I beg to move amendment No. 155, in

clause 29, page 23, line 32, leave out

'intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed'

and insert 'intimidated or harassed'.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 156, in

clause 29, page 23, line 33, leave out 'presence or'.

Amendment No. 160, in

clause 29, page 23, line 42, leave out 'presence or'.

Amendment No. 161, in

clause 29, page 23, line 43, leave out

', or is likely to result,'.

Amendment No. 162, in

clause 29, page 23, line 44, leave out

'intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed'

and insert 'intimidated or harassed'.

Amendment No. 167, in

clause 29, page 24, line 33, leave out subsection (7).

Amendment No. 168, in

clause 29, page 24, line 33, leave out 'presence or'.

Amendment No. 169, in

clause 29, page 24, line 34, leave out 'presence or'.

The clause contains some of the most draconian elements of the Bill and, unfortunately, seems to undermine some of the good work that the Government have done in supporting young people. After all, the Government set up the children and young people's unit and have supported several other initiatives. They deserve credit for taking the steps that they have. They had, until recently, the first ever Youth Minister. I hope that there will be a replacement as soon as possible—particularly because at the moment I have no one to shadow.

The amendments relate to the overall powers that are being given to the police. The clause has many possibilities in it. One can read it in numerous ways and come up with something that seems quite reasonable and something that seems outrageous, depending on which collection of ors and ands are stuck together.

For the Committee's sake, I will demonstrate. Most of us would be entirely happy that the police might be able to disperse a group when:

''any members of the public have been intimidated . . . as a result of the . . . behaviour of groups of two or more persons''

in a locality. None of us feel that there is anything particularly wrong with the idea of the police dispersing people whose behaviour is intimidating others.

However, the paragraph could also be read as referring to a situation in which

''any members of the public have been . . . alarmed . . . as a result of the presence . . . of groups of two or more persons''.

There are probably many circumstances in which people get alarmed by somebody's presence. To be flippant, I am sure that in certain Conservative marginal seats, they would get very alarmed by groups of two or more Liberal Democrat canvassers appearing on the street corner, but in all seriousness—[Interruption.] I knew that that was a dangerous thing to say. Hon. Members will not shut up now; they will chunter on for the next few minutes.

Amendment No. 155 would omit the words ''alarmed or distressed'' from the Bill. Is it the hon. Gentleman's intention to allow people who cause alarm or distress to others to remain on the streets? Why does he want to remove those words? They are well known and are included in antisocial behaviour orders, as well as the Public Order Act 1986. Why does he want to leave people on the streets who cause alarm and distress?

We want to remove those words because there is a significant difference between people being alarmed by someone and being intimidated or harassed by that person. I live in a quiet, small town called Much Wenlock in my constituency which has, to all intents and purposes, zero crime. Nowhere actually has zero crime, but it is as low as anywhere in the country. Only 1,500 people live there and kids gather on the bench in the town centre and on street corners. Elderly residents have asked me what I am going to do about those kids gathering on that bench. They do not actually do anything or even say anything to the elderly ladies concerned. They do not swear at them and so on, but those elderly ladies feel alarmed by the mere presence of those kids. I have told them that those kids have exactly the same right to be in that locality as they have to stand and chat to each other.

This part of the Bill is clearly aimed primarily at young people and the problem is that they are being labelled as the sort of people who must not gather on street corners, but if a group of pensioners has a chat outside the post office after collecting their pensions, that is fine.

The hon. Gentleman wants to omit the word ''presence'', so why does he want to omit the words ''alarmed or distressed? Those words are well known to the law. Why does he want to leave such people out on the streets when there is a significant problem of antisocial behaviour in the locality?

I want to increase the threshold level before the decision is taken. The words ''intimidated'' and ''harassed'' are a more significant test threshold than ''alarmed'' and ''distressed''. That is my primary reason. The threshold is being set too low and the message that that sends to young people is that the Government think that young people are a problem. I realise that the Government have done other things to contradict that—I have already acknowledged that—but ''alarmed or distressed'' are unhelpful words when young people are concerned and may make them feel that society does not want them to belong to it.

May I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to subsection (1) which states:

''where a relevant officer has reasonable grounds for believing''

this or that. The relevant officer is a superintendent or above and he will make the judgment about an area with a history of antisocial behaviour. Does the hon. Gentleman honestly believe that a relevant officer will decide on dispersal because a group of old people drawing their pensions in a post office are put off by a group of youngsters outside? The decision will be made carefully, based on reasonable grounds. The hon. Gentleman is taking the words out of context.

I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from and she is right about the officer who decides whether to use the power, but a constable can then use that power on reasonable grounds. We shall come to clauses under which the constable does not have to make a record or issue a written notice; once the power is in place, he can use it 24 hours a day. I have no doubt that senior officers will be careful about how they use the provision, but in the likely areas where a senior officer might want to make use of the powers, ''intimidated'' or ''harassed'' will easily fit. There is no need for ''alarmed'' or ''distressed''. It is the behaviour of such people, not their presence, that is critical. It is very serious to say that someone's presence is the reason that one would want to see them moved on. The right to free assembly and the like immediately spring to mind.

Apart from the fact that it has been well stated that the words are well known in law, would the hon. Gentleman accept that the presence of a group of young people hanging around a cash point at night can alarm and distress people, and that that should be addressed?

If those young people are not committing an offence of harassment or intimidation, no, I do not think that they should be moved on. That is what it comes down to. If they are causing intimidation to people by their behaviour next to that cash point, the police would have grounds to move them on, and we would be happy to see such a provision go through. We are trying to remove the words ''alarmed'' and ''distressed'' in relation to the presence of somebody.

I cited that example because it is a particularly serious issue in one of the main streets in Cleethorpes. It is the presence—the loitering—that is causing distress to many of my residents who will not go near that cash point. Surely those people who are alarmed and distressed have rights, and we should be doing something about that, which is why the issue of dispersal is being considered.

We have a fundamental disagreement. If someone is just being somewhere and their actions are not being taken into account but just their presence, that is a very serious step to take. Many of my residents are seriously distressed by the presence of lots of heavy lorries driving past their houses, but we would not stop those lorries if they were travelling on major routes that we would expect them to use.

I seek clarification of what the hon. Gentleman thinks that he is proposing. He said, ''where they are causing intimidation''. Does he suggest that people ought not to be moved on if they are causing intimidation or if they are actually intimidating people? The two concepts can be very different. I do not understand how he can differentiate between causing intimidation and causing alarm and distress. What exactly does he think that he is proposing?

As I said, I am trying to raise the threshold. My reading of the provision is that the threshold of ''intimidated'' and ''harassed'' is higher than the words ''alarmed'' and ''distressed''. I am trying to raise the threshold so that such decisions will not be taken lightly by a senior officer or by a constable—we shall come later to the same set of words used in relation to a constable.

I have discussed the removal of the words ''alarmed'' and ''distressed'' and the removal of the words ''presence of''. If we consider amendment No. 161, which refers to clause 29(3), we again find the idea that someone can be given a sanction—being told one cannot return to an area is a sanction—that is delivered not by the courts, but by a constable on the ground. A senior officer can put that in place if the presence or behaviour

''has resulted, or is likely to result''

in someone being

''intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed''.

