Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-1407, in the name of Margaret Curran, that the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill be passed.
I am pleased to speak in the debate. I wish to draw members' attention to all the measures that are contained in the bill, not just those that are controversial or that have gained the most attention in today's deliberations. As I have said, the bill provides a comprehensive range of measures that are designed to tackle the scourge of antisocial behaviour. They represent a graduated response and emphasise prevention, support and sanction, all of which are required if we are to deliver a step change in the way in which antisocial behaviour is tackled.
I begin with some words of thanks. I thank especially Mary Mulligan, who shouldered the responsibility for the bill's consideration at stage 2 and whose more measured and calm approach was a nice balance to my approach. I thank the Communities Committee and the Justice 2 Committee for their efforts. Consideration of legislation by parliamentary committees is a vital part of the legislative process and one that we have taken seriously and paid due respect to. I am sure that members of the Justice 2 Committee will forgive me if I emphasise the thoroughness of the work of the Communities Committee, which I think has been reflected in today's proceedings.
I ask for the Parliament's indulgence to allow me to draw one member to its attention: Johann Lamont. I do so not because I am frightened of her, but because I wish to pay tribute to her contribution to the debate on antisocial behaviour not only by bringing it to the Parliament's attention and representing her constituents, but in her decided thoroughness in dealing with the bill.
I thank the many agencies that contributed significantly to our thinking. The divide between us is not quite as wide as it has been characterised today. I also thank the team of officials who supported Mary Mulligan and me. Many members will know that we have established an antisocial behaviour unit in the Executive, which has been a useful model in the development of the policy and the bill. Alisdair McIntosh and his team have been expert in their support to the ministers and I acknowledge that their work has been of the highest standard. They went to communities to meet representatives of those communities and to begin to tackle the issues.
I also thank the communities that participated in the consultation process over the past year. I have attended many meetings on antisocial behaviour throughout Scotland and I hope that those who attended from the communities see the results of those meetings in our proposals today. I thank those who facilitated access to people who were perhaps too frightened or too defeated to tell us of their experience and concerns. In particular, I thank the Daily Record and the Greenock Telegraph, which ran extremely effective specialist campaigns, and I am pleased to note that the Daily Record was nominated for a journalism award for its efforts.
There is no doubt that, in discussing antisocial behaviour, we have touched a nerve in the wider population. All the evidence demonstrates the real scale of the problem with antisocial behaviour in Scotland. If the bill is passed, it will provide us with a range of measures—from the antisocial behaviour strategies to the range of orders that will be available—that can and should make a significant impact on communities in Scotland.
I have a question on some of the bill's measures that we have not had a chance to debate this afternoon: the powers to tackle graffiti. Does the minister acknowledge that some local authorities, including mine, have concerns that the powers over private properties are not as wide as they could be or as some local councils might have envisaged? Will she reassure me that, if graffiti on private properties—including on small shops and businesses—continues to be a problem, she will review the matter and consider bringing it back to the Parliament under the powers that section 51B will give her?
I give Ken Macintosh the assurance that he seeks. He has raised the issue with us on a number of occasions and we intend to keep the use of the powers on graffiti under review. We have consulted local authorities about how the powers are framed, but I confirm that the bill allows ministers to extend the coverage of those powers in future.
It is an enormous privilege to move the motion that the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill be passed.
Presiding Officer, I would like to move a motion under rule 2.2.6(d) of standing orders to ask that we should sit beyond our appointed time. I would also like to move a motion under rule 11.2.4 of standing orders to have decision time at 6.15 pm.
I am minded to accept those motions.
Motions moved,
That under Rule 2.2.6(d) the meeting of the Parliament continue beyond 5.30 pm.
That the Parliament agrees under Rule 11.2.4 that Decision Time on Thursday 17 June 2004 be taken at 6.15 pm.—[Patricia Ferguson.]
Motions agreed to.
I come on to my conclusion—I am sure that you are happy about that, Presiding Officer.
The Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill gets the law right on antisocial behaviour. It plugs existing gaps and gives valuable new tools to those who are engaged in the fight to put our communities first, but it does not stand alone. It is part of a broad strategy that includes early intervention, diversion, prevention and effective enforcement. It will be followed by a wide-ranging plan of action to ensure delivery where it matters—on the ground locally—and it is backed up by serious investment. We need all those elements to ensure success.
