I beg to move, That this House
agrees with Lords amendment 30.

With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments 31 to 39.

Members will, I hope, welcome the fact that the amendments proposed by the Government on gang injunctions are a result of having listened to the concerns expressed in debates in another place and of new issues that were raised there.

Lords amendments 30 to 33, 35 and 37 have been proposed to limit the duration of the injunctions to a maximum period of two years. They will work in conjunction with amendments 31, 32 and 37, which will introduce a mandatory annual review where an injunction lasts for more than one year. Lords amendment 36 deals with the introduction of a time limit and mandatory review. It ensures that where an application is made to vary an injunction, the courts have power to add a new prohibition or requirement or to extend the duration of an existing prohibition or requirement, subject to the overall time limit of two years.

Lords amendment 34 is a technical amendment. Lords amendment 38 requires the Secretary of State to consult the Lord Chief Justice, and any other persons he considers appropriate to consult, prior to issuing or revising guidance on gang injunctions.

Finally, Lords amendment 39 responds to concerns that these innovative provisions could be used against groups that the Government do not intend them to be used against. The proposed new clause would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to review the operation of the gang-injunction provisions and to publish a report on that review. The new clause would require the report to be published within three years of the commencement of the provisions, and be laid before Parliament. I hope that the amendments are welcome to the Opposition. They raised these issues in good faith in another place, and we have been pleased to be able to introduce the amendments. I hope that the House will accept them.

The Conservatives made it clear in Committee and on Report that we would support measures to deal with the serious problem of gang-related violence, which affects so many communities and young people up and down our country. In the past fortnight, the charity Catch22 published a survey of young people's experiences of crime and put this issue into context by suggesting that more than one in four of the young people that it had surveyed had been threatened with a weapon, such as a knife or a gun, and almost one in six had had a weapon used against them.

If that were an isolated survey, it might be more easy to cast doubt on it, or to criticise or discount it in some way, but it was published against a backdrop of other surveys. Action for Children reports that becoming a victim of crime, particularly violent crime, is a real fear for children and young people growing up in the UK today, and according to polling of young people conducted by MORI for the Youth Justice Board, in the past 12 months nearly a third of 11 to 16-year-olds in mainstream education in England and Wales carried a weapon, with more than half of all excluded pupils admitting to having carried a knife.

The desire is to ensure that young people approach adulthood full of enthusiasm for their future, with opportunities calling them from every direction. For too many young people in Britain today, such optimism is not there because of fears for their safety. Given that gang culture, gang activity and gang membership can make that situation much more serious, the provisions needed to be examined and considered appropriately.

Vulnerable young people-those with poor educational attainment, weak family structures, addiction, mental illness or unemployment-are being targeted for gang membership, because it gives them a perverse sense of security and of family. That is why it is important that measures are put in place to undermine the deliberate tactics that many gangs seek to use to weaken family ties and to draw individuals away from the traditional support structures. These gangs use acts of sickening violence, and imprisonment may even be a perverse part of a rite of passage in gang membership.

As hon. Members will know, the backdrop to these amendments is the case of Shafi and Ellis v. Birmingham city council, in which the Court of Appeal determined that injunctions under section 222 of the Local Government Act 1972 could not apply to the cases in which they were being sought. On the basis of what Birmingham city council said about the impact that the injunctions were having on dealing with gangs in its area and its fear that gang violence was increasing as a consequence of the loss of that specific measure, the proposals were introduced in the House.

The one slightly cautionary note that I should sound against that backdrop goes back to what the Court of Appeal said at the time of the judgment in that case. Paragraph 68 of the judgment of Sir Anthony Clarke, the then Master of the Rolls, and Lord Justice Rix states:

"However, we are confident that the courts have ample powers to deal with them"- the "them" being the defendants. The judgment continues:

"The difficulty for the council here was that, as was submitted on behalf of the respondents, the case against these individuals was very thin on the facts. There is no reason why an ASBO should not be made against those against whom the evidence is sufficient, which must be true in many cases. Moreover, there may be exceptional cases where it would be appropriate to grant an injunction. This is not such a case."

I highlight that only because the amendments put important mechanisms in place relating to the need for a review and for consultation and guidance. A range of measures might now be available to local authorities and the police in seeking to undermine gang-related violence and gang-related "nuisance"-I call it that for the purposes of the section 222 injunctions, but it has a much bigger impact on people's daily lives. There needs to be greater clarity on the use of these powers in respect of serious crime prevention orders and the range of other sanctions available, to ensure that we do not end up with an ever-widening toolkit, with potentially overlapping remits, and that it is clear which intervention is likely to be the most effective in dealing with a particular circumstance. Therefore, it is essential that we scrutinise closely the import of all the increased powers that various authorities will have and the impact that they will make.

Obviously, we welcome certain changes that have been made as these provisions have been refined-we discussed this in Committee. It came up late in the consideration of the Bill-certainly in this House-and I am pleased to note that certain points that we flagged up were picked up in the other place and that there has been some movement on them. I am thinking, for example, about restrictions such that these orders will last for two years-thus bringing them into line with certain other provisions-as opposed to making them indefinite, and the provision ensuring that reviews take place. Again, that reflects some of the antisocial behaviour order practices and procedures and the process of seeking to streamline those.

It would be helpful if the Minister clarified one outstanding issue: the potential application of the orders to the under-18s. The clear message that came out in this House and in the other place was that it was not intended that they should apply; the Government might come back and look at more orders dealing with the under-18s. The point at issue is that if the orders were applied to someone who was under- 18-this is my understanding, and I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am in any way wrong-a breach of the injunction would continue to be dealt with by the High Court or a county court as a civil matter, despite the fact that the child could be under arrest and the penalty imposed for breaching the injunction could include imprisonment, rather than the youth court. That distinction needs to be reflected upon. I note the requirement for consultation with the Lord Chief Justice, and that point may well be reflected on in guidelines.

