Respect Orders and Anti-social Behaviour

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Wednesday 27 November.

“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a Statement on the Government’s action to tackle anti-social behaviour.

From residential neighbourhoods to busy high streets, from rolling countryside to city centres, and from idyllic villages to bustling towns, the places of Britain should be a source of local pride. As well as being safe, they should feel safe for those who live and work in them, yet the dismal reality is that in too many areas the opposite is true. In the last year of the previous Government, shop theft soared by 29% to a 20-year high, street theft surged by 40% and anti-social behaviour reached new heights in our towns and cities. That is the Conservative Party’s legacy on law and order.

Up and down the country, people feel uneasy or even unsafe. Unruly gangs roam the streets, creating intimidation and fear; noisy off-road vehicles speed around, disturbing the peace; illegal drugs are abused with brazenness; public spaces are awash with litter and graffiti; and an epidemic of shop theft is plaguing retailers, big and small, while their staff are subjected to intolerable levels of abuse and violence.

At its core, this is about respect: respect between citizens, respect for our society and the expectations underpinning it, and respect for the rule of law. All those are woven into the fabric of our democracy, but, after years of neglect, that fabric has become worn. We saw a disgraceful illustration of that in the summer when serious disorder erupted in some towns and cities. We see it on a smaller scale every day as decent, law-abiding people suffer due to the selfishness of others.

More than a third of people—36%—in England and Wales report experiencing or witnessing some type of anti-social behaviour in their local area, while about a million incidents of anti-social behaviour were recorded by police in the year to June 2024. We must never make the mistake of dismissing this menace as low-level or trivial; to do so would be an insult to the victims. It may manifest itself in different ways in different areas, but wherever and however it occurs there is an adverse impact on neighbourhoods and communities.

Anti-social behaviour chips away at people’s sense of pride and confidence in their local area. It ruins their enjoyment of public spaces. For those affected by the most serious and persistent cases, their quality of life is damaged. One victim quoted in a report on anti-social behaviour published recently by the Victims Commissioner said:

‘Every day I’m crying … It makes me anxious … and it actually makes me physically sick’.

Another said:

‘It’s totally isolating and nobody can understand the pressure it puts on you’.

I am sure that all honourable Members across the House will be familiar with accounts like those from the all too frequent interactions we have with our constituents on these issues.

Earlier this month, I visited Leyton in east London, where I heard from local councillors about the importance of partners working together to tackle anti-social behaviour. More recently, the Home Secretary and I met victims of anti-social behaviour and shop theft, Annie Valentine and Brian Roberts from Blackpool and Tim Nye from Sheffield, to hear about their concerns at first hand.

This cannot go on, and the Government will not stand for it. That is why the Prime Minister has made safer streets a central pillar of our agenda for change. A key part of that mission is the work that the Home Secretary is leading alongside police to put visible neighbourhood policing back at the heart of our communities. By restoring that crucial link between police forces and the people they serve, we will ensure that residents and businesses have the reassurance they want and need, as well as deterring would-be offenders. As we implement our neighbourhood policing guarantee, we are determined to tackle anti-social behaviour head on. Today, I can update the House on that work.

To turn things around and effectively combat the problem, it is clear that fresh impetus is needed, which is why we committed in our manifesto to introducing respect orders, which will enable tough restrictions to be placed on the worst adult perpetrators of anti-social behaviour. Those subject to a respect order could be banned from a town centre as well as being compelled to address the root cause of their behaviour; for example, through mandated alcohol and drug treatment. The orders will be applied for by police, councils or social housing providers, and issued by the courts.

Importantly, there will be a power of arrest available for all suspected breaches, protecting communities and town centres from further harm. We are going even further: anyone who breaches a respect order will have committed a criminal offence and may face up to two years’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine or a community order. These new powers will be piloted first to ensure that they are as effective as possible.

We will also crack down on the scourge of off-road bikes in public parks, dangerous e-scooters on pavements, and street racing, all of which inflict misery on local communities. Under strengthened police powers, officers will no longer be required to issue a warning before seizing vehicles involved in anti-social behaviour.

Retail crime harms lives and livelihoods and must be dealt with as the serious threat that it is. We will introduce a new, specific offence of assaulting a retail worker and we will end the effective immunity for shop theft of goods worth less than £200.