The bill stands up for the ordinary, decent, hard-working people of Scotland, who are clearly the vast majority. It puts them first, which is exactly where they should be. That is why this is a defining moment for the Parliament; our concerns should always be with the Scottish people's priorities.
With enormous pleasure, I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Bill be passed.
We are fairly tight for time but if members stick to the times that I allot them, we should get through everybody. Stewart Stevenson has five minutes.
It is a pleasure to rise to speak in this stage 3 debate—at last. There have been times during the passage of the bill when ministers have perhaps sought to portray themselves as the only true guardians of the spirit of peace and tranquillity across Scotland. I hope that we have now reached a broad consensus, if not a total consensus, across the chamber that there is a real problem and that there was a real casus belli underlying the Executive's determination to pass the bill. We find ourselves with some continuing disagreements, however, about whether the remedies that the bill proposes are proportionate and appropriate. Despite that, my colleagues and I will of course support the bill, because it moves the issue forward.
One of the bill's great achievements is that I am now beginning to feel that Johann Lamont has become almost house trained under my tutelage in the Communities Committee—I am quite sure that I will pay for saying that next week. I make an important point when I say that. Johann Lamont has displayed something a little bit too uncommon in the Parliament: a true and sincere passion. I have not always agreed with her—I still have disagreements with her—but I utterly respect the passion that she has brought to the bill and I congratulate her on her single-mindedness in pursuing the issue. Therefore I ask her, as my convener, whether that will get me credits for next week.
Dispersal remains an issue to which we could apply, at best, that bastard verdict of Scots law, the not proven verdict. The Executive is very much on trial. I am glad that it has accepted the amendments that will require it to undertake early investigation into the success of its dispersal proposals.
There are still some unresolved issues in the area of housing. There is a lack of balance between the various categories of tenure, whether owner-occupiers, tenants in the social rented sector or tenants in the private sector are involved. There are potential difficulties with that lack of balance, which might yet come back to haunt the implementation of the bill. I hope that those difficulties do not destroy the ethos of the bill, which is to address very real problems, particularly in the west of Scotland.
The Parliament deals with about 600 pieces of secondary legislation each year and the bill will bring a very substantial number of statutory instruments. I am in two minds about that. In some cases, it is clear that the minister has put in additional ministerial powers in order to postpone making some difficult decisions. Perhaps that is because the policy is not yet entirely clear in some areas. On the other hand, as was the case during consideration of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, when I pushed for certain things to come out of the bill and into the accompanying access code, the approach that has been taken provides the flexibility to respond to developing situations, and increased understanding comes as the legislative environment changes.
I wish the bill good speed. Our communities need it. I have found it particularly interesting to go to parts of Scotland with which I am not particularly familiar. I confess to members that I had been south of Edinburgh only three times in my life before I got married and came here in my 20s. The first time in my entire life that I went to Glasgow was for the Garscadden by-election in 1978, when I was in my 30s. I have had my knowledge of Glasgow updated, and I understand the real concerns of people in the west of Scotland and in communities in Glasgow.
I congratulate the Executive on finally getting its bill through, but we are still on watch for the implementation.
I, too, associate my party with the thanks that have been expressed to the clerks and to all those who responded to the consultation.
Having a day out with Stewart Stevenson in Lossiemouth was one of the great pleasures of participating in pre-legislative consultation. I will write about that in my memoirs. Bill Aitken told me today that antisocial behaviour in Glasgow is not like that anywhere else in Scotland. There are different stories to tell in Dumfries, Inverness or wherever, and what Stewart Stevenson and I heard was interesting. The first group that we met were elderly people; we met community councils at the end of the day and school pupils in between. It was interesting that people across all age ranges said much the same thing.
Johann Lamont was an extremely fair and reasonable convener of the Communities Committee, even when my colleague Bill Aitken came along with his multitude of amendments. She was very good.
I have two points to make. First, as a young Parliament, we should learn from our experiences. I am not going to repeat everything that I said earlier about the national registration scheme for private landlords, but putting such a scheme in this bill is not appropriate. One amendment is not the same as 25 new amendments that add up to, I think, eight pages in the bill. We are not simply talking about amending what was in the bill as introduced, but about introducing a huge chunk of new legislation at stage 2 and, whatever people say, those measures were not consulted on—I will not mention all the different bodies that we mentioned earlier. I hope that the Procedures Committee will consider that issue. However, the bill is done and dusted now and we must make the best of things. I will certainly look forward to the post-legislative scrutiny in that respect.
