Mrs. Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): It would
appear that there is much in this Bill that parties on both sides of the House clearly welcome. I welcome the provision for
a national policing improvement agency. It will pull together a number of bodies and reduce the opportunities for conflicting
advice and guidance.
Bringing the basic crime units together in line with local authorities will, I am sure,
assist those who have not had the benefit of coterminous boundaries such as we have had in Bridgend. F division in Bridgend
covers the county borough of Bridgend and the parliamentary constituencies of myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore
(Huw Irranca-Davies). That makes sense. It helps joint working, it brings joined-up government, and it should help with communications
and partnership working. It also helps with our community safety partnership, which in Bridgend has been incredibly effective
and supportive of all the agencies involved, and has pulled together joint working, joint networking and co-ordination of
all the services that have helped to reduce crime in my constituency. Indeed, crime across Wales has fallen 5 per cent. over
the last year, and the police force in my constituency has been one of the best performing in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con): Is
the hon. Lady not a little concerned by the fact that recent experience has shown that coterminous boundaries between basic
command units and local authorities sometimes provide an excuse to reduce head counts in the amalgamation?
Mrs. Moon: I cannot comment on head counting,
but I can comment on the effect on efficiency. I am more concerned about the efficiency and effectiveness of policing than
head counting. I know that the policing in Bridgend has been efficient, effective and successful, and that is what I am looking
for. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman, too, would look for that. It is something to be welcomed.
When I met members of my community safety partnership, they said that they felt that every
antisocial behaviour order granted by the courts was a failure for them. However, they have been successful because they have
used the antisocial behaviour legislation and the community safety partnership as a way of working together to ensure that
troubled youngsters at risk of coming into the criminal justice system are targeted for resources and for the services that
can help them to stay within legal boundaries and improve their behaviour. If the services are targeted at them, they will
have access to the support, advice, guidance and mentoring that they need.
I welcome the extension of the remit of the Independent Police Complaints Commission to
the immigration service. That will increase trust and provide a rigorous assessment of complaints about the immigration service.
I also welcome the standardisation of powers for community support officers and the extension
of their powers to cover truancy. That is an obvious and clearly needed extension—a sensible measure that will assist
local authority education welfare officers to ensure that as many pupils as possible are in school in school hours, which
will reduce the risk of young people being drawn into petty crime, drugs and alcohol abuse.
The deployment of community support officers in my constituency has been highly effective.
Opposition Members who suggest that they have been a failure should come to Bridgend to see how our police force has learned
to utilise them effectively. In one of my wards, Wild Mill, community support officers have reduced the incidence of vandalism,
antisocial behaviour, and drug and alcohol abuse. Generally, it is now a much safer community in which to live.
The one negative, if there is one, with community support officers in my constituency is
that we tend to lose them, albeit to the professional police force. They see their job as a way of learning the basic skills
and gaining the expertise and knowledge that will enable them to be more effective and move into a full-time career in the
police. However, that is the only negative that I have found. We will welcome the increase in the number of community support
officers in Bridgend.
I am sure that the Minister is waiting for the word "but"—and it is coming. There
are proposals in the Bill about which I must say "but"; I would not be standing here unless there were. I therefore seek reassurance
and some changes. I am worried about the extension of the right of housing departments and registered social landlords to
call for parenting contracts and parenting orders. I do not believe that the staff in those agencies have the required skills
and expertise, or the necessary background in assessment and evaluation, to make such decisions.
I shall cite an example from one of my surgeries. A gentleman who came to see me described
the problems that he was experiencing with a neighbour in the block of flats that he lived in. The neighbour's behaviour was
extremely difficult, and was in many respects a prime example of behaviour calling for a parenting contract.
The
gentleman described the scratching of cars and the smearing of oil on car windows. He told me about the problems of noise
and the deliberate playing of records late at night. He described how his neighbour would knock on his door when he was getting
ready for bed late at night: he would hear banging on the door, but when he opened it the neighbour would be gone. All this
would appear to be prime territory for a parenting order, but after I had heard more about the perpetrator's background, I
realised that this involved a mental health problem, and a parenting order is not the best way of dealing with such problems.
Staff in agencies that call for parenting orders and parenting contracts need to assess
fully the reasons behind the failures leading to the behaviour being experienced. Every alternative means of support and engagement
should be employed before a parenting order or contract is called for. Those skills reside within the social services departments,
the mental health services and the youth justice teams, and their engagement must be assured before anyone is given the power
or the responsibility to call for an order or a contract.
Building parental competence is a complex process, which organisations such as Sure Start
are best placed to provide. As for skills development, the youth justice teams and other organisations in my constituency,
such as Youth Works and KPCY—the Kenfig Pyle community youth project—offer the mentoring, the boundary setting
and the skills base that will allow parents and children to understand where their behaviour needs to change and improve.