I do not think that any senior officer will take that step unless those problems are occurring on a daily basis—not that they are likely to occur. I find it difficult to understand why the Government need to include the words

''or is likely to result''.

We are again, in effect, deciding what is in someone's mind. That moves us down the slippery slope of deciding someone's intent before they have actually done anything that is, to most people's minds, wrong.

Speaking from memory, I believe a police officer can arrest someone and charge them with an offence if their behaviour is such that it causes or is likely to cause a breach of the peace. However, I gloss over that.

The hon. Gentleman referred to something that might happen on a single occasion. Has he read clause 29(1)(b)? It states that such authorisations can be made if

''anti-social behaviour is a significant and persistent problem in the relevant locality.''

If he read the Bill first, it might assist him.

That is exactly the point that I was making. A senior officer will only take action in circumstances where he could easily think that the public have been intimidated or harassed, and it is the person's behaviour rather than their presence that has caused that. As for the test for officers and constables, they are likely to use such powers where a problem is

happening, not where one is likely to happen. To remove a person from an area for 24 hours on the grounds that a constable thinks that their presence might possibly alarm someone is draconian. That previous legislation has contained similar measures is not necessarily a reason to continue to make the same mistakes.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that he lives in leafy Much Wenlock, which is not far from my constituency, so I am sure that he has visited some of the estates in my constituency that suffer from major problems of design and layout. There, it is quite reasonable that senior officers should take a view relative to an entire locality on whether someone's presence is likely to cause alarm. The design of the estates means that a person can stand right outside someone's window and cause alarm; they can do that in various locations around the estate, and they will do so.

The hon. Gentleman makes his point well, but he is still saying that someone who is technically breaking no law, standing on a public footpath, could be moved on. If there is only one such person, the measure will not apply to them anyway. One person can stand outside someone's window and continue to harass and intimidate them and the measure will not help to stop that. It will only help if there are two or more persons doing it.

The hon. Gentleman is wriggling.

I realise that there are problems. We do not oppose the clause in its entirety, but we are trying to raise the thresholds necessary to deal with the problem and remove the worst component of the measure—that someone can be sanctioned on the grounds of what they might possibly do, not what they are actually doing. If such provision does occur in law, it is extremely rare and it is a very slippery slope to go down.

If amendment No. 167 were accepted—although I can see that I am up against a brick wall here—amendments No. 168 and 169 would be completely unnecessary. They amendments would remove words from clause 29(7), which says that a group of people can be dispersed because ''one or more'' of them are behaving in the way described—or are believed to be behaving in such a way. The problem is that that will be unnecessary if the Government get their way. The officer could always say, ''Actually, I believed that they were all going to do such and such,'' and if the Government get their way the officer will have a route around the issue without needing subsection (7).

People will be penalised because somebody in their group is behaving unacceptably. Because a couple of members of a group of young people, most of whom are behaving acceptably, are acting unacceptably, the sanction of not returning to the area for 24 hours can be imposed on the entire group. Once again, people are being penalised for the action or behaviour of others.

Does not that principle already operate in relation to, for example, a demonstration, where the police have rights of dispersal for the greater

good of the local community? I cannot see the difference.

There is a difference: a demonstration is planned, even if it is not permitted. If violence erupts at a demonstration, it is entirely reasonable that the demonstration be brought to an end. Clause 29 would apply to a group of young people playing football on the local recreation ground, a couple of whom are acting in a way that is causing alarm, distress or intimidation to other people who might want to use that public space. In those circumstances, in effect, the clause says that a police officer can send the whole lot packing.

Does the hon. Gentleman really think that the local recreation ground is a place where antisocial behaviour is a significant and persistent problem and that it will therefore be a ''relevant locality''? His example is meaningless.

Yes, I can think of small recreation grounds where antisocial behaviour is a significant problem, as can Labour Members, but I could have given various examples of which that is only one.

In conclusion, we are trying to raise the threshold of the test that the senior officer and the constable on the ground have to apply. We want the test to be applied to actual behaviour, not to a perception of what might happen. We do not want everyone in a group to be penalised for the behaviour of one or two of its members.

The hon. Gentleman says that the measures are draconian. Community safety partnerships are examining this matter and would like to take action in consultation with the community. The amendments would prevent that work from advancing and would hugely disadvantage local people.

Our amendments would not prevent such action because the substantive part of the clause would remain.

We are raising an important threshold. My view on Bills is that we must always apply the test that at some point in the future someone might use the powers they contain unreasonably. I know that there is a test for the power of dispersal, but that test must always be applied. I do not want powers that could be abused to enter the law. The powers are wide-ranging and might be used in many circumstances in which the Government do not necessarily intend them to be used. I suspect that the powers will probably not be used in such circumstances, but my suspicion is not a sufficient reason to stand up, to support them and to want them to become law.

Finally, to return to where I started, the message that the powers send to young people is that the Government and society do not want them to be part of society.

I know that the hon. Gentleman does a great deal of work with young people. He will know that when we talk about antisocial behaviour we always juxtapose young people and, for example, pensioners, whereas my experience is that many of those who want the legislation are themselves young

people who are alarmed, distressed and intimidated. That is a very important point. It is a fundamental error to set young people against pensioners, as the hon. Gentleman did in much of what he said. Young people want action, because they are intimidated.

I agree entirely that those who are most victimised by youth crime are other young people. The people who are most likely to be attacked in the street are young men. The figures speak for themselves, and I have done the Committee a disservice by not drawing them to its attention. However, they do not alter my conclusions.

I believe that I am the youngest person in the Committee. Not that long ago, I was of an age at which I would be affected by such activities. I can remember times as a teenager when I was alarmed, distressed or intimidated by groups of other teenagers, and I imagine that at times every one of us has felt like that. However, thinking back to those times, would we really have wanted the law to deal with our problems? That is what it comes down to. When we were teenagers, would we have gone to the police and said, ''I have been intimidated and harassed. Would you please go and move that bunch of young people on?''

What would the hon. Gentleman do about a situation in my constituency in which groups of teenagers from rival schools waited at the bottom of an underpass day after day for children from the other school so that they could settle old scores? Situations such as that are very difficult to deal with and the police want powers to deal with them. Is he saying that he would not want such problems to be dealt with properly through the powers in the Bill?

I am surprised that the police were unable to deal with the situation with their existing powers, which is what should happen if people are fighting and using violence against each other.

My school in Shrewsbury was Priory comprehensive; Meole Brace comprehensive was next door, and there was great rivalry between the two schools. I was in the first year of boys in what had been an all-girls school. Things were not the same when one school was mixed and the other was all girls, but as soon as boys attended both schools, precisely the same problem as the hon. Lady described happening in her constituency arose—in fact, if I am completely honest, I must admit that as a 12 and 13-year-old, I was probably part of it. The problem was dealt with by the schools agreeing to alter the times that they started and finished and by some strong enforcement by teachers. It was not even necessary to bring in the police at that stage.

