With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will respond to some of the points that have been raised in a very wide-ranging debate. As you will appreciate, we are considering a huge range of disparate measures, so I will do my best to make sense of them. I welcome the Opposition spokesperson’s general support, even if, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) says, we are not clear whether they are accusing us of being too draconian or too weak in our response to antisocial behaviour. As they are accusing us of both, perhaps we have got it about right.
I know that the Opposition are wedded to the ASBO, but the simple fact is that, although it may have been useful on occasions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) has said—I am not saying it has not—it has generally been a failure. In 2012, the 1,329 ASBOs issued represented a decrease of 68% since 2005. Up to the end of 2012,
58% of ASBOs were breached at least once and 43% were breached more than once. Where ASBOs were breached, they were breached five times on average, and the breach rate for under-18s was 69%. Defending a continuation of that arrangement is not a sensible approach for anyone in this House who is as sensible and concerned as everybody should be, and is, about tackling antisocial behaviour.
The hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) also referred to the use of hotels and other such premises for child sexual exploitation and, in particular, for grooming. She wanted to know how the law stood on that matter. If she looks at Lords amendment 77, she will see that subsection 1(b) of the new clause we propose refers to
“conduct that is preparatory to, or otherwise connected with, child sexual exploitation.”
I believe that provision is sufficiently wide as to provide reasonable grounds for the police to take action.