Violent Crime Reduction Bill

The hon. Lady knows that the courts have discretion when looking at the cases that are brought before them. They must be satisfied that two requirements are met: first, someone must be guilty of offending behaviour; and, secondly, it must be necessary to make the order. The court will consider a range of factors when deciding whether the second requirement has been met. May I advise the hon. Lady that my comments are meant kindly? She has talked a great deal about human rights, which are important. However, we have to achieve a balance of human rights, and respect the human rights of the decent, law-abiding majority whose peaceful existence is threatened when people drink far too much and get out of control, causing the nuisance that happens far too often. Getting that balance right is important, but in this instance she is wrongly seeking to put the rights of the perpetrator above those of decent members of the community. Amendments Nos. 13 and 14, which were tabled by the Opposition, seek to include a definition of ““disorderly”” to cover"““conduct which would offend an ordinary person but which falls short of a criminal act.””" We had a long discussion about that in Committee. There is no need to define the word ““disorderly”” in the Bill. It is not defined in relation to the offence of being drunk and disorderly in section 91 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967. The Select Committee on Home Affairs concluded that it would be a mistake to try to define more closely the current definition of antisocial behaviour. The courts are perfectly aware of behaviour that is disorderly, and of behaviour that results in a criminal act. In Committee, I gave the hon. Member for Woking an example of disorderly behaviour. If a large group of people are marauding through an area, kicking over bins and causing excessive noise, they may not necessarily commit a public order offence, but they are certainly guilty of disorderly behaviour. The hon. Gentleman talked about high spirits, but in Committee some telling examples were given, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler), who said that ““high spirits”” was not an accurate description of the problems in her community. Amendment No. 5 would require that for orders on conviction the court must be satisfied that the individual was drunk, rather than under the influence of alcohol. That would raise the threshold at which a drinking banning order could be obtained and could lead to a wide range of offenders who were under the influence of alcohol escaping the prohibitions imposed by a DBO. I think that it is for the courts to come to a view based on the evidence before them on whether an offender was under the influence of alcohol when they committed an offence. I ask hon. Members to think about the sort of problem that we are trying to tackle. The courts are well placed to determine whether someone was under the influence of alcohol. I direct the House’s attention to the second limb of the offence, which is that for an order to be made, it must be necessary to protect the rest of the community. The courts will examine that closely before making an order. Amendment No. 6 would ensure that a court must consider only applications by the Crown. That would defeat part of our purpose, which is to encourage the proactive use of DBOs. The court would have to wait for the Crown to make an application; it would not be able to consider the matter of its own volition. That would weaken our proposals. Liberal Democrat amendment No. 30 would reimpose automatic reporting restrictions in proceedings for an order on conviction involving young people. Several hon. Members have said that they consider it useful not to bind the court to automatic reporting restrictions. That does not mean that restrictions cannot apply in specific, narrow cases if they are necessary for the protection of the individual. I happen to believe that if people have gone out, deliberately got drunk, got involved in violent behaviour under the influence of alcohol, and acted in a such a way that the court finds it necessary to make an order to protect the rest of the public, it is extremely hard to make a case for their name and details being kept a secret from the rest of the community, who have been the victims of that behaviour. Far from being a badge of honour, being banned from one’s favourite pubs and clubs is likely to be a good incentive to change one’s behaviour. In addition, it is important that local people are able to report it to the police if they see the individuals in question in pubs and clubs from which they are banned, so that action can be taken in relation to the breach. Government amendment No. 43 gives district councils the same right as county councils to make applications for DBOs, which is entirely right and proper. Government amendment No. 42 is merely a small consequential amendment. The other Government amendments are welcome tidying measures. Clause 23 is to be removed because, on reflection, we realised that the DBO provisions make the Licensed Premises (Exclusion of Certain Persons) Act 1980 superfluous. We can achieve everything that we want to achieve through the DBO route, which is a much better provision. The 1980 legislation is extremely narrow—it depends on a conviction on the licensed premises themselves. The DBO is—dare I say to the hon. Member for Woking?—a more modern and appropriate way in which to deal with the mischief we encounter in our communities these days. I ask him and his hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), who has taken a very legalistic approach to various pieces of our legislation, to think carefully about making sure that legislation is modern, flexible, about changing behaviour and able to cope with the new challenges that we face, rather than cleaving to the traditional interpretation of the law and focusing simply on prosecution. Making available ASBOs and DBOs is about making sure that our criminal justice system is modern, flexible and able to meet the challenges of this day and age.