Protection of Freedoms Bill

I thank my hon. Friend for supporting our approach. It is important that a degree of discretion is available to police officers so that they can identify behaviour that is not listed but would come under the definition of stalking. A number of the comments made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow related to the creation of two offences—the lower level and higher level offences—and I think that there is a need to differentiate between the two. The practice of having two such offences is followed in a number of other areas in the criminal justice system, which I think is important, but we will be developing training—a number of hon. Members have mentioned this—for agencies in the criminal justice system in the coming months to ensure that they are aware of the nature of the legislation being introduced, for example the point about the list being one of examples only.