Yes, such activities can be a problem, but I return to the fundamental point, which is that we are trying to raise the threshold, which we think has been set too low. The message that the clause sends to young people is entirely wrong. I do not believe that the Minister wants to send such a message to young people—at least, I sincerely hope not. I hope that he treats our amendments seriously.

I was not going to take part in this debate, but I feel that I must given the performance of

the Liberal Democrats. I do not know why, but they bring out the draconian side of me.

The Government are proposing a dispersal system to deal with the presence of gangs of youths, which is by far the biggest single issue relating to antisocial behaviour that I hear about from my constituents. When I looked into the issue prior to Second Reading, the comments that people made said it all: they referred to gangs of youths and young ruffians, sometimes in shopping centres or at night in the streets, and said that there should be curfews on such people; they mentioned large crowds of youths, drunken youths, and so on. The example that I mentioned earlier was brought up many times. The presence of groups of youths in shopping centres and at cash points is certainly intimidating, alarming and distressing people. If there is one call that I have heard loud and clear, it is that we have to do something about those groups of young people.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling said, those views were coming not only from pensioners but from young people themselves, who genuinely feel intimidated by the presence of those groups. They feel very alarmed and distressed by loitering and threatening behaviour. When I go round to schools and talk to children—particularly to primary school children and younger teenagers—they cite the 14 to 16 age group as the one that intimidates them the most.

I support the clause and I think that the Liberal Democrat amendments are completely wrong. They do not address the problem at all. If the Liberal Democrats really feel that someone's presence cannot alarm or distress, they need only look at the whipping system in the Commons. Much as I love the Whips—their presence has never alarmed or distressed me—I can imagine that certain of my colleagues feel very threatened by their presence.

At no point did I deny that a person's presence might alarm or distress. My point was whether there should be a sanction against that presence that alarms and distresses, and my judgment is that there should not be.

One of the hon. Gentleman's amendments would delete the whole section on ''presence'', but he has now suggested to me that he never denied that presence could be a problem.

That is right.

I am sorry, but I think that that is typical Liberal Democrat confusion. I think that purely to focus as the hon. Gentleman has on acts of intimidation and harassment is completely against the ethos of the clause. We must address the potential for antisocial behaviour in areas that have been designated as having a particular problem. If his changes went through, he would not be raising thresholds; he would be watering down the powers in the clause. I know that many of my local police officers do not want them to be watered down: they are looking forward to having the powers to disperse groups, and the young people of Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Immingham want that to happen—as do all age

groups. It is a significant and serious problem and I do not want the clause to be watered down as the woolly, wet Liberal Democrats have suggested.

I almost hesitate to intervene in what is going on. The hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) suggested that the Conservatives might be worried by two Liberal canvassers coming down the road. My knee-jerk reaction would be to invite them to read his speech or even to hand them a few thousand copies of it to distribute. That would remove any concern that I might have, for reasons that the hon. Member for Cleethorpes has just described.

As the hon. Lady rightly said, the amendments would completely emasculate what the Government are trying to do. That is not to say that we are 100 per cent. behind the Government. The debate, including my remarks, will at least touch on other aspects, which we shall discuss in greater depth later. None the less, I cannot believe that anyone who has any understanding of the issue or who travels round the country does not realise that there is an ever-increasing problem with intimidation, harassment, distress and alarm. The problem is caused not only by the behaviour of groups but by their presence—the hon. Member for Cleethorpes was right about that. Many people are frightened to leave their homes. They cross the street to avoid clusters of people and will not go to the cash machine. The hon. Member for Ludlow may be saying that their reaction is unreasonable, and if he is, I shall return to his point. However, that is not to suggest that people are not alarmed or distressed by the behaviour or presence of such groups.

Our approach is to open up part 4, and we shall come to other amendments later. The caveats with which the Government have surrounded these powers are too strong and I do not think that we need them. Later, I shall discuss why we do not need to include provision for relevant localities. There is a problem in many parts of the country and police officers should not have to deal with all the paraphernalia in clause 30, which requires them to consult and to decide whether there is an ongoing problem in an area. Young people will soon discover that if they cross the street, they will leave the area and the problem will go away. The police should have the necessary powers.

Comments have been made about when we were young. All Members of the House are prone to stating opinion as fact, but it is pretty safe to say that we were all young once—that is probably the only thing that it is safe to state as fact. If we were being honest, we would have to admit that, as young people, we probably found ourselves in both the situations that have been described. Sometimes we were intimidated, distressed or alarmed by the presence of groups of other young people; sometimes, dare I say it, we may have been part of a group that was causing distress. We may not have done so intentionally, but we caused distress none the less. However, the point—this comes back to the remark made by the hon. Member for Gedling—is that if someone in authority told us to clear off, we probably did.

One of the candidates in my area in last week's elections was a man in his 50s. He has lived in his home town all his life. When he knocked on a particular door, a retired police officer came out and said, ''Ah, Hunt. I know the size of your collar, but I'll still vote for you''—not that that did the man any good, mind. The point is that he was a successful business man who, like many other people when they were young, pushed the limits. Many of us did that, although, of course, I do not include you, Mr. Cran. We pushed life to the limit, but we knew where to stop. Part of the trouble today is that that line has been pushed much further, and young people often do not know where to stop. The problems and challenges facing our police forces are such that officers are not always there to exert the authority that they did when we were young. The issue is how we address that.

I want part 4 to be amended so that a police officer can go wherever harassment, intimidation, distress or alarm is being caused. He can then move the young people on, send them home or even, in the case of those under 16, take them home, although that is a separate aspect. That is why I shall table amendments later to extend the opportunities for using the Bill's provisions beyond the very tight limits in the Bill.

I suppose that, in a spirit of generosity, I can say that the speech of the hon. Member for Ludlow identified the kernel of a problem. There is always the risk that a power may be used where it should not be. There must, therefore, be some test of reasonableness. I listened to the intervention of the hon. Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman), who rightly reminded us of the opening line of clause 29(1). I shall be interested in the Minister's response to this, but my reading of

''where the relevant officer has reasonable grounds for believing . . . that any members of the public have been intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed''

is that it is not the test of reasonableness to which I referred earlier. That would ask whether the distress or alarm was a reasonable reaction to the presence or behaviour of young people.

There is no point in having a Committee stage and cross-examining clauses if we do not expose every possible aspect. It is perfectly fair to say that there are people in this country who are over-sensitive and are distressed or alarmed by things that would not distress or alarm the average person. That is why I shall move amendments later that would introduce an obligation on the police officer to assess whether the reaction was reasonable or whether the person apparently becoming alarmed or distressed was being completely unreasonable. They should not assess the fact that they are alarmed, but ask whether a more normal, average person would have been alarmed in those circumstances.

I have found a clear example of that. To be completely politically incorrect, but brutally frank, we know that some people in this country, particularly perhaps the elderly, may find the presence of people of a different race standing together on their street intimidating. We might think that that is totally unreasonable—I do. However, we would be kidding ourselves to pretend that that might not happen. I would object strongly if a group of people were moved

on, simply because their colour or race was causing distress to someone else, despite the fact that they were not doing anything. That is why I think that there needs to be a test of reasonableness put on the officer to decide whether the reaction shown by members of the public is reasonable. I shall move amendments later to make that point more formally.

