Antisocial Behaviour

I begin by thanking, on behalf of the official Opposition, the Chairman of the Select Committee and his colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), for being party to the report. It has highlighted an important issue that crosses party political boundaries. Although this afternoon's debate on the report has been useful, the issue is of sufficient importance to have been debated on the Floor of the House. An Adjournment debate would have been okay, but really the issue merits a longer, full-day debate in the House. If I have any regret about this afternoon, it is simply that we are in the wrong Chamber of the House of Commons. Having said that, I am delighted that we have been able to have this debate and equally delighted that so many have been able to participate and speak constructively about this vexing social and criminal problem. During my intervention on the Select Committee Chairman, I alighted on the theme that comes out of this afternoon's debate: we do not need more legislation in this area of public policy. Indeed, if the electorate and good fortune favour my party in due course, and if I am still alive and on the Home Affairs Front-Bench team—we have a slightly youthful agenda at the minute—I hope we will take pride in introducing no legislation whatever during a parliamentary Session. The Home Department legislates excessively; occasionally, Governments need to stop legislating and start thinking. The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) has provided yet another reason to reinforce that argument. Let me begin by agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman. Not only do we not need more legislation, but—again, as I highlighted in my intervention and he was good enough to agree with me—we need strategic management. Too often in areas of public policy delivery, to use the jargon, all sorts of well-intentioned people run around doing all sorts of well-intentioned things in penny packets, but none of them talk to each other or pre-plan with their official or professional colleagues how best to provide a sensible, acceptable solution across the piece. I shall give an example from my constituency. Members of Parliament may represent inner-city, less well-off areas, or—like me and my hon. Friends the Members for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) and for Banbury (Tony Baldry), and I dare say to some extent my hon. Friends the Members for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) and for Hertsmere —areas that are broadly well-off according to the Government's social indices. My constituency and those of my hon. Friends, certainly to grant-making organisations in the European Union, look as if they do not need any money. However, there are pockets of deprivation and difficult social problems even in relatively prosperous areas such as those. I say that because I, as a Conservative Member of Parliament, understand that there are plenty of difficulties in poor inner-city seats that I do not have to deal with. Equally, however, I hope that Members who have the fortune to represent parts of urban England do not think that because we live in and represent marginally better-off areas than theirs, we do not understand the acutely difficult issues that national Government and local government have to grapple with. I come back to the example of my constituency. Early in my time as a Member of Parliament, during the 1992–97 Parliament, I became concerned about the increasing incidence of low-level persistent public nuisance on the streets of the suburban part of my constituency, the borough of Oadby and Wigston. I could not understand why that was happening, nor why it was allowed to continue to happen. I borrowed the library of a local high school and called a conference there. I called together representatives of the police, social services and libraries, head teachers from the area, and church and other faith community representatives, as I think they are called. I asked pretty well everyone interested in the problem to discuss the issue at the conference, and we had a useful discussion for two or three hours. At the end, I suggested another conference within the next six months or year and requested that by the time we met again, each of the representatives in that room should have made official contact with another member of the audience. For example, a policeman would speak to a head teacher, a head teacher would talk to a parson, a parson would talk to a librarian and a librarian to someone at social services. [Interruption.] If I may, I shall resume my exciting story in a few moments.