The task of making our country safer will not be completed overnight, but this is a Government of action. The work of change is under way and, as we step up this vital effort, we are guided by the simple and unshakeable belief that our streets belong to the decent, law-abiding majority. For far too long, gangs, yobs and thieves have been running amok, and that is not going to happen any more. Under this Government, the safety and security of the public will always come first. We will be unrelenting in our mission to restore respect and take back our streets”.

15:19:00

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this Statement to the House. As Conservatives, we stand against anti-social behaviour in all its forms. It is not right that people feel unsafe in their communities and that the consequences of anti-social behaviour are felt by shops, businesses and residents alike. We welcome all efforts to tackle anti-social behaviour, but I ask the Minister whether he believes that respect orders are anything “more than a press release or a rebrand”,—[Official Report, Commons, 27/11/24; col. 794.] as the honourable Member for Stockton West said in the other place. Does the Minister think that respect orders are necessary, given that they are near-identical to existing powers held by the police? We completely reject the notion that the previous Conservative Government was anything but the party of law and order. That Government launched the anti-social behaviour action plan, backed by £160 million of funding and with over 100,000 hours of police and another uniform patrols undertaken to tackle anti-social behaviour hotspots. Given that the Minister’s party seems keen on releasing serious offenders early, how does this align with its plan to decrease anti-social behaviour? Surely many of these dangerous individuals, who have been released on to our streets before they have served their sentence in full, will need more than a respect order to prevent them reoffending. The Minister for Policing told the House of Commons that “respect orders are different from criminal behaviour orders”. She continued: “Criminal behaviour orders are attached where there is a conviction, and the Crown Prosecution Service applies in court for that criminal behaviour order. Respect orders will not require a conviction”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/11/24; col. 795.] Will the Minister outline what sort of behaviour will be covered by a respect order and what the penalties will be for them? The previous Conservative Government created over 20,000 police officers and fulfilled our manifesto commitment on this. By March this year, the police headcount hit its highest ever number on record. We are most definitely the party of law and order, and I will repeat the question asked in the other place, which was left unanswered by the Minister there—perhaps the Minister will answer me now. It was “the last Government increased funding for frontline policing by £922 million for this year—will the Government match that increase next year?”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/11/24; col. 795.]

My Lords, a return to proper neighbourhood policing, with officers who know and are known to the communities that they serve, is absolutely essential to tackle the misery caused by anti-social behaviour. The part of the Statement about respect orders raises a number of issues, which we will return to, no doubt, when we look at the policing Bill. For example, what burden of proof will be required for the courts to approve such an order, and how will police work with communities to ensure that repeated reporting and gathering of evidence has the desired effect? How will the courts deal with applications in a timely manner, given the enormous backlog of cases already before them? What will be the bar for anyone who breaches these orders to find themselves in jail? It is an easy headline to say that offenders will end up in prison, but there is currently such an acute shortage of prison spaces that the Government are already having to release people early. What safeguards will be in the Bill to ensure that these orders do not inadvertently reinvent the Vagrancy Act, in effect, criminalising homelessness? I particularly welcome the Government’s commitment to removing the de facto threshold of £200 for attracting any action on goods stolen from shops. Last week, one of my friends went into a local pharmacy, where she was picking up a prescription. A few minutes later, a young man walked in, carrying a very large bag, and set to clearing the shelves of all the over-the-counter medication. When somebody who was standing there mentioned the police, he just laughed. Afterwards, the staff said that he comes in on a regular basis but that they are too scared to try to stop him. Sadly, this is not an isolated story: it is part of a rising tide sweeping the country. The numbers are staggering. In 2023, the Association of Convenience Stores recorded 5.6 million incidents of shoplifting—more than a fivefold increase from the previous year. That is 46,000 thefts every day. Can the Minister say anything about how the Government intend to deploy technology to make it easier for retailers to log crime by repeat offenders, thereby helping to build a picture that can be used to prosecute? I took a quick look at the Met’s reporting tool over the weekend. The website estimates that it takes 15 minutes to report a non-violent shoplifting offence. I cannot imagine that many shopkeepers, particularly those with small shops, will spend 15 minutes reporting a crime that almost invariably will not end in a prosecution. Will the Minister look at introducing a national scheme for reporting shoplifting, where retailers can quickly access a dedicated platform and report crime in just a few minutes? No one wants to watch people walking out of a shop without paying for goods or, indeed, racing down the footpath on an e-scooter. It unsettles everyone, leaves the most vulnerable feeling unsafe and chips away at our collective sense of security. I hope the Minister will welcome suggestions and inputs from all sides when we come to discuss the Bill.

