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Standing Committee G
Thursday 15 May 2003
(Afternoon)
[Mr. Bill O'Brien in the Chair]
Schedule 2
Curfew orders and supervision orders
Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 241, in
2.30 pm
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 242, in
schedule 2, page 51, line 35, after 'months', insert
'During the period specified it will be at the discretion of the designated authority in consultation with the Youth Offending Team and relevant partners to determine what the leave arrangements for contact between the offender and his or her family will be, and to determine the programme of rehabilitation for the offender to return home within the specified periods.'.
Amendment No. 243, in
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): I was responding to the amendments that have been proposed. The Bill already ensures that a court would have to consult the local authority about whether fostering was an appropriate response. Furthermore, that requirement would be available only in areas where schemes had been set up. That is why the fostering provision would only be available to those courts that had been notified by the Secretary of State.
The intention of the measure is to address problems within the family, and to work with young people and their parents to bring the family back together, while preventing the young person from being sent into custody unnecessarily. The local authority has an existing duty for looked-after children to promote contact between the child and its parents. Therefore, there is no need to stipulate that in this measure. The legislation, as drafted, allows the youth offending team and the local authority flexibility to determine the intervention programme that needs to be delivered in order to address the young person's offending, and the problems within the family home. There is no difference in principle; there is no requirement for the amendments because what they are seeking to achieve will happen in any case.
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Mrs. Annette L. Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole): Good afternoon, Mr. O'Brien. I am grateful that the Minister worked through the amendments, one by one, and for his assurances.
I am sure that he is aware that there is great concern on these matters. I have had representation from the Children's Rights Alliance for England, which is disturbed that sufficient regard has not been paid to the Children Act 1989. Reassurance, if nothing else, will be needed beyond these four walls.
I welcome the proposals on co-operation between the Home Office and social services. There has been great support for that proposal from the whole Committee, and, I am sure, the whole House, notwithstanding the Minister's colleague, who was not so happy with the proposals. The proposal will need to be adequately financed. That is not something that we are discussing at the moment, but it is vital to have adequate finance and training. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 40
Extension of powers of community
support officers etc.
Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath): I beg to move amendment No. 68, in
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 251, in
Amendment No. 69, in
clause 40, page 31, leave out lines 3 to 6.
Amendment No. 71, in
Amendment No. 252, in
Amendment No. 72, in
clause 40, page 31, leave out lines 33 to 36.
Mr. Hawkins: Good afternoon, Mr. O'Brien. This group of amendments address a matter that we take very seriously.
I had the benefit of a discussion with some of my colleagues during the time since the Committee rose. I do not wish to break the sanctity of the Commons Tea Room, so I shall not name the colleagues with whom I was discussing these matters. A colleague was making observations about the abuse that cyclists in central London make of traffic lights. We proceeded to the subject of how another colleague had given up cycling to and from the Palace of Westminster because he had been knocked off his bike three times in recent weeks. We then discussed the menace that so many of our
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constituents suffer, particularly the elderly, from the misuse of skateboards, in-line skates and roller skates. None of us wants to be a killjoy. I am the first to recognise that it has been of great benefit when a number of local authorities, including in my own area, have built skateboard parks. Skateboards were a fad for a time, then seemed to go out of, and certainly come back into, fashion. If one has teenage children, as I have, then one is aware that many of the rock and pop videos that go with pop songs have not only pictures of young people using skateboards—here, in America and in many other countries all over the world—but promote the use of skateboards by young people as part of the pop and rock culture.
There is no doubt that there is a place for the responsible use of skateboards. Indeed in the recent local government elections, when I was canvassing in one of the housing estates on the outskirts of Camberley, which is the main town in my constituency, I was chatting to a group of young people about skateboards and the provision that there would be for new skateboard parks. They were articulate, sensible and intelligent teenagers with a point of view. I am sure that they were not the groups of youths who terrorise particularly elderly pedestrians by using skateboards inappropriately.
