Antisocial Behaviour

: It is useful to publish that information. I was about to refer to problems at local level, and my local authority, Southampton, has a good record in dealing with antisocial behaviour—it has been highlighted in previous Government reports. In a recent constituency case, the housing department, having decided not to pursue possession orders, took no other measure. I am not a lawyer but, at first sight, it seemed that either a demoted tenancy or a housing injunction would be justifiable, given the evidence presented, even if the possession order was unlikely to succeed. The failure to take such action leaves neighbours feeling badly let down. We are still some way from the time when there will be an automatic response from front-line agencies in considering the whole range of powers that might be used in a case and in ensuring that they use an effective power. There may still be a tendency for them to say, ““We have always tried to evict people like these, but if we cannot evict them we will not do anything.”” Publishing information about how the powers could be used would be useful. Alcohol and antisocial behaviour are also covered in the report. We welcome the Government's announcement that measures will be taken to establish, if necessary, statutory local schemes to deal with city centre binge drinking. If the regulatory impact assessment is to be relied on, my view is that the amount that the Government are assuming would be raised by the statutory scheme—perhaps £60,000 to £80,000 per year for a major city—seems pretty small in relation to policing and other costs. None the less, we welcome the Government's acceptance of the principle that the pubs and clubs that give rise to the problem should, if necessary, be forced to pay towards the cost of clearing up and policing. The Committee will want to return to that issue to see how things are working. The more fundamental point that I want to stress is that we are strongly persuaded as Committee that one problem with city centre binge drinking is not individual behaviour, but simply the large concentration of drinking establishments, and there being almost no other activity than drinking, in small geographical areas. Such establishments are segregated by age, and if the 25-year-olds do not drink with the 18-year-olds—or the 16-year-olds, if we are honest—and so on, there will be binge drinking, no matter what the enforcement or licensing measures. Just as it has taken about 15 years to create those alcohol-saturated areas in towns and city centres, we need to accept that it will take 15 or 20 years of planning in the other direction to get back to a more balanced use of city centres. Although the Committee welcomes much of the Licensing Act 2003 and the idea of alcohol disorder zones, our conclusion is that we have planned, or unplanned, our way into the current use of our city centres. We will need positive planning in the other direction if we are to be able to reclaim our city centre streets, but that point did not receive as much emphasis in the Government's overall alcohol disorder strategy as I and the Committee would have liked. I shall leave my remarks there. I look forward with great interest to the debate and the Minister's response.