Order. I am well aware of the fact, as is the Committee, that the hon. Gentleman has a number of groups of amendments yet to come along. I should say now that we do not want to debate those groups twice, thrice or four times.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has now made the point that I wanted to make—on race or colour.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and chided by your comments, Mr. Cran. I do not want to introduce other groups of amendments at this stage, but through the amendments I was trying to address what I think is a kernel of truth in the point made by the hon. Member for Ludlow: the possibility that powers could be exceeded or that people's reactions might be unreasonable. I do not think that we should address that problem, however, through dramatically reducing the scope of part 4 by removing the terms ''alarmed or distressed'' and ''presence'', as this group of amendments proposes. Those are perfectly reasonable terms to have in the legislation. The issue is whether they happen reasonably, and I think that the proposals that I shall introduce later are a more effective way of dealing with that problem.

It is quite clear from what I have said that we cannot support this group of amendments. We think that they weaken the Bill dramatically. There is a little problem there, but it can be addressed in a better way.

I was going to start by saying that I was not exactly an angel in my youth either, but the tone of the debate has become much more serious and concentrated, so I shall not dwell on that.

This is a valuable provision, but I must tell the Committee and my hon. Friend the Minister that my acting chief constable was concerned about some of the language and approached me to outline his concern. In fairness, some of the things that the hon. Member for Ludlow said during his contribution have been said to me. My acting chief constable made some fairly cautious comments about the provision, but the police in my community most certainly have not. They were differently focused from the acting chief constable.

The generality of conclusions reached by the police in my community, who sometimes have to handle outrageous behaviour on the streets, was that the provision gives the police the right to make judgments, the opportunity to define known individuals, the option to speak to parents and, if all the prevention on the judgments that they could make failed, the ability to move in and secure an intimidating, harassing or frightening situation. I have a lot of such behaviour in some parts of my constituency and

it was valuable to hear the police speak as they did. Street wardens attempt to speak persuasively to youngsters and we have two superb youth facilities, one of which has just been opened and was built at a cost of £1 million. The group of youngsters who persist in enjoying intimidation and threatening behaviour though small, still threatens the youth facility that is up and running.

I am listening carefully and I do not want draconian measures. I want a balanced, measured approach when dealing with young people, who often believe that older people only criticise and complain about them. I do not take that stance, but I want the police to have the ability to move in to control a situation and we should facilitate that.

I want to tell one story, but I am mindful, Mr. Cran, that I must not go on and on. An 78-year-old gentleman who has lived a good and just life told me one Saturday morning that he no longer goes into the garden because there is no point. He does not mind the children coming for footballs that come over the hedge because that is the way it is, but they come through the hedge and break the flowers, and when he spoke to them they broke every window at the side of his house. We must acknowledge that there is a tiny group of youngsters who cannot be spoken to and there is no language to convince or persuade them that good behaviour is valuable for us all. I do not believe that the provision is draconian. I believe that the words,

''or is likely to result'',

if based on reasonable grounds, are appropriate.

I want to put on record that there is no reason to suggest that the amendments do not set limits for young people's behaviour. Very bad behaviour must be dealt with, particularly criminal behaviour such as the breaking of windows. Our concern is that it is unusual in law to tackle not the behaviour of the people who will be confronted by the police but the perception of that behaviour by others. I would have thought that that was unusual.

There is some common ground with the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire. Making judgments based on the perception of others is a slippery slope. It is likely to lead to alienation and worse behaviour. We have said that there are excesses and cases for dispersal. We all know of situations that have got totally out of control. However, a group of young people who are just out and about, talking to one another, could be perceived as a threat when, in reality, they are not doing anything wrong.

Surely the way forward is to think about all those other good measures that the Government are bringing in. There is going to be more money in the youth service again—terrific. There will be more detached workers and more money for youth facilities, says she optimistically—I hope that that includes my part of the world. Rather than dispersing people who are hanging around for want of something better to do, we should consider opportunities to work with those young people, if they are not doing anything wrong. We agree that action needs to be taken.

Given what the hon. Lady has just said, how would she regard the situation in the main street in Cleethorpes? Gangs of young people hang around cash points, which causes distress and alarm to people using them. How would her view of the matter, and the amendments, deal with that?

In an ideal world, young people would not be hanging around. We should be considering providing diverting activities. I would want to think that a lot of work was being done with those young people, if they were not doing anything wrong. Going straight to such draconian powers almost knocks those things out of the equation.

I have been in difficult situations that are similar to the one described by the hon. Lady. People are put under enormous mental stress when a lot of young people gather outside their houses. However, if those young people are not doing anything wrong, the onus should be on working with them and providing diverting activities.

I just wanted to put the matter in perspective. It has been suggested that the Liberal Democrats do not want to take any action at all. That is not the case. We want to take effective action. We do not want to alienate young people; we want to make life much better.

I am assuming that the hon. Lady is giving way.

So am I.

I wonder whether the hon. Lady is living in cloud-cuckoo land when she talks about finding young people something to do. The hon. Member for Ludlow said that he was one of the youngest members of the Committee; I am probably at the other end of the spectrum. It has always been a cry that young people have not got enough to do but that is not an excuse for causing hassle to others. The reality is that there are more facilities for young people today than there have ever been. I am not necessarily lauding the Government for that. It is just the nature of commercial life. However, the fact that there is more and more to do does not stop people from causing the problems that we are trying to deal with.

I absolutely agree. There is no excuse whatever for hassling others. However, should there really be police intervention based on the perception that behaviour is wrong, rather than on actual behaviour?

I would like to say a few words because antisocial behaviour has been a serious and growing problem in my constituency over the 10 years that I have been a Member of Parliament. It has grown steadily, and people increasingly ask me what I, as a politician, am doing about it. I say to the hon. Members for Mid-Dorset and North Poole and for Ludlow that my mind goes back to a meeting I attended in one part of my constituency recently, where the demands were being led by some of the Liberal Democrat councillors. They put me on the spot and asked me what I was supporting. I told them about something I was supporting but I did not have

the heart to tell them that the parliamentary Liberal Democrats were opposing it. That concerned a different measure but I think that we will arrive at a similar position today.

The hon. Lady says that there are too many thresholds and too few conditions that have to be met. My concern is the opposite: there are slightly too many conditions that have to be met, and I ask the Government to reconsider them. I want respectfully to take the hon. Lady through the hurdles that it seems have to be surmounted before the orders can be made. First, a relevant officer, who has to be a senior officer, has to have reasonable grounds for believing—that is fairly strong in legal terms—

''(a) that any members of the public have been intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed as a result of the presence or behaviour of groups of two or more persons in public places in any locality in his police area (the 'relevant locality'), and

(b) that anti-social behaviour is a significant and persistent problem in the relevant locality.''

Both of those conditions have to be satisfied. The process does not stop there. The officer's authorisation must meet the requisite formalities. I have a slight concern about that. The authorisation has to meet the formalities that are set out in clause 30. It must be in writing and specify each of the requirements. There also has to be consultation with the local authority and a notice put up locally.

Order. I am concerned that we are going slightly wider than the narrow amendment before us. Can the hon. Gentleman return to it?