Given that the Government are rightly taking powers relating to cycles, we thought that it would be sensible to have a debate about whether one could make the legislation even more helpful in looking after the interests of elderly, or indeed any, pedestrians, by giving powers for similar provisions to be used when people are misusing skateboards, roller skates or in-line skates. I hope that the Minister will accept that this is a genuine attempt to improve the Bill and provide more flexible powers.
Furthermore, I have personally observed that the behaviour of cyclists has undoubtedly changed in my adult lifetime as a driver, not only in London but in towns and cities around the country. When I first learned to drive at the age of 17 the vast majority of cyclists using the road used to obey traffic lights. It was not a common practice to see lines of cars coming to a halt at traffic lights and cyclists charging through the red lights as if they did not apply to them. Now, I suspect that it is the common observation of any Member of the Committee and any citizen of London. Particularly in London, but also other towns and cities, many cyclists, both young and mature, seem to have it in their heads that red traffic lights do not apply to them. A great many accidents—
Shona McIsaac (Cleethorpes): I wonder if the hon. Gentleman has listened to or has read the Official Report of the debate held in Westminster Hall yesterday about this subject. Would he agree that increasingly it is not just cyclists, but drivers who jump red lights? It is not just one group but all groups that are breaking the law.
Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Lady is right to say that there are occasions when car drivers can jump red lights and are sometimes prosecuted for it. However, I was drawing the attention of the Committee to my
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observation that although it is not a universal practice—there are still law-abiding cyclists on the road—jumping the lights is very much more common. I am sure that the hon. Lady will be the first to accept that. I have not yet read the report of that debate, because of the preparation for this debate which was to start at 9.10 am. I have just spoken in the debate on the statement on the Olympics and intervened in the debate on schools funding. Unusually, I have not yet had the chance to read the Official Report of yesterday's Westminster Hall debate. Now that the hon. Lady has drawn my attention to it, I shall certainly do so. Normally, if I had not participated, I would have read the previous day's Chamber or Westminster Hall debates by mid-morning; but our bizarre new hours, which I continue to oppose, make it a great deal more difficult if one has also to attend a Committee between 9.10 and 11.25 am, and especially so if one is on the Front Bench, when one becomes more involved in the business of the House. When does one have the chance to read the Hansard of Westminster Hall debates? The hon. Lady was obviously involved in that debate—
Shona McIsaac indicated dissent.
Mr. Hawkins: She was not; I assumed that she knew about it because she was there. Perhaps she had no reason to be present for the statement on the Olympics or to take part in the debate on schools funding in the main Chamber, for which I was present, and only since we adjourned this morning has she had the chance to read yesterday's Hansard. I am genuinely grateful to her for drawing my attention to it.
A serious issue has been raised, which is that antisocial behaviour by cyclists and by young people who misuse skateboards, roller skates and in-line skates is an increasing problem. I now receive a lot of letters from my constituents, which I did not receive when I was first elected to the House 11 years ago, particularly from pensioners, saying that they do not feel safe when walking on the streets because groups of hooligans may knock them down by riding their skateboard or in-line skates on the pavement.
We are not suggesting that young people should not use those items when appropriate, but the amendments would add to the Bill a form of antisocial behaviour that is of increasing concern to the elderly. I hope that the Minister will take the amendments in that spirit. I may not have got it quite right, but I hope that amendments Nos. 251 and 252 make those consequential changes in the right way. No doubt the Minister will tell us whether we were right.
Amendments Nos. 69 and 72 are probing, but they would delete sub-paragraph (2) of new paragraph 11A to schedule 4 of the 2002 Act and sub-paragraph (2) of new paragraph 8A to schedule 5 of that Act. Once again, our wording might not be perfect, but given that we felt that those paragraphs might be too limiting, we thought it worth probing in order to discover whether the Bill would be more widely applicable if it were not limited to people committing an offence under section 72 of the Highway Act 1835 by riding on a footway. I see no need to limit the provisions of the Bill in that way. No doubt the Minister will explain his thinking.
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