I am grateful for the contributions of both His Majesty’s Opposition Front Bench and the Liberal Democrat Front Bench. I reassure the House that we will have plenty of opportunity to discuss these matters because this Statement, in effect, trails legislation that will come into effect at a later date, if passed by both Houses. So we will consider it over the next few weeks and months. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, is against anti-social behaviour. I would expect nothing less of him. It is a shame that when in office his party reduced the number of PCSOs by 55% since 2010. It is a shame that confidence in policing fell by 65% when he was at the Home Office and his colleagues were in office. It is a shame that trust in policing fell by 69% over the same period. It is a shame that shop theft, which the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, raised, has risen by 29% over the past year. It is a shame that the former Minister refused to implement suggestions that we will bring forward in the Bill on shop theft and attacks on shop workers. It is a shame that he took 14 years to reinstate the number of police officers in service when he took office in 2010. When I was Police Minister—

I was not the Minister.

I do not blame the noble Lord personally. He carries the collective weight of the Conservative Government of the last 14 years on his shoulders. He may not like that, but he is in front of me now and he has to account for the Government he supported in Parliament, in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as I have to account for this Government. I will be helpful to the noble Lord. He talked about respect orders. The respect order will be introduced through the crime and policing Bill when it comes before this House and the House of Commons in the new year. We expect to pilot respect orders once the legislation is passed so that we can learn lessons from them. We expect that they will be introduced for persistent adult offenders involved in public drinking, drug use or other anti-social behaviour—that goes to some of the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. The orders will be targeted at individuals involved in persistent anti-social behaviour as a whole. I will answer the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, then return to those of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, shortly. The courts must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that an offence has occurred. The same legal tests will be in place as those that are in place now for civil injunction policies. The police and local authorities can apply for respect orders. The pilot scheme will be a chance to look at and, I hope, iron out some of the issues that might be raised. It is for the courts to determine how to handle someone who breaches an order; that could mean a community sentence or a jail sentence. We are trying to look at prison places generally; I will return to that point. The noble Baroness asked the important question of whether this will criminalise homelessness. I hope I can genuinely reassure her that being homeless in itself will not be treated as anti-social behaviour. That would be the case if there were aggravating factors, such as alcohol or misbehaviour of some sort, but simply being homeless would not be a qualifying factor for a respect order. Respect orders are different from civil injunctions because they are aimed at higher levels of anti-social behaviour. The important point is that the police will be able to undertake those orders very quickly—if the Bill is passed by both Houses. Again, there will be an opportunity for us to debate these matters in due course. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned the early release of prisoners and asked whether respect orders would be effective if a prisoner committed a further offence. Let me tell the noble Lord: if a prisoner on licence committed a further offence, they would not need a respect order; they would be back in prison very quickly as a result of breaching the licence conditions for which they were released early. If the noble Lord reflected carefully on this he would know that, were he was standing where I am standing now, he would be defending a government policy for limited early release of prisoners to give space. Dare I say it, the noble Lord’s Government did not build prison places during their time in office. Again, I do not wish to hang 14 years of policy and decisions entirely on his shoulders but he has to take responsibility. When he asks for things from this Government, he has to reflect on the fact that there were things he and his Government did not do when they were in office. Indeed, they left us with a black hole to deal with, as well as these issues. The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, welcomed our proposals on shoplifting actions and shop theft, as I prefer to call it, and the change to the £200 limit. She may be interested to note that, when I was the shadow Minister in another place 10 years ago, I opposed the order that introduced the £200 limit for the very reasons why we are now removing it. It sent a signal that low-value shoplifting and shop theft can be tolerated. That will not lead the police to look at the issue she mentioned. The 29% rise in shoplifting in just the last year of the previous Government is an indication that we need to take action, and we will. We will also take action on the important issue the noble Baroness mentioned of protection for shop workers, and the creation of an aggravated offence in the event of shop workers being attacked. Shop workers deserve our respect. They often uphold legislation on alcohol sales, solvent sales, knife sales, tobacco sales and other sales. When they are subject to anti-social behaviour, there should be consequences for those individuals who engage in that behaviour. Her suggestion on how we record those incidents is interesting; we will explore that during the passage of the legislation. The 13,000 neighbourhood police officers that the Government intend to put in place will be funded by additional resources. Half a billion pounds was announced last week, so the noble Lord, Lord Davies, will now be aware of the extra funding that he asked about. Again for the benefit of the noble Lord’s checklist, another £260 million was announced last week. More money will be announced during the first two weeks of December for a proposed police settlement, which will be out for consultation for the year after. It is extremely important we take action on shoplifting. Finally, the noble Baroness mentioned e-bikes. One plan in the legislation—so it has to go through both Houses—is to give police powers to seize e-bikes and other bicycle-type machinery involved in anti-social behaviour. I regard riding an e-bike on a pavement as anti-social. I want to make noble Lords aware of an important difference in this legislation regarding the police’s ability to take action. At the moment, police can take action on these issues but they have to give a warning. The proposals in the legislation will remove the need for a warning, so that if somebody is riding an e-bike or, indeed, an off-road bike in an anti-social way, that bike can be seized immediately, with consequences for the individual. I welcome the welcome from the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I hope that, in due course, the House will scrutinise but welcome these proposals.