I am drawn towards it, Mr. Cran. I shall come back to order because I am dealing with a point made by the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole about the amendment. She said that the clause should not deal with alarm or distress because that might happen through the mere presence of people in the area. Such an order can only come about when there has been a proven problem in an area of antisocial behaviour, when authorisation has been given and there has been consultation. All those processes must be gone through.

The order will not simply happen at the whim of an officer or the drop of a hat—not that that would be likely to happen in any case because we all know the pressures that there are on police officers. If the hon. Lady believes that there is not enough formality there, not enough conditions to be met and she still wants to water down the provision, she will rarely be satisfied.

As for the hon. Lady's argument that before we do anything we should consider ways of diverting people from that behaviour, we would all say amen to that. However, that would seem to be an argument against any type of public order legislation, whether it is on breach of the peace, assault or anything of that nature, because we should always be doing something else about it.

One has to deal with a particular mischief. The clause deals with a clearly defined mischief. The words are well known to the law. They go back to the antisocial behaviour legislation brought in by the Government, which itself was a replication of the Public Order Act 1986. That Act was based on public

order legislation of the 1930s. If there is a problem with the wording, there is a problem with the whole of public order legislation. Someone can be arrested under the public order provisions for behaviour that causes or is likely to cause a breach of the peace in any of the ways specified. An antisocial behaviour order can be brought against them, or they can be arrested and brought to court for breach of the peace.

I return to the words that the hon. Lady wants to take out. She wants to water the provision down. She accepts the inclusion of ''intimidated'' and ''harassed'' but wants to remove ''alarmed'' and ''distressed''. Groups of youths are not specified in the clause. The youths debate was a red herring. The legislation specifies ''persons'', so it could refer to people of any age. We had a debate about other legislation where the Liberal Democrats thought that the behaviour of old age pensioners could be a problem. I will not go down that route, Mr. Cran, or you will draw me back to order. If people's behaviour is causing alarm, distress, harassment or intimidation, I do not think it unduly draconian for police officers to be authorised to disperse them, or, as we used to call it, move them on.

I put a question to the Minister based on the words ''alarmed'' and ''distressed'': would a police officer be within their rights to arrest a member of such a group for breach of the peace under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, rather than moving them on?

We should not water down the legislation to the extent that the Liberal Democrats want—their concern for civil liberties is entirely misplaced—and should not start examining alternatives when there is mischief. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole wants to license any sort of behaviour. The legislation may help but my concern is that there are already too many conditions and it will not be as much help as I should like it to be. I am concerned about how similar provisions have been used. I am looking to the Minister to give a careful justification of why so many hoops have to be jumped through before authorisation can be given.

For me, the clause is one of the most important in the Bill. In our advice surgeries and in letters, we have seen an enormous change in residents' concerns. Concern about gangs of people, who are not necessarily young, gathering on street corners has transformed the living conditions of a number of people in specific wards in my constituency. People who are concerned or frightened that such groups may harass them are in the main young people themselves. Who is most likely to be attacked in the street? Who are more likely to be harassed by a gang of young people other than young people themselves?

It was heartbreaking at my surgery a couple of weeks ago, when a lady came to ask me for a management transfer from her housing association home because her 17-year-old son had come home in terrible distress and broken down in tears. He said that he had to pretend to be friends with the guys on the corner of the street because if he did not, he did not know what would happen to him. He felt so

intimidated by their presence that he had to change his behaviour. He felt that he had to conform to their antisocial behaviour in order for him to continue to live in his own home and walk down his own street.

We can all cite loads of examples of elderly people being frightened by a group of young people on a street corner, but they have reason to be fearful. All of us who have been local councillors know that one can provide as many youth centres as one likes, but one cannot get the young people who need to go to them to attend. They will gather outside the youth centre or down the road, but they will not use the centre unless they are required to do so, because meeting on a street corner and frightening people is fun. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling had a conversation with one of his constituents about that.

How can we convince members of the public to have confidence in the police and to report crime, if they do not believe that the police can move gangs of people who intimidate them? They currently believe that there is no point in complaining about car crime, burglary or bigger crimes because politicians, the police and the authorities cannot deal with their street environment. Unless we can tackle the matter in a simple way and unless we can give the Bill to the police in an easily enforceable form—we will want to talk about clause 30 later—we will see fewer people voting and fewer people engaging with society because they will have no faith in us.

The start of the debate by the hon. Member for Ludlow, who is the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesman for youth, was lengthy. We should clarify exactly what the amendments would do. He is saying that he wants to raise the threshold so that

''where a relevant officer has reasonable grounds for believing . . . that any members of the public have been intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed as a result of the presence or behaviour of groups''

and where

''anti-social behaviour is a significant and persistent problem in the relevant locality'',

a constable should not be allowed to disperse a group of young people whom he suspects of causing alarm or distress. We totally disagree with him. We are dealing with a real problem and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) said, we must give the police the powers to tackle this nuisance.

Is the Minister not being a little too modest in his argument? Before the power in the clause could be exercised, would not a relevant officer—a senior officer—have to believe that there had been a previous episode in which someone had been intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed? Would not antisocial behaviour also have to be a significant and persistent problem? There would then have to be a further episode, and an individual officer who had been duly authorised would have to believe that members of the public had been intimidated, harassed, alarmed of distressed.

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is saying anything different from me. He

is absolutely right about what the Liberal Democrats are suggesting. They are saying that where both conditions apply—where members of the public have been intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed, and where antisocial behaviour is a significant and persistent problem in the area—and where consultation has taken place, a constable should not be allowed to move the groups involved.

Unbelievable.

As the hon. Gentleman says, it is unbelievable. However, that is the effect of the amendments.

This part of the Bill aims to tackle the problem of groups of young people gathering in a way that causes intimidation, alarm and distress. People have a right to feel safe in their communities. We must avoid situations in which they are afraid to use public spaces because they feel threatened by groups of people hanging around. We know that this is a real problem up and down the country. In 2000, 32 per cent. of the respondents to the British crime survey cited teenagers hanging around on the street as a very or a fairly big problem in their area.

The police are often called to deal with such problems, but they do not have the powers to do so unless criminal offences have been committed. The Bill aims to give them the necessary powers in areas where antisocial behaviour is a significant and persistent problem. We propose two new powers. First, there is the power to disperse groups. Secondly, there is the power to return people under 16 who are unsupervised in public places after 9 pm to their homes.

Liberal Democrat amendments Nos. 155, 160, 162, 168 and 169 would limit the use of the powers before us to cases where members of the public had been ''intimidated or harassed''. The Government believe that the words ''alarmed or distressed'' should also be added. Members of the public should be protected in their communities from feeling alarmed and distressed by the presence and behaviour of groups.

Amendment No. 156 would remove the possibility of the police using the powers before us on the basis of the presence of groups that were causing intimidation, harassment, alarm or distress. The Government believe that it is not only the behaviour of groups that threatens people; their presence and the fear of what they may do prevents people from using open spaces and facilities in their communities.