Secondly, I would like clarification from the minister either today or in writing in the future about Paul Martin's amendments 158 and 159. After everyone had voted on the amendments, my colleague John Scott asked me how the provisions would apply to farming. Of course, that shows the difficulty of considering substantial amendments at stage 3. John Scott hopes that law-abiding farmers will not be prevented from going about their business—I sincerely hope that that will not happen, as I do not think that they go around causing alarm or distress.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am afraid that the member is in her final minute. I am sorry, but she will have to continue.
There are persistent complainers as well as persistent offenders and we would like clarification from ministers—I would appreciate written clarification—on John Scott's point.
I support the congratulations that have been dished out to the committee officials and to Johann Lamont, who conducted the committee's work well, which was difficult to do considering how strongly she felt about the issue. The ministers have also responded well.
The whole exercise has been a fruitful learning experience in coalition and multiparty politics in the Parliament. Different groups of people quite honourably come to issues from a totally different angle and gradually learn one another's points of view. They might not entirely share those views, but they understand where other people are coming from and will modify their views accordingly. Certainly, our group has accepted the points that the ministers and others have made about the reality of the problems and we have seriously addressed them. I think that the ministers have accepted some of the concerns that were expressed to the committee and by other means about the ways in which the bill might not work well, and they have tried to address them.
Although the bill is far from perfect, we have learned. The bill process has also emphasised the fact that we have a lot to learn about consultation. A lot of consultation has been undertaken and has produced very different results. We must think carefully about who we consult and how we consult them in order genuinely to find out what people feel about the issues. Obviously, people do not all feel the same, but we want to assess public opinion rather than talk or listen to particular groups that may not be entirely representative.
The timetable has been far too tight, and I hope that the Procedures Committee will pursue the points that were raised by the previous Procedures Committee about loosening up the timetable. That would allow better consultation when a whole new issue is introduced—such as Cathie Craigie's amendments on housing or Paul Martin's amendments on vehicles. That would allow time for more consultation on and discussion of such issues and the bill could proceed with more confidence. The element of rush in today's proceedings is not satisfactory when we are dealing with a bill. A lot of amendments that are quite important in their small way have not been properly discussed. The whole issue of timetabling must be reconsidered.
However, the bill as a whole—warts and all—will be helpful to Scotland. I hope that it will be interpreted correctly, in which respect the guidance will be very important. The police and other groups must work together and councils must work with the local communities to address the underlying causes of antisocial behaviour. The Executive and local authorities must provide consistent funding to organisations that are tackling antisocial behaviour and providing good things for young people and the whole community to do at a local level. The people concerned can take credit for what they have achieved but, as Stewart Stevenson said, we now have to deliver this improvement in community life in Scotland.
Time is now extremely tight. I will give two minutes each to the Greens and the Scottish Socialist Party because they do not have closing speeches.
The advocates of the bill already know my position: we have disagreed and will continue to do so, but I hope that we can end with respectful disagreement.
I hope that members will believe me when I say that I would like to have been able to support an antisocial behaviour bill from the Executive. However, before I could have done so, I would have wanted the review of the children's hearings system and work on a national youth strategy to be completed. We could then have moved on to legislation on antisocial behaviour. Those positive interventions would have gone some way towards dealing with the problem, and anything else could have been dealt with through legislation afterwards.
I do not doubt the Executive's sincerity or the reality of the problem that it seeks to address; indeed, I commend the Executive for seeking to address it. Those of us who have criticised the bill have continually been accused of denying the fact that antisocial behaviour exists or—which is worse—of thinking that the Executive wants to make the problem worse. I do not believe that that is the case and I do not accept the criticism that we want to abandon people to their fate. The Executive should not be accused of wanting to undermine relationships between young people and their communities or of deliberately stigmatising young people. If those are consequences of the bill, they will be unintended consequences. Let me be clear: those of us who have criticised the bill recognise the scale of the problem, but believe that the bill is the wrong approach to tackling it.
