Rules will be changed to make it easier to evict disruptive tenants and ban organised or harmful begging, the UK government announced on Monday as part of its crackdown on anti-social behaviour.
Police in England and Wales will be given power to do more drug tests. Laughing gas will also be banned to “put an end to intimidating groups of young people littering local parks with empty cannisters.”
Those who fly-tip or graffiti will face higher fines and be forced to repair damages they cause within as little as 48 hours of being caught in an “immediate justice” approach.
Launching the new “Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrote that it’s “simply unacceptable” to live “in fear of intimidation from their neighbours or gangs terrorising their streets.”
Sunak said anti-social behaviour “ruins communities” and vowed to “stamp it out.”
Police and local authorities will also gain powers to “address rough sleeping and other street activity where it is causing a public nuisance, such as by obstruction of doorways and pavements,” clear tents and other things that “can blight an area,” and move the individuals involved on and into support schemes they are eligible for where possible.
The new powers will replace the powers in the Vagrancy Act, which criminalised rough sleeping and is set to be repealed following the passing of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act last year.
The government also said it has committed almost £1 billion in funding to help end rough sleeping, including in housing and rehabilitation programmes.
Two pilot programmes, Hotspot Policing and Immediate Justice, will be launched in a total of 16 areas in England and Wales and scaled up in 2024.
In ten areas where anti-social behaviour is most prevalent, including West Midlands, South Yorkshire, Essex, Lancashire, South Wales, and Staffordshire, there will be increased police presence and other uniformed authority figures, such as wardens, in problem areas, including on public transport.
An “immediate justice” approach will also be piloted in those areas, where offenders will be forced to pick up litter, wash police cars, or clean up graffiti within as little as 48 hours of being caught.
Nottinghamshire, Merseyside, Sussex, Dorset, Northamptonshire, and West Yorkshire will be trialling the immediate justice approach.
Northumbria, Cleveland, Derbyshire, and Durham will pilot both programmes.
Meanwhile, the maximum on-the-spot fines will be increased to £1,000 for fly-tipping and £500 for litter and graffiti.
A new digital tool will also be launched for the public to report anti-social behaviour and hold the police and other agencies to account.
Possessing nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, will be banned, the plan said.
Police will also be given powers to test suspected criminals in police custody for a wider range of drugs, including ecstasy and methamphetamine, and to test offenders linked to crimes like violence against women and girls, serious violence, and anti-social behaviour.
The government is also seeking to halve the notice period for a private landlord to evict tenants who are “persistently disruptive.”
Earlier this month, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) said although additional measures are needed to tackle the non-legitimate supply of laughing gas and educate people about the risks of misusing it, it’s not proportionate to ban the gas.
Asked about the laughing gas ban on Monday, Sunak’s official spokesman said the prime minister believes it’s right to ban the use of nitrous oxide because it “can ruin a neighbourhood, can make people feel unsafe.”
“Nitrous oxide, on an individual level, is now the third most used drug amongst young people. It has psychoactive effects, the ACMD themselves reported links between it and drug driving, littering, and neurological harms,” he said.
The spokesman also denied charities’ accusation that the crackdown on begging amounts to bringing back the Vagrancy Act, saying it’s “absolutely not” the case.
“I mean, no one should be criminalised for simply having nowhere to live. That’s why we’ve repealed the Vagrancy Act, which was passed in 1824,” he said. adding that government is investing billions to prevent people from ending up on the streets in the first place.
“What we are doing is giving forces and local councils the tools they’ve made clear they need to ensure vulnerable individuals on the streets can get the support they deserve, whether that’s accommodation, mental health support, or substance misuse services, and at the same time deal with individuals whose behaviour is intimidating or maybe linked to criminal gangs,” he said.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper claimed the government’s anti-social behaviour crackdown was “too weak, too little, and too late,” and accused the Conservative government of decimating neighbourhood policing.
“This is a Conservative government that has weakened anti-social behaviour powers, 10 years ago brought in new powers that were so useless they were barely even used, including the community trigger and getting rid of powers of arrest, even though they were warned not to,” she said.
“Some of the measures in here we support, largely because we have long called for them. On hotspot policing we called for, on faster community payback we called for. We support stronger powers of arrest and a ban on nitrous oxide,” she added.