The provisions will be subject to formal review by the Secretary of State after three years. Will the Minister explain how he anticipates that being undertaken? Would it simply be done by the Secretary of State? Do Ministers anticipate the appointment of someone else to conduct that review on their behalf? There is a need for the continuing assessment of potential human rights issues and a need to deal with how that fits with the overall case law that applies in respect of similar orders, where the McCann standard of proof applies. We have raised that on many occasions in this House. These orders seek to differentiate themselves by applying the civil test-the balance of probabilities. How will all this fit together?

In conclusion, we welcome the changes that have been made to these provisions in the other place, but we will need to ensure that the powers are kept under scrutiny, that they will work as a matter of law and, most importantly, that they will have the desired effect of bringing relief to the communities that continue to suffer from gang-related violence and all the evils that many of these insidious gangs seek to perpetrate on the young people who live there-and, indeed, on the older people who live there too. Such behaviour has a serious impact on many people's quality of life and that is why it must remain a clear focus for all Governments in the future.

Although we welcome amendments 30 to 39 as a partial step forward in the right direction, we need to remember the background. The courts rejected the experiment in Birmingham on the grounds that other measures, such as ASBOs, could be used instead, and that there was not enough evidence from police and councillors in Birmingham to justify the imposition of such injunctions.

Many people have said that, depending on how the injunctions are used, they could be like control orders, and we have seen the legal difficulties and controversy over control orders when applied to terrorist suspects. An injunction against a gang member to save them from themselves-to save them from harm-could require that they spend eight hours in one place, eight hours in another and eight hours in another. It could be a 24-hour control order, and as we know, the provision could last up to two years. This is a controversial and powerful measure. The courts rejected the Birmingham experiment, saying, "No, there is not the evidence and there are other measures that can be used." None the less, the Government felt that they should go ahead, and have made some compromises, as we see in amendments 30 to 39, which are welcome.

Another concern and point of debate that remains is the fact that we are not looking to impose an injunction against gang members in order to stop them carrying out criminal activity, which after much debate is the partial definition of a gang that has been arrived at. We are looking at imposing injunctions on gang members to save them from gang-related activity that might be aimed at them. It is quite a controversial initiative. We have legislation to protect people from themselves when they are judged not to have the mental capacity to do so or the ability to look after their own affairs properly. We are saying in this case that although someone has mental capacity we will none the less impose injunctions on them to stop them going into situations where they might be subject to gang violence, with all the spill-over and bad effects that that has on the rest of the community around them. We are considering quite controversial measures, hence the intense debate on the matter over the course of this year.

The fact that amendments 30 to 39 impose a two-year time limit and say that after three years there should be a review by the Secretary of State are welcome steps to meeting some of the concerns, but we still have to ask how that review will be carried out. Parliament will not automatically get the chance to debate the review. Baroness Miller proposed a sunset clause so that the legislation would fall at some point-say at the end of three years-and said that if the Government of the day felt that the experiment had proved itself, they could reintroduce it. Parliament would then get its guaranteed chance to review the provision and how it had worked, to debate it and to discuss whether to continue or renew it in law. The amendments do not give us such an opportunity.

I am sure that the Minister will enlighten us on how the Secretary of State will carry out the review, but will it automatically be debated in Parliament and will notice have to be taken of that debate? We could have done more to reassure those who have doubts, but amendments 30 to 39 are a step in the right direction.

I shall try to answer some of the points that have been mentioned during the debate. I welcome the welcome that the two Opposition Front Benchers gave to the steps that the Government have taken.

We have said that there will be a review, that it will be held in three years, that it will be undertaken by the Secretary of State and that the outcome of that review will be published to Parliament. I cannot yet tell either James Brokenshire or Paul Holmes what the format of the review will be. It is likely that it will be about 18 months before we initiate the review, and that will properly be a decision for whoever happens to be the Home Secretary at that time. That might be my right hon. Friend Alan Johnson or another Labour Member-who knows what will happen in these changing times? I am confident that whoever it is will take the right decision and will bring back to Parliament a report on these issues so that they are considered in due course.

The hon. Member for Hornchurch mentioned the aspect of the injunctions that concerns those aged under 18. Under-18s can be taken to the High Court or the county court for breach of an injunction but the key point is that the only disposal available for those issues at this stage is a fine, not imprisonment. He will know that we are actively considering a range of issues to do with under-18 injunctions. We may return to the matter very shortly, but we have to consider everything carefully and hon. Members will have opportunities to debate the issues in due course.

This is a key provision. A number of tools in the civil and criminal law deal with gangs and the cancer that they can spread. The hon. Member for Hornchurch mentioned criminal activity and the damage that gangs do, but a range of options exist to tackle them. We need to look at them and use them in an appropriate way.

As the hon. Member for Chesterfield said, this injunction tool is designed to be a preventive measure, to be used to help and support individuals who might be sucked into the gang culture or who are already in it. Getting such people out of gang culture will benefit both them and, ultimately, wider society. It is not about taking action to crack down on gangs' criminal activity, which is something that should, and will, be undertaken as a matter of course by police forces across the UK.

As the hon. Member for Hornchurch said, the proposal arose from the discussions in Birmingham on the Court of Appeal decision. We needed to reflect on that: I think that we have, and I hope that the House agrees that we have listened to the concerns expressed in the other place. I hope too that the amendments on the time limit for the injunctions and on the review will give some comfort to those who felt that the proposals in the Bill were a step too far.

I believe that these are valuable amendments and that they give the proper assurances that were sought. I commend them to the House.

Lords amendment 30 agreed to.

Lords amendments 31 to 39 agreed to.