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords, Back-Bench questions will follow shortly. The Minister has not yet finished.

For the benefit of doubt, I will now sit down. Having finished my, I hope, helpful response to the Opposition Front Bench and His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, I will now take questions from the House.

15:35:00

My Lords, living on Dartmoor, I am aware of increasing anti-social behaviour in rural communities, including county line drug running, electric bikes frightening livestock, the stealing of agricultural equipment and stealing from small local shops. Can the Government explain their approach to ensuring public safety and security of low-population rural communities, as the Minister’s Statement makes no mention of rural communities? I would welcome the Minister’s explanation on this issue.

The policing of rural communities is extremely important. I live in north Wales and I represented a semi-rural community in the House of Commons for 28 years. It is extremely important. I will give the noble Baroness three points, if I may, as a starter. First, there are going to be 13,000 additional neighbourhood police officers who can be deployed, in her case, by Devon and Cornwall Police to look at, with their proportion, how they develop them to build community resilience at a local level. Secondly, on off-road biking and 4x4 biking, there will be measures—yet to be implemented but subject to scrutiny by this House and, if passed, implemented—to put in place the ability to seize those vehicles and to take action. Protections will also be put in on the important issue she raised about machinery theft. Thirdly, the whole government approach to shop theft says that it is not an acceptable crime; it has consequences. Individuals in this House all pay more for their shopping because of shop theft. There are shop workers who are attacked because of shop theft and there are organised criminal gangs which need to be broken to stop shop theft. What we trying to do, which I hope will reassure the noble Baroness, is tackle those three issues, and many more, in the forthcoming police Bill.

My Lords, I very much welcome this Statement from my noble friend. I also welcome the forensic analysis he gave of the performance of the previous Government in office, which I hope he will be able to develop in future answers. All these welcome objectives are fundamentally dependent on the recruitment of more police officers. It is good that new recruits are being brought along at the moment, but surely another avenue that should be explored is to encourage those experienced police officers who are coming close to retirement age and are wondering whether to retire or not to remain in office. It is not just numbers we need but the experience that can be gleaned only by years of being in the police.

I agree with my noble friend 100%. It is important that we do not just recruit additional officers. The way that we will deal with the 13,000 neighbourhood police, PCSOs and special constables will be around how we better recruit and engage with those individuals. He makes an extremely valid point that it is important that we recognise experience, try to maintain and keep that experience, and deploy it against the issues that this whole House will want police deployed against: in this case, primarily shop theft, anti-social behaviour and serious organised crime.

My Lords, the Minister mentioned, gently, that this side of the House had been in power for a long time, so I would like to gently remind him that the Mayor of London is Labour and is also the police and crime commissioner. Yet, since October last year, we have witnessed weekly hate protests where anti-Semitism is rife, and supporters of Hamas and terrorism openly call for the annihilation of Jews while waving swastikas on placards. This is not just anti-social behaviour; these are hate crimes which we continue to witness. So I ask the Minister: when are the Government intending to put a stop to them?

Hate crime is pernicious and I would support the noble Baroness’s contention that hate crime, whether against the Jewish community or people who are legitimately protesting about Palestinian issues—not Hamas, Palestinian issues—is an important potential crime. If crimes are committed and the police wish to pursue those crimes at a local level, they can do so; there are powers in place to make arrests where criminal activity takes place in any form of protest. The noble Baroness shakes her head, but there are powers now available for the police to arrest people on the basis of hate crime. If the police exercise that power, that is a matter for the police. The noble Baroness would not expect a Minister to undertake those arrests. The police make a judgment; they can make arrests and bring matters to court. Indeed, they have done on a range of crimes, particularly against the Jewish community in the current climate.

