen to take a different view, and I wonder where she has been all this time—in fact, in courts up and down the land, breaches of community penalty often result in a custodial sentence, not least for the original offence. I want to speak briefly to some other important amendments. The purpose of new clause 1 and amendment No. 1 is my fundamental one of saying that the proposed legislation is unnecessary and that the problems addressed can be dealt with fully under existing law. For that reason, I want to press new clause 1 to a vote. Under clause 1, prohibitions under a drink banning order"““must include such prohibition as the court making it considers necessary, for that purpose, on the subject’s entering premises in respect of which there is a premises licence authorising the use of the premises for the sale of alcohol by retail; and . . . club premises””." My amendment No. 2 is a reasonable provision that seeks to insert into the clause the word ““knowingly””, because as we all know, some premises such as garages are licensed to sell alcohol, and it is entirely possible to enter a garage premises to get petrol unaware that it also holds a licence and sells wine and spirits. More importantly, amendment No. 3, on which I am considering asking you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether you would permit a separate vote, would simply insert into clause 1(3) the words,"““, and attempting to purchase alcohol in or consuming alcohol in,””" That gets us round the problem, which we discussed ad nauseam in Committee, whereby supermarkets, under clause 1(3), would be covered by the ban. Let us remember that the court ““must”” include a prohibition, not ““may””. People would therefore be banned from going into supermarkets and corner shops. Would people living close to the only village shop or post office , which might sell alcohol, be banned from going into them? What about garages, sports clubs, hotels, restaurants and cinemas? We are talking about premises that by and large are not remotely connected with the fuelling of alcohol-related disorder, but that are licensed premises, and would therefore be caught under the provision prohibiting people who are subject to a drink banning order from entering them. During the second sitting of the Standing Committee, Conservative Members raised the issue of the premises that would be covered. We all know that the premises that cause the real problem in terms of alcohol-related disorder are pubs that behave irresponsibly. What about the premises that I listed earlier? Would a court ban people—as it appears it would have to—from entering all licensed premises? Having listened to the argument, the Minister said:"““On 26 October I, the Home Secretary and Ministers from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport will meet the chief executives of the large supermarket chains, to talk about the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I think that most people accept that they are a problem.””" I now ask the Minister to respond fully to my request, and to tell us exactly what happened at that meeting. The Minister went on to say—this is a critical point—"““We are talking about the behaviour of the individual, and it will be for the courts to decide the appropriate prohibitions of an order. It may say””" —I think that the Minister meant that the court might say—"““that the individual can carry on using the corner shop if it is the only shop for 10 miles—although I doubt that—but he may be banned from buying alcohol there. He could still buy fish fingers, but not alcohol. If he bought alcohol from the garage rather than petrol, he would be in breach of the order and a sanction would follow—and properly so.””—[Official Report, Standing Committee B,18 October 2005; c. 47–8.]" Let us pause for a moment. Can the Minister tell us where the Bill says that the court has a power to act in any way that it thinks fit in relation to any particular licensed premises, by name or by description? I want her to be absolutely clear about that, and to answer my fundamental question: rather than including the rigmarole about premises with a licence, club premises and so forth, why does she not accept a straightforward amendment to the effect that a drink banning order may impose a prohibition on a person from entering licensed premises for the purpose of purchasing or consuming alcohol? In fewer words than those used by the Government, my amendment absolutely covers the position. No Member in his right mind wants to stop someone from entering a garage, supermarket or village shop. I can tell the Minister that plenty of people live in areas so rural that the only shop within miles where they can obtain their daily provisions is one with an alcohol licence. There are also plenty of people who rely entirely on their sport to keep them going. They will want to go on visiting sports clubs which have licences. Why not accept an amendment—amendment No. 4—which allows them to do that, but states that the order can prohibit them from buying or attempting to buy alcohol there, or from consuming it? I believe that those arguments are compelling. Amendment No. 13 brings us to the extraordinary word ““disorderly””. I want to insert a definition in clause 3. An earlier part of the Bill states that the court must be satisfied"““that the individual has . . . engaged in criminal or disorderly conduct while under the influence of alcohol””." The word ““disorderly”” utterly stumps me. It is not defined anywhere in the Bill, so I seek from the Minister some examples of what she means by ““disorderly behaviour””. Is it disorderly behaviour that is a crime or is it disorderly behaviour that falls short of a crime? I remember challenging a Government Member in Committee on precisely that issue. I asked whether she could provide some examples of disorderly behaviour that did not amount to a crime. In truth, she could not. If my memory serves me correctly, she first provided an example of someone who was plainly drunk and disorderly and subsequently examples of matters that were plainly a criminal offence. I have talked the issue through with legal colleagues who are utterly stumped by the Government’s failure to define disorderly conduct. In an alcohol context, being drunk and disorderly is already a crime. My probing amendment No. 13 asks what is meant by ““disorderly””, and I would be most grateful for the Minister’s clarification. The greatly respected organisation Justice takes a similar view. It believes that the threshold in clause 2(2) for the imposition of a drinking banning order is too broad. Drinking banning orders, it believes, should surely be aimed at those who"““drunkenly commit acts of violence, criminal damage, threatening behaviour and similar crimes. It is, we believe, uncontroversial””—" and I agree—"““that mere high-spirited behaviour, (which most law-abiding people have indulged in at some time) should not result in a coercive order of this nature and severity.””" Where do high spirits come in relation to disorderly behaviour, what is the actual definition of disorderly and is it not already covered by existing criminal offences? On amendment No. 5, will the Minister define the difference between being under the influence of alcohol and drunk? The Bill purports to permit a drinking banning order to be made against someone who is"““under the influence of alcohol””," rather than drunk. I looked carefully at the legal precedents to see what definitions there were in existing legislation of being under the influence of alcohol compared with being drunk. We all know from our experience in the courts and, more commonly, as watchers rather than anything else, what a policeman would say about someone whom he or she deemed to be drunk. The policeman would say that the person’s eyes were bloodshot, his speech slurred, he could not walk straight and so forth, so he was ““drunk””. What, then, of being under the influence of alcohol? The closest parallel that I can find is the drink-driving laws, where it is entirely possible to be"““under the influence of alcohol””," but not ““drunk””. Of course, drink-driving laws are administered through the use of a breathalyser at the roadside and thereafter a taximeter test at the police station. Someone whose breath intake of alcohol exceeds 35 mg or, in blood, 80 mg, is deemed to be under the influence of alcohol. That is the actual charge laid against someone driving a motor vehicle whilst under that influence, but it does not mean that they are drunk. According to the law, as determined by the breathalyser, they are under the influence of alcohol. Why, then, does clause 2(2) make it a condition for making the order that the individual has engaged in"““disorderly conduct while under the influence of alcohol””?" Does the Minister mean drunk and, if so, why does she not say so? If she means under the influence of alcohol, will she define exactly what that means? My amendment No. 6 relates to clause 5, which deals with the imposition of a drinking banning order. It seems sensible to me that the body responsible for imposing such an order should be the Crown who prosecutes the case, rather than the court. Courts often consider making such an order without reference to the Crown or without taking the Crown’s views into account. It is more sensible to say that a drinking banning order should be made on an application by the Crown rather than of the court’s own volition. My final amendment in this group, No. 14, tries to be helpful to the Government by inserting in the clause a definition of the word ““disorderly””. I simply ask the Minister to be kind enough—