I just hope that that never happens to the noble Lord. I am sure that he would never give this House any cause to accuse him of nuisance or annoyance and therefore breach his IPNA. Actually, it would make a difference. If somebody breaches their IPNA and it goes to the full conclusion of being taken to court and their receiving a custodial sentence, the level at which they have breached is very low. With an ASBO, there is a much higher threshold. In terms of costs, my information is from the police, who say that it is a more complex process to pursue breach of an IPNA than it is with the automatic breach of an ASBO. We also see the number of breaches of ASBOs, because of their seriousness, coming down. That is why the police indicate to us that they think that there are significantly greater costs in dealing with a breach of an IPNA.
I do not know if the noble Lord had the opportunity to read the reports in the other place of the evidence-taking sessions before the clauses were debated. Gavin Thomas, who is the vice-president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, said,
“there is a cost because we have to have people to pull together the case, take it to court and enforce it, so there is a cost”.—[Official Report, Commons, Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, 18/6/13; col. 9.]
In written evidence to the Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, who spoke eloquently at Second Reading, said that she was concerned,
“that the injunction to prevent nuisance and annoyance could potentially add to the workload of front line officers because of their lack of knowledge of civil law”.
That is a matter that has been raised by the police as well.
We hear quite horrific tales of anti-social behaviour. We should be under no illusion that it is just nuisance and annoyance on the odd occasion, there are some serious cases. As a former Member of the other place, I dealt with constituents. In one case, a man could no longer sleep in his home, another would sleep on the kitchen floor; somebody else was too frightened to go to sleep. Those were ongoing cases.
In some cases, enforcement was the problem, but we need to have the right tools. The Government are seeking in the legislation to reduce the number of tools available to those taking action and then to put in place additional costs, which will make action difficult to enforce. I am asking the Minister for an explanation of why, when ASBOs are becoming more effective, are working and have a value, they are being reduced.
The Minister is shaking his head at me, but there is a great deal of difference between somebody causing nuisance and annoyance and somebody causing harm, distress and harassment. They are very different and there are times when different measures are appropriate. So far, I do not think that the noble Lord has satisfied people in your Lordships’ House, on amendments to other clauses or on this one, why the Government are seeking to deal with just annoyance and nuisance while losing the measure of an ASBO, which has served us well. It is not perfect, and we are happy to see changes to it, but the changes which the Government propose do not address the problem.