My Lords, in order to qualify for a respect order, will behaviour have to be criminal? If not, what criteria will it have to satisfy?

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his question. I want to get to the exact wording correct. With the respect order particularly, it does not have to be criminal behaviour. It can be behaviour that potentially causes alarm, distress or harassment. Again, I say to the House that those matters will be tested as we go through Committee. There will be opportunities to clarify what that means and put down some legal guidelines during Committee in this House. The idea of the respect order is to tackle what I would term low-level anti-social behaviour. If criminal actions have been taken, criminal sanctions are available to police to make arrests accordingly. I hope we can reflect on that during Committee.

My Lords, it will take more than an authoritarian approach to tackle anti-social behaviour. Public spaces for socialising and supporting people have shrunk as hundreds of youth clubs, community centres, libraries and adult education courses have completely disappeared. What is the Government’s programme for restoring such public spaces and creating a sense of community and belonging?

This is extremely important. It goes slightly wider than my brief in the Home Office. We end up with the criminal justice end of the business. But my noble friend makes an extremely important point. It is important that we give support to communities through other government departments to address open spaces, play areas, youth clubs and other distractions. One of the other activities that the Government are undertaking is trying to invest in those areas over the next 12 months. But, specifically, my end of the business is when that does not work.

My Lords, I declare my interest as the co-chair of the national ethics committee of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. However, it is more in my role as Bishop of Manchester that I am speaking now. I get to go out from time to time at night with Street Angels or Street Pastors groups, as they are sometimes called. Many of these originated in the churches, but they are not exclusively church-based organisations. They provide gentle support on the streets, often late at night in city and town centres, helping to keep the peace. They help to deal with people who have become distressed—perhaps somebody who has had too much to drink and is either not safe themselves or cannot keep those around them safe. The police I have worked with over the years really appreciate the work these volunteer organisations do. They are definitely not vigilantes; they are simply there to be caring, kind and supportive. But they defuse situations and help release police time to deal with situations that only police officers can deal with. So could the Minister indicate what role His Majesty’s Government see for these sorts of voluntary civil society organisations in supporting respect and keeping our streets safe?

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his question. I wholeheartedly endorse and thank those involved in that community work and community spirit, encouraging people who may be straying into difficult areas for a range of reasons, helping them to modify their behaviour and potentially pointing them in the long-term direction of further help. It is extremely important, and the Government are trying not to replace voluntary activities but to support them. However, they will retain the ability, if these orders are passed by both Houses, to put a new sanction in place that tackles persistent anti-social behaviour of a low-level kind, which is very disruptive to individuals in the evening, but sometimes in the daytime.

Do the Government have under consideration non-crime hate incidents, which I understand the police find to be very difficult to adjudicate on and often very time-wasting?

The noble Lord will be aware that the Government are undertaking a review of non-crime hate incidences. There are two aspects to this: a number of reports are made that are very low level and potentially waste police time, but there is also the importance of gathering intelligence. That goes back to the noble Baroness’s point: sometimes intelligence can be gathered through a non-crime hate incident that leads to a wider strategy to deal with a particular policing incident. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has been clear that the College of Policing and the chief constables council need to review non-crime hate incidents to make sure that those at the lower level do not lead to police, with their limited resources, having to deal with issues that perhaps they should not be dealing with.

My Lords, in which type of courts will respect orders be heard? Whichever type it is, will additional days be provided, because every court is overburdened?

I expect these cases to be heard in magistrate’s courts, but again, those issues can be tested in Committee. The Bill will be considered in this House in Committee for a significant period, having been considered first by the House of Commons. That is why we are trialling respect orders, and we will put a number of pilots in place if the legislation is passed. The lessons learned from that will be considered —how long it takes to deal with a respect order, which court it goes to, the length of the trial period we put in place and what resources are required to deal with it.

My Lords, regarding the Minister’s remarks about tightening up the legislation surrounding e-bikes, we are seeing those used increasingly for mobile theft all around the capital. Can he look at the increasing menace of normal bicycle riders riding on pavements and knocking over, often, elderly people or children? In parks, they are subject to by-laws, which are simply not enforced. The whole of London is criss-crossed with cycle lanes. Should there not be a penalty for those who continue to ignore signs and ride their cycles on pavements?

I may be going off script here, but I agree with the noble Lord. There is not a day when I come into London that I do not see someone jump a traffic light or ride on a pavement. Those matters are covered by existing sanctions, if the police can track those individuals. Many cyclists behave perfectly reasonably, which is also important, but if individuals break the law which is currently in place, the police should take sanctions against them.