One of the general themes that has emerged in consideration of the bill, which the minister has acknowledged, has been the subjective nature of antisocial behaviour. I have raised the matter continually and it has been a recurrent theme. To call antisocial behaviour subjective is not to trivialise it; it is to recognise that it is defined according to the emotional responses of those who experience it and suffer from it—fear and distress are emotional responses. We are not talking about a specific list of offences. The offence is not defined by the behaviour itself and is not therefore objective, but is subjective. A prescribed set of responses is therefore not necessarily appropriate. That is one of the strong arguments against the bill. It is not an argument against the desire to address antisocial behaviour, but against the bill as the form with which to address it.
I regret that I will not, as a result of those arguments, support the bill.
The Communities Committee and the clerking team worked very hard to scrutinise and make many improvements to the bill and I commend the Executive for embracing certain changes. However, the bill is now somewhat flawed because my successful stage 2 amendment has now been overturned, although I acknowledge that the whole Parliament has the right to vote on the matter.
As we know, amendment 49 sought to allow children who are guilty of the same antisocial behaviour and are subject to ASBOs to face different consequences because of the type of house in which they live and their family's social status. That provision is unjust and discriminatory. However, having been assured that ASBOs will not be used as a matter of course for children, I hope sincerely that such discrimination will not take place in practice. As Parliament might have gathered, I feel strongly about the issue and am disappointed by the decision to accept amendment 49.
That said, now that the bill has been amended at stages 2 and 3, many of its aspects will make a difference in tackling antisocial behaviour in our communities. My constituents in Coatbridge and Chryston will expect me to support the bill for that reason and not to throw the baby out with the bath water, even though I feel that it has been somewhat contaminated by the fact that amendment 49 has been agreed to.
As a result, I support the bill with a slightly heavy heart. I hope sincerely that it will make the kind of difference that we all expect it to make in our communities.
I fully support communities in Scotland that are trying their best to build strong and attractive places for people to live in, but which find that their plans and their lives are blighted by petty crime and offensive behaviour. I live in such a scheme. Indeed, as I have already mentioned, I spent Monday in Broomhouse with the save our scheme campaign and I have to say that the good hard-working people of Broomhouse, the Inch and other communities, whom I am sure the Communities Committee met, feel badly let down.
It is worth asking who has let down those communities. Unlike the minister, I do not believe that communities throughout Scotland are crying out for dispersal orders. Instead, they are crying out for a visible community police presence in their area to give them some succour and support. Of course, the Executive's lack of funding denies them that. They are crying out for social work services and community and leisure facilities to support youngsters in their communities and keep them active. After all, they are the reality of the situation.
Surely the minister must accept that, although this is not solely a question of resources, an approach that asks communities such as Broomhouse to turn antisocial behaviour around on their own will not succeed. Of course we must empower those communities, but I believe that we have to rely on the evidence of what works. For example, a fully resourced children's hearings system works. The extension of ASBOs to under-16s and their being pushed towards youth and sheriff courts are reminiscent of the approach that we abandoned in the 1960s after the Kilbrandon report was published. If we examine how that approach used to fail, we will learn the lesson that it will never work. Indeed, in England and Wales, the number of kids who have been locked up is the highest since Queen Victoria's day. Such an approach offers no future.
We know what works. Although I will support and work with communities in the Lothians that ask me to do so to counteract the real difficulties that petty and youth crime can exact on them and their quality of life, I do not believe that the bill will make the necessary difference and cannot bring myself to support it. Tonight, the Scottish Socialist Party will not support a bill that undermines the children's hearings system and which contains evictions, dispersals, tagging of 12-year-olds and compulsory parenting and community reparation orders with too little support on the horizon.
On behalf of the Labour Party, I welcome this opportunity to support the bill. We must acknowledge the significance of what we are doing today. As members have said in other debates, we should see the bill not as an event but as a process, and we must now work to make enforcement of its measures a real feature of people's lives.
I thank the clerks and committee members—Labour colleagues and other members—for making the process easy to convene. I also thank the ministers—Margaret Curran and Mary Mulligan—who played good cop and bad cop. Perhaps Margaret will find that I am nicer to people who disarm me by not arguing with me all the time.
It is significant that we have finally received the acknowledgement that antisocial behaviour is a real problem. It is also significant that both the Green party and the SSP have changed their positions.
Nonsense.
We have brought out into the open the narrative of people's lives. [Interruption.]
Order. Speeches must not be interrupted.