Amendment No. 161 would prevent a constable from using the power in the clause where he had reasonable grounds for believing that a group's presence or behaviour would result in members of the public being intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed. It is essential that constables or community support officers have the power to prevent members of the public from being affected in that way and to prevent intimidation, harassment, alarm or distress in the first place. Officers should not have to wait until they witness such incidents in areas that have a history of them.

Amendment No. 167 would remove a clarification that the Government consider essential for the effective operation of the powers before us. Any reference in the clause to the presence or behaviour of a group of persons is to be read as a reference to the presence or the behaviour of any one or more persons in that group. It is essential that the police are able to deal with such groups as a collective problem rather than focus on the behaviour of one particular person in the group. It would be very difficult indeed for a constable or a community safety officer to pick out exactly which individuals in a group had caused intimidation, harassment, alarm or distress and to give direction only to those individuals to disperse.

We have had a good debate, which has exposed a fundamental difference in the Committee about what is necessary. I ask the hon. Member for Ludlow to withdraw his amendment, although given the performance that we have just witnessed, I have no confidence that he will do so. If he is not prepared to do that, we shall vote the amendment down.

I shall be brief, unlike in my first contribution on this group of amendments when I took interventions from about two thirds of the Committee. However, I can do my maths. Virtually every member of the Committee has either spoken or intervened, so it is clear which way hon. Members would vote. I shall, therefore, not waste the Committee's time by pressing the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 106, in

clause 29, page 23, line 34, leave out 'public places' and insert 'any place'.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 157, in

clause 29, page 23, line 34, leave out

'public places in any locality'

and insert 'a public place'.

Amendment No. 110, in

clause 29, page 23, line 43, leave out 'public place' and insert 'place'.

This group would do precisely what my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere suggested earlier, which is remove or lower some of the hurdles before the powers are implemented. Although amendments Nos. 106 and 110 are Conservative amendments, the Liberal Democrats tabled amendment No. 157.

The amendment would remove the word ''public'' from the description of the place where the behaviour is occurring or where the presence of certain people is causing problems. I do not quite understand why the word ''public'' is necessary. The clause seeks to remove intimidation, harassment, distress or alarm, yet those things can equally happen on private land. That does not necessarily mean that the people who are suffering distress or alarm are in a private place—they may or may not be. I am worried about the possible consequences of restricting the location of the behaviour or presence to a public place.

To take a slightly extreme example, a group of young people could be standing on the street causing the problem, yet as soon as someone turns up to remonstrate they could hop over a fence, stand on somebody's lawn and keep going, thereby becoming immune from prosecution and free to continue causing distress or alarm with impunity. That might be possible with a superstore or pub car park. I do not know whether the Minister classifies such places as public, but the land is privately owned, even though the public can use it. The use of the word ''public'' in the definition of the land where the behaviour or presence can occur is an unnecessary restriction.

I am not advocating, before anyone suggests that I am, that the provision should apply to people who are shouting foul and abusive language in the middle of someone's private property miles from any public road. If they are on private property, that is a separate issue. However, it seems unwise to restrict the power. I know the proclivity of young people in particular to understand exactly where the line of the law is and how to get past it. They will quickly find a way of doing so if there is a restriction to a public place. If they can get away with it from a pub car park or by hopping over a fence on to private property, they will quickly make a laughing stock of the provisions.

There is no great need for me to spend much more time introducing the amendment. Obviously, it is part and parcel of our attempts to lower or to remove some of the hurdles that have to be jumped before the police can take action. I do not believe that it is necessary to restrict the power to public places but I would be interested to hear the Minister's response. We must ensure that the police can deal with the problem as and when it arises, and that is the purpose of the amendment.

As we heard during debates on a series of amendments to part 1, there is a continual problem throughout the Bill about where thresholds are set. A concern that we all have with the raft of measures in the Bill, including those on the dispersal of groups, which is a significant improvement to the law that really will make a difference, is that we must ensure that the powers are used. We have passed many measures but have been disappointed about the way in which they have been used.

The power in the clause will make a significant difference to the quality of life in many of our communities for old, middle-aged and, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, young people as well but we must ensure that it is used. I do not know whether the amendment is the right one—the Minister may be able to give good reasons why the wording in the Bill is appropriate—but I ask him to keep under constant review the various amendments and thoughts that come forward to ensure that we do not have legislation that sounds good but is too bureaucratic or unwieldy to be used by police officers or anyone else.

One of the amendments has been tabled by the Liberal Democrats. The Minister may find it hard to believe but we are actually trying to help him with our amendment No. 157. The test in clause

29(1)(a) is that the behaviour or likely behaviour—we have had that debate, so I shall not go into it again—must take place in several places in a locality. We wanted to set the thresholds higher but we failed on that. However, we agree that some of the powers should be in place. If a problem in just one particular place in a locality is severe enough, the police should act. Our amendment would replace

''public places in any locality''

with ''a public place'', so that something does not have to take place in more than one area. I agree with the hon. Member for Gedling, in that if we are to have the law—we may disagree on where to set the thresholds—it might as well be law that the police can use if they need to.

Let me turn briefly to the Conservatives' amendments. I understand the problem that they are trying to deal with, as does the hon. Member for Gedling, but they have not found the right way of doing it. The danger of using the phrase ''any place'' is that it could be inside someone's home. I understand that the police can enter a home in only two circumstances—when they have a warrant and when they believe that a crime is being committed there. [Interruption.] Someone believes that I am wrong but that is my understanding of the law.

The amendment would give the police the right to enter a house to deal with a group of young people where the parents are away. That is not what the Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, intends but it is possible. I realise that someone hopping over a hedge would be not in a public place but in a private garden, and I can see the problem that the hon. Gentleman is trying to deal with. However, I suspect that the form of words is not right. None of us may have quite the right answer but we are saying to the Minister that there could be a problem. The Government may want to return to it at a later stage.

Amendments Nos. 106 and 110 seek to extend the use of the powers to any place. The Government believe that private gatherings such as garden parties and parties in private houses should not be caught by the Bill. That is why we include a definition of a public place in clause 35; it includes any highway and any place to which the public have access.

Some of the places and circumstances that the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire mentioned will be covered, such as car parks. People may move across the threshold on to a car parking area in order to be able to avoid being caught by the Bill's provisions but car parks will be covered. We are giving the police those powers, so that people can use public places without fear of intimidation or harassment. Other measures, including some in the Bill, deal with situations in private residences. They include housing injunctions, demoted tenancies, antisocial behaviour orders and fixed penalty notices for creating noise.

The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire talks about people jumping into gardens and asks whether or not fenced gardens are covered. I am not

sure that they are covered, and I assure him that I shall consider whether we can cover them without extending the power so widely that it covers areas that even the hon. Gentleman would not want to be covered. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling made the point that we should constantly check whether we are providing loopholes as we legislate. We ought to be mindful of that, so I shall consider whether those situations are covered and whether there is a problem.

I wish to be helpful by recounting a local problem. Travellers have recently descended upon a private piece of land, creating havoc and engaging in a lot of antisocial behaviour. However, the landowner chose not to take action. In fact, he may have rather enjoyed the neighbourhood being upset. I offer that example for the Minister to consider.

I thank the hon. Lady. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire is trying to help in that regard but I think that he realises the danger of going too wide. We need to examine the circumstances that might arise and review them. However, as I said, car parks are covered.