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister has already dealt with the number of prison places but not with the shortage of prison officers left by the last Government. He also has not dealt with the last Government destroying the Probation Service. Does he have any plans to deal with those two issues?

The Government will have plans to deal with those issues, but they are the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice. If my noble friend will allow me, I will draw his comments to the attention of my noble friend Lord Timpson, who represents the Ministry of Justice in this House.

My Lords, crime and anti-social behaviour in rural areas has been mentioned. I draw two things to the Minister’s attention—can he tell me how to classify them? I recently spoke to a rural family who kill all the hares on their land because, if they do not, people come in four-wheel-drive vehicles, smash through the vehicles and hedges, and course on their land. The second thing—which I have direct experience of—is people sitting in lay-bys, launching drones and flying them around rural buildings to see what is worth coming back to steal at night. How are the police expected to deal with those people?

I reassure the noble Lord that, if the proposed legislation is passed—that is a matter for both Houses—the ability to seize off-road bikes used to commit anti-social behaviour will be in it, and that will be done without warning. If individuals break through and undertake criminal damage, without the legislation being in place, the police can take action now—if they can track and identify the alleged offenders. So I hope that there will be future powers, but there are also existing powers to do that.

The people who are flying these drones are not coming on to land illegally; they are whizzing them around the buildings, photographing and going away.

Having finished with off-road biking, I was moving on to the point about drones. The noble Lord makes an extremely valid point, and we will examine that issue and the use of drones as part of the legislation. It is not in the Statement today, but the point about the illegal use of drones and their use for criminality is certainly valid. I will take that away as part of the discussions prior to the introduction of legislation in this House.

I welcome and support the Statement from the Government and the initiative they have taken. But, more particularly, I look forward to the legislation that is coming. In my area of Battersea, the Co-op does not display meat or fish because it is stolen regularly. A niece of mine works in a bank in the north of England where staff now have to wear body cameras because of the assaults or near- assaults they suffer. When I go to the vets, I see a statement that says, “Please respect our staff”. Everywhere we look, we see the loss of respect, so any steps that can be taken will be welcome. However, we are all guilty of failing to see the pace at which change is taking place and of failing to respond with the techniques available to us. We need more police but, in particular, we need to make greater use of technology. We get very upset about facial recognition technology and other such things, on the civil rights front. We are all guilty of running away from the need for identification, using technology for that purpose.

I am grateful to my noble friend for those points. These issues are consistently under examination by the Home Office. Going back to the potential legislation and the remit of the Statement, the two big issues in the Statement show that there is a real focus on shop theft, from a very low level through to a very high level. That should be put into policing plans on shop theft as a matter of urgency, with changes to the law made accordingly to reflect that. On protection for shop workers, they are doing a job and should not be attacked in the course of their work for upholding legislation on sales or for resisting theft. I note the abuse they sometimes get, particularly from people who are undertaking anti-social behaviour in a more formal way. I declare an interest as a member of the shop workers union. That is the thrust of the two bits of legislation that are linked in the Statement, and I hope that will be welcomed by this House in due course.

My Lords, I very much welcome the return of genuine neighbourhood policing, which is so necessary, particularly on our housing estates. But, as the noble the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, it is about the numbers of police officers. Does the Minister agree that it is very important that the status of neighbourhood policing is raised, not among the public—they understand it—but within the police force itself, so that people who are serving the local community as local neighbourhood police are seen as just as important and just as good at tackling crime as those in other parts of the Metropolitan Police and police forces in the United Kingdom?

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that it is important that people know who their police officers are, see them visibly and have the trust and confidence to give them information that might help reduce anti-social behaviour or other criminal activity. It is important that police engage with the community in a way that gives them confidence for that information to come forward and that, as they have done in the past, at a local level police use their antennae to pick up on information that needs to be addressed by the wider policing family in tackling criminal activity.

My Lords, magistrates’ courts are a fantastic resource, but at the moment there is a backlog of 370,700 cases. What will the Government do to make magistrates’ courts viable to deal with the sort of cases we are talking about?

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that question. She will know that it falls within the purview of the Ministry of Justice, for which I am not the accountable Minister. However, it is a very real issue and my noble friends Lord Timpson and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede are very focused on improving that situation. We inherited that legacy, but it is important that criminal justice is speedy and visible. I will draw her comments to the attention of my noble friends.