Antisocial Behaviour

I do not intend to trouble the time keepers much in this debate, as I want to make just a few quick points. Let me say to the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), as a supporter for 35 years of Reading, which is about to join the premier league, that she should remain optimistic about her local football team. She will undoubtedly enjoy such excitement in the future. I commend the report, although I say that as a member of the Committee who was not on it when the document was written. I was a lowly parliamentary candidate at the time. The report is interesting and adds much to the debate. I want to talk about antisocial neighbours—an issue that is covered extensively in the report. Hon. Members will know the experience: our hearts sink when people come to our surgeries and we can tell before they even open their mouth that they have come to talk about antisocial neighbours. That is a deeply depressing part of our work, because as MPs we are unable to do much to address the problem, even though it is the first thing that our constituents think about in the morning, the last thing they think about at night and something that dominates their day in between. Things often start out as a petty problem, but they can become very serious. Only half a mile from where I live, just over the border in the Wokingham constituency, somebody was tragically murdered in the denouement of an antisocial neighbourhood issue. This is a serious problem, involving immense health and mental health issues that we all have to face. There is no doubt—I agree with the opening remarks of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham)—that there is adequate legislation to deal with the problems covered by the report, but many local authorities and registered social landlords are reluctant to use the powers that they have been given by this and previous Governments to address the problem. How many people come to our surgeries with diaries cataloguing years of misery, their ashen faces telling a story? For them, this process has become a way to administer the continuance of a problem rather than a serious attempt to end it. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will carry forward the important section in the report on that issue. I am interested by what the report says about mediation in antisocial neighbour issues. We all know from our constituencies that there is mediation and mediation—some is excellent and some not so effective. That is not necessarily because of the form of the mediation service; it can be because there is not equivalent will on both sides of the dispute to resolve the issue. I commend the fantastic work of a mediation service in my constituency, Resolve, which is part of Mediation UK. I notice from the report that the Peterborough mediation service, from which a representative came and gave evidence, is very similar. It is part of a national organisation with a local perspective, and it does fantastic work. However, I was alarmed to read that only just over half of England and Wales is covered by mediation services. The Government need to address that. The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen talked about managing the problem. We need to look at whether effective schemes are working locally, and to show best practice to other local authorities and give leadership on these issues. Following on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) said, we should encourage local authorities and registered social landlords, through the Government, to consider the suitability of certain families and tenants to live in certain parts of their built estate. Like my hon. Friend, I represent a rural constituency that contains large urban areas. Although we have a good housing association and a well-managed single list with the local authority, I see too many families living in rural communities for whom that must be a rather terrifying experience, because they are used to urban living. Often, such problems can lead to neighbourhood disputes. In a current case, a young family have been put, by a social landlord based miles away, in a block of flats with a lot of middle-aged and elderly residents, which is completely unsuitable. That has led to a serious problem, which I am attempting to deal with. I shall discuss one other aspect that emerged in the report, which is covered by the departmental response: the lack of data in relation to whether many of the laudable measures that have been introduced in recent years are working. The departmental response and the Minister's evidence to the Committee accept that there is a lack of data on how effective some of the measures being implemented are. I urge the Minister to consider the situation. It seems crazy to bother to introduce legislation without considering its effectiveness and how it is implemented. When dealing with issues such as neighbours and antisocial behaviour, the partnership approach seems to work best. I pay great tribute to the safer communities partnership in west Berkshire, which seems to be tackling many of these areas, and the police reassurance scheme, for which we have been a pilot project. It is important that registered social landlords, local authorities, police, citizens advice bureaux, mediation services, mental health organisations, GPs and the range of people who deal with such problems on their own, individual basis talk to each other. We want the Government to help to drive that forward. I again commend the Committee on the report and look forward to the Minister's response.