Amendment No. 157, tabled by the Liberal Democrats, would change

''public places in any locality''

to ''a public place''. I am not sure what difference the amendment would make but it is no clearer than the Bill. We are talking about the criteria being used by the relevant officer when making a judgment about whether to grant the powers in a particular area. The hon. Member for Ludlow is talking about the relevant officer having reasonable grounds for believing that members of the public have been intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed as a result of persistent behaviour in a locality. He suggests that the phrase should be ''a public place''. I suggest that if the relevant officer is going to designate an area, he wants to know that there is a problem in public places in that area. I am not sure that we would want the officer to designate an area or a locality as a result of a specific problem in one public place. Our words our clear: there are grounds for designation where there has been a problem in public places in a locality, and the other criteria apply.

I was trying to be helpful. I can envisage circumstances in which the problem continually reoccurs in one place such as a small shopping centre on an estate, or a group of shops where there are cash points, to return to an earlier point. It is likely that if there is a problem in one place, there are also problems in other places, but I thought that it might help to replace a plural noun with a singular one. However, I will take the Minister's word for it if he is sure that the plural will not lead to the officer not being able to use the powers if he or she should want to.

I am fairly sure that, if a particular location, such as the area around a cash point, were causing the problem, the area could be designated. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman if that is not the case. His amendment would mean that only one place

could be designated. Where there is a general problem of harassment in different public places in a particular area, we will want the officer to be able to encapsulate that area containing those public places. We do not want the designated area to be a single place and for the officer to have to designate each public space. That would be dreadfully bureaucratic and burdensome. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want that to happen but that would be the probable effect of his amendment. I am fairly sure that if there is a particular problem in one public space, that single public space could be designated. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman if that is not the case. We want to give people a wider power to designate an area in which problems occur.

I am grateful to the Minister for his remarks and for his clarification that my concern about car parks is unfounded and that they are covered by the legislation. I also appreciate his undertaking to go away and think about it. However, I stress that there is an issue here that needs to be addressed. He originally described the Government's aim as allowing people to use public places, unaffected by this sort of behaviour. There is no doubt that people in public places can be affected by what happens in private spaces. We obviously do not want to affect things such as garden parties. We all know where the line is drawn. I was trying to address the issue of young people who, as we all know, can snub the law by doing something like hopping over a garden fence and affecting those in a public place who are trying to enjoy whatever they are doing. I appreciate the Minister's point.

The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole mentioned travellers. She may notice that I have tabled a new clause relating to travellers, which we will discuss later in our consideration of the Bill. A group of youths regularly gathered on the forecourt of an office block on a high street in my constituency. They were not being antisocial by any definition, although they were on a private forecourt and the office block and forecourt happened to be only 10 ft from the high street. They would not be caught by this provision because they were on private property. The owner was relaxed about them being there. They were off the street on his forecourt but that did not go down well with the rest of the community. That is an example of behaviour affecting people going about their daily business in a public place and the activity coming from a private place.

I am grateful for the Minister's undertaking to take that message on board and in the spirit of that good will I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 108, in

clause 29, page 23, line 35, leave out '(the relevant locality)'.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 111, in

clause 29, page 23, line 43, leave out 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.

Amendment No. 112, in

clause 29, page 24, line 6, leave out first 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.

Amendment No. 113, in

clause 29, page 24, line 6, leave out second 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.

Amendment No. 208, in

clause 29, page 24, line 9, after

'residence', insert ', employment or education'.

Amendment No. 114, in

clause 29, page 24, line 10, leave out first 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.

Amendment No. 115, in

clause 29, page 24, line 10, leave out second 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.

Amendment No. 164, in

clause 29, page 24, line 11, leave out '24' and insert '12'.

Amendment No. 116, in

clause 29, page 24, line 25, leave out 'relevant' and insert 'immediate'.

Amendment No. 117, in

clause 29, page 24, line 35, at end insert—

'( ) ''immediate locality'' in this section means that area which the constable believes to be reasonable bearing in mind the number of people involved and the circumstances of the groups' coming together.'.

Amendment No. 175, in

clause 35, page 27, leave out line 25.

This group of amendments follows the same theme as the previous group: to try to reduce the hurdles faced by the police before they can use the measures proposed. In some ways, our amendments in this group—some were tabled by the Liberal Democrats—would have a most dramatic effect on the scope of the power, but I believe that that is necessary.

It is important to understand that we are trying to remove from our streets the blight caused by a small minority of people whose behaviour can be obnoxious with the use of foul, abusive language. That has changed over the years because once people did not swear, shout, scream and use the vile language that is used today. We want to remove that blight from our streets, but it is difficult to understand—we look forward to the Minister's explanation—why efforts to do so should be restricted to specific areas where there is a ''significant and persistent problem''. That is the subject of a later amendment.

The qualifying factor is the issue of a ''relevant locality''. I do not understand why the police should not be able to take action wherever such behaviour takes place. The amendments in my name would remove the reference to ''relevant locality'' and in most instances substitute ''immediate locality''. Amendment No. 117 would define ''immediate locality'' in terms of the area that the young people must leave and allow the police to decide what they deem to be appropriate in the circumstances. To try to define it in any other way would be too prescriptive.

There seems to be no dispute about the problem

that we are trying to contain, but I do not understand why we should not try to contain it everywhere, not merely in certain authorised localities. It is essential that the police are able to act immediately if there is a problem without having to worry about whether the location is inside or outside a ''relevant locality''. In some ways, that goes to the root issue of the Bill: the powers of the police and, as the hon. Member for Gedling said, where the line is drawn and the threshold is set.

It would be difficult for the public to understand why the police can use the powers in some areas but not in others, and why young people who gather in one part of town and shout abuse and cause intimidation can be moved on by the police, but if they gather in another part of town that is not authorised as a ''relevant locality'' they will not be able to use those powers and move them on. That is a bureaucratic hurdle that the general public will find impossible to understand. They want the police to have the powers and I believe that the police want the flexibility and ability to intervene when they think that appropriate.

Later, we shall discuss amendments relating to reasonableness and when the police can intervene. The purpose of our amendments in this group is to allow the police the flexibility to operate as they think appropriate anywhere in the country and in any part of a town or village without the paraphernalia of the ''relevant locality'' and authorisation, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere mentioned in relation to clause 30. That is an unnecessary bureaucratic process that will prevent the police from doing their job of dispersing a group that is causing harassment or intimidation. The amendments are important because they would remove that major hurdle. My party's view is that the police should be given more flexibility; removing the term ''relevant locality'' would help.

Before I call the next speaker, I should point out that I can hear a conversation that is hampering my ability to listen to the debate.

I rise to explain the amendments that have been tabled by the Liberal Democrats. First, however, I shall touch on the Conservative amendments.

I have considered the amendment that replaces ''relevant'' with ''immediate'' but cannot see that it makes much difference. I am sure that the Minister will say that it wrecks the Bill, but I do not believe that it would achieve what the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire wants it to achieve. If it did, I would be worried about it, because the idea that a power could be extended across an entire police area if there is a problem in one part of it is draconian. That is what the hon. Gentleman wants the amendment to achieve, and although I do not believe that the amendment would achieve it, my reading of it may be wrong. I would be worried if it achieved that.