I want to speak briefly about the proposal to create a single inspectorate. Before I entered
the House, I worked as an inspector with the Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales. I welcome the creation of a single inspectorate;
I recognise the value of such a body. I can see the sense in combining five inspectorates into one. There will be savings
in information technology, financial administration and human resource functions—but I must add a "but". I seek assurances
that the ethos, skills base, culture and expertise required for those who work in the individual inspectorates will not be
diluted into some fantasy base whereby a skilled inspector in one field is automatically considered to have transferable skills.
Some skills are transferable, but inspectors need to remain at the forefront of best practice and of requiring and encouraging
change and improvement. They must be ever watchful for abuses, failures and neglect. Full cognisance of legislation and service
providers is required to meet the needs of a single inspectorate, and we must ensure that the focused skills of the five inspectorates
are not diluted but strengthened by joint working.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) pointed out, unannounced
inspections and the monitoring and reporting of the gaps between agencies are important, but the individual performance of
each agency must still be the focus of the inspection.
I would urge an appropriate start-up period. Time for those five agencies to come together
to talk about how they will integrate, co-ordinate and start to work together is critical to the success of the new agency.
Not putting that start-up time in place would reduce public confidence in the competence of the new agency, and it must be
part of any move to a single inspectorate.
I give a conditional welcome to the concept of the community call for action. This must
be extended to a call not only to the police but to the local authorities, to provide the community facilities, services and
agencies that can be critical in ensuring that there is no antisocial behaviour and no low-level crime in communities.
I cite, for example, the community of Kenfig Hill in my constituency, where the local authorities
failed to provide funding for KPCY, which has reached the end of its lottery funding. KPCY provides support for 750 youngsters;
it has cut antisocial behaviour, petty crime, vandalism and graffiti, and provides invaluable mentoring and support to young
people, as well as to local parents.
One parent said to me that she could not have coped as a single parent if she had not had
the support of KPCY, and had not known that it was somewhere safe to send her children where they could do their homework,
get access to computers and play without being targeted by drug users and drug sellers, as well as those who would target
youngsters to get into petty crime and petty thieving.
The local police strongly support the retention of KPCY, knowing that crime will increase
exponentially in their area if the organisation goes. The community call for action must enable communities to call on local
authorities such as Bridgend county borough council to provide funding for youth facilities such as KPCY and restore funding
to youth groups such as the Guides, Scouts and Brownies—organisations not known for attracting youngsters with antisocial
tendencies—but they do not even provide funding for youth facilities at that level.
Mark Pritchard: Does the hon. Lady agree that
excellent work is done up and down this land not only by the Scouts, Cubs, Brownies and Guides, but by cadet forces such as
the Air Training Corps, the Army Cadet Force and the Sea Cadets, yet the Government fail to put in the adequate funding that
those organisations require, despite the fact that the young people involved are a credit to all our communities?
Mrs. Moon: I would endorse virtually everything
the hon. Gentleman said, other than his remarks about Government funding. Surely the Government hand out rate support grant
to the local authorities and the local authorities decide how it is spent. The Conservative party has always and consistently
argued that decisions should be made nearer to the point of service delivery.
My local authority calls itself a rainbow alliance of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives,
but it will not fund leisure services that are critical to ensuring that youngsters realise that we adults value them, want
them to engage with society, and want them to enjoy services of a quality that will offer them an alternative to hanging around
on street corners, sitting on old ladies' front walls, throwing petrol into the street and setting fire it, and throwing flour
bombs and ink bombs. Such low-level bad behaviour makes communities despair. I am glad that the hon. Member for The Wrekin
(Mark Pritchard) also wants my local authority to support funding for youth services in Bridgend.
I do not want
young people to become part of the criminal justice system because of a lack of youth and leisure facilities or adequate children's
social services departments. My local authority has been criticised in that regard. As my community safety partnership says,
we must recognise that virtually every antisocial behaviour order represents a failure on the part of the statutory services
to provide the support network and skills needed to show youngsters an alternative way of behaving.
I am reaching the end of my "buts", but I have a final "but" in regard to conditional cautions.
I feel that they have a key role in presenting offenders with an immediate response to their actions—an immediate recognition
of what they have done and what they need to do to make reparation. However, I question whether the policeman on the beat
has the necessary skills base on which to construct a rehabilitative conditional caution. Somewhere along the line, we need
to incorporate responsibility for a senior police officer and liaison with social services, community safety partnerships
and youth justice teams, to establish what conditional cautions should contain.
The Bill's aim is justice, not punishment. Justice requires that people have alternatives,
that there is rehabilitation, and that there are opportunities for those who will come within the purview of the police. I
hope that in Committee the minor changes for which Members have called today will be possible. It has been pleasing to observe
the common desire to find a constructive and effective solution, and that is what a Committee stage should be for. Apart from
my few "buts", I support the Bill.