As the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) said, although our consistencies are coterminous and covered by the same police force, our two areas have different social problems. I am aware of significant

antisocial behaviour in Telford, but it is not a significant problem in my constituency. I may be rare among Members of Parliament in being able to say that, but I am glad to be able to say it. The point is that extending a power across an entire police force area—to Much Wenlock because there is a problem in Telford, for example—would be unnecessary. Even so, I do not believe that the amendment would allow the police to do that.

Amendment Nos. 208 and 164 are two attempts to deal with a specific problem. They may not be the right way of dealing it, but I hope that the Minister will take the general point on board. The clause provides that a police officer has the power to disperse a group of people and tell them that they cannot return to a public place for 24 hours. That may happen in the evening outside a place where a member of the group works or goes to school. In effect, it would be telling someone that they cannot walk down the street the next day to go to work or school.

I do not believe that the Government want that to happen, and we have tried to address it in the two amendments. They may not use the best wording, but one idea is to reduce the 24-hour limit. The key intention is to get the people away from the area, and the problem could be solved by reducing the time limit, although reducing it to 12 hours may not be sufficient, because if the group is dispersed at 10 o'clock at night, they cannot be back at the location at 9 o'clock the following morning. The amendments are attempts to deal with the problem that the Bill could make it a technical offence for someone to be somewhere they have a legitimate reason to be.

I hope that the Minister will take the point on board. I suspect that we have not got the wording quite right. I hope that he will consider the matter and come back at a later stage. I cannot imagine that he intends to force kids to be away from school because they were misbehaving outside that school the previous evening.

Amendment No. 175 is now irrelevant because it was linked to amendment No. 157, which fell in a previous group. I am particularly interested in the Minister addressing amendments Nos. 208 and 164.

The amendment moved by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire introduces a definition of an ''immediate'' locality, as opposed to the Government's definition of a ''relevant'' locality. As he and the hon. Member for Ludlow explained, their intention is to allow the constable or community support officer on the ground to decide the area from which the group must disperse, instead of the area being authorised in advance by a senior officer—a superintendent. Their intended effect is not achieved, because consequential amendments to clauses 30 and 31 have not been tabled.

The Government believe that the local superintendent should define the area. He or she has an overview of the problems in the area and can best define, based on intelligence and other information on crime patterns, where the powers are needed and

should be available.

I just want to clarify that we could not in a group of amendments table an amendment to delete clause 30, but it is obvious from my earlier remarks that the whole gist of our proposal is that clause 30 and the bureaucracy and system that it involves would go. We would simply give discretion to the police.

The hon. Gentleman is dead right. My brief said it, so I read it. I am grateful to him for pulling me up.

The Government recognise that it would be impractical to disperse a group and potentially exclude a person from the area in which they live, so that by going home they would be breaking the terms of the direction. Liberal Democrat amendment No. 208 would extend the current provision to cover those whose employment or education is in the relevant locality. I agree that there could be difficulties in preventing people from going back to work, school or college. We do not want to create a large number of exceptions to the power, but if the hon. Member for Ludlow is prepared not to press the amendment, I will give him a commitment to consider how to get over the problem that he rightly identifies. However, we consider that a direction should be able to prevent someone from returning to a locality for up to 24 hours. I do not want to give the hon. Gentleman the impression that I will consider reducing that.

Definitions are always difficult. If we leave it to the superintendent to define the locality from which people will be excluded, will the superintendent have a completely free rein to determine the extent of the locality or does the Minister intend to issue guidelines? Can he envisage some of the problems in my constituency, for example, where local authority and divisional boundaries are very close to each other? It is possible by moving from one street to another to enter another local authority or divisional area. It might not be possible to define an area precisely. That is an important point.

I am not sure that guidance will be needed. The double check is set out in the clause. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire does not believe that it is necessary and believes that such powers should be available to a constable to use anywhere the situation arises, but we want it to be double checked. We want the police to be able to go into an area to deal effectively with a persistent problem and to have the relevant powers to be able to do so.

The superintendent will define the area that he believes should be covered. He will have to be mindful of what is required of him under clause 29. There must be a history of people suffering as a result of the problem. In defining the area, he will have to consult the local authority, but there will not be a block on it. It will be a police-led decision if the criteria in clause 29 are met. I do not see why one commander cannot get in touch with another and consult two different local authorities to make sure if, as if often the case, a natural community is not properly represented by political boundaries, such as those of a district council or a metropolitan borough council.

I do not think that a restriction on encapsulating the areas would need to be covered, but we do want that double lock so that we can be sure that the powers are given to constables where they are needed. We envisage that being done in a strategic way. If there has been a problem in a particular area for a period of time, once the local authority has been consulted, the police will go in there and sort it out.

The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire raised the issue of noise and people shouting abuse. He knows that the police already have the power to act anywhere in the country under their existing powers—breach of the peace, public order, and so on. None of the provisions should detract from any of the existing powers. We cannot afford to send a message to the police that they have not got the power to act under any existing power that they have outside a designated area.

The hon. Gentleman says that residents might not understand why something can happen in one neighbourhood but not another. That problem might arise, but a case needs to be made that the action is necessary. Residents may well say, ''Why on earth are you allowed to do that in that area, but not in ours?'' If they can make a case that there is a history of problems in their area and they suffer from groups hanging around, causing harassment, intimidation and distress, they can persuade the police to designate that area, too. There is no problem their area being covered, but justification will be needed.

The Minister says that the police already have powers to deal with shouting, abuse and public order problems and that we should not detract from those powers, but to be frank, if those powers were working, we would not need the provisions of the Bill. The reason for introducing the provisions is that it is perceived that the police do not have the powers to deal with such behaviour. The Minister needs to reflect on that. To use as a reason for rejecting an amendment the fact that the police already have powers

undermines the reason for the Bill, whose purpose is apparently to replace powers that are not working.

I am not saying it for that reason, but, as the hon. Gentleman recognises, because when we give somebody a new power, if we are not careful an impression can be given that it is the only power that exists. That can be a problem, because people tend to forget about powers that have existed for some time and they become underused. They then feel that they do not have the power to deal with a situation and they complain and send people to see their Member of Parliament, although they had the solution all along if only they were aware of it and prepared to use it. That is the point that I was trying to make.

We want the powers to be used strategically. Rather than being made available to be used in a blanket way in any place at any time, they should be covered by a senior officer, designated to an area of need based on an historic problem, and constables should have the ability to deal with problems.

Clearly this is an issue of principle on which we shall differ. I recognise that problems are much more serious in some parts of the country and in some parts of towns, boroughs and police authorities than in others. However, I do not find it acceptable that police powers should vary from location to location. They should be more universal and more easily understood both by victims and by perpetrators of offences. Clearly, as the hon. Member for Ludlow said earlier, the Minister is not going to shift. While we might wish to return to the matter at a later stage, in the light of his intransigence, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Further consideration adjourned—[Mr. Heppell.]

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past Five o'clock till Tuesday 13 May at ten minutes past Nine o'clock.