I know that it was got up by the media that we stigmatised the people who were strong enough to raise concerns. The reality is that the bill acknowledges their courage. We do not blame victims for their intolerance; we work with them. There is also an understanding that we need to know how the system works and how public policy can have perverse results in communities. We deal not only with individual experience but with general consequences. We understand that if we do not support the bill, nothing will stand still and that if those who complain are not helped, it could empower those who perpetrate problems and silence those whose complaints are not addressed. If the police are not given the powers to work in the community and to carry out their duties, they express frustration.
I congratulate the Executive on its willingness to listen to organisations, individuals and MSPs and to make changes to the bill. However, I must reflect on the nature of the debate, in which I was particularly struck by the virtual silence of the SSP and the Green party. There is clear evidence of the Executive's being influenced into changing its position, with which I did not always agree. However, I was struck by the mismatch between the Greens' and the SSP's noisy opposition to the bill and their scaremongering about its motives, and how they dealt with the responsibility of taking on the hard work of confronting in debate the Executive and those who have supported the bill. I acknowledge that others in the chamber did that difficult job. We dealt with nearly 500 amendments at stage 2. The Green party, which was going to resist the bill to the death, submitted a sum total of four amendments to challenge our position.
On behalf of the Labour Party, I am proud to have been part of a process that showed the Parliament's openness and the Executive's willingness to listen. As individual members, we have the challenge of dealing not with policies that are dreamed up by the policy wonks, but with Government policy that is shaped and informed by those who will live with its consequences.
MSPs have a responsibility to be a bridge between their communities and Parliament. That is what the bill represents and I am proud to support its passing.
There can be no doubt that antisocial behaviour has blighted the lives of many communities and individuals throughout Scotland. The bill provides a wide range of measures that will protect communities and allow freedom from the fear of antisocial behaviour. The two most contentious issues in the bill were, of course, tagging and dispersal. Therefore, I am pleased that the minister addressed both issues. In fact, what is now in the bill on tagging is exactly what the partnership agreement says about it.
On dispersal, Mike Rumbles, Colin Fox and others were right to say that no verbal evidence that was given to the Justice 2 Committee supported it. That included evidence from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and many others. Senior police to whom I have spoken have said that it is most unlikely that the dispersal power will be used. Nicola Sturgeon was right during this morning's debate to say that the discussion on dispersal seems to have happened a long time ago. Only the future will tell whether dispersal powers will be used and, if they are, how well they will be used and how often.
The minister said that discussion had taken place on dispersal—that is an understatement. There was almost as much discussion on that one issue as there was on the rest of the bill put together. It is clear that there was much disquiet over part 3 as it was framed in the original bill. The minister was made aware of my group's strong feelings on that issue in particular. She listened to the strength of the arguments and I was pleased that she lodged amendments to part 3. I believe that those amendments raised considerably the bar on dispersal and that they send a message to young people that we will protect the vast majority of the good young people who are so often themselves the victims of antisocial behaviour. We will protect them from the few who indulge in such behaviour. I am happy to support the bill as amended.
The minister was correct to highlight the range of measures that are included in the bill. It is appropriate to say that only some of them were the subject of any controversy, and certainly dispersal and regulation were two of those. It is a pity that we did not have more time during this afternoon's debate to devote to the real ideological differences that we have on the question of regulation. We should consider sometimes how we run things here and how we could do so more professionally. However, that is a matter for another day.
I congratulate the minister on introducing the bill and securing its passage through Parliament. Although we have serious reservations about some parts of the bill, other parts provide a commonsense solution to a problem that is causing more and more difficulty throughout Scotland, in particular to communities in our urban areas.
However, there will be dangers if the bill is not followed up robustly and thoroughly. Antisocial behaviour orders are not a universal panacea. I rather fear that many of those who will become subject to such orders may not take them seriously. Any breach of an ASBO should receive an immediate and robust response. Otherwise, the system will simply lose all credibility very quickly.
Today's debate has been robust. With speakers such as Margaret Curran, Johann Lamont and Stewart Stevenson, such debates will always be robust, but that is no bad thing. Only when legislation has been examined and tested can we be satisfied that it is the way forward.
This may sound like I am damning the bill by faint praise, but I believe that although the bill may not do much good—I hope that it does some good—it will do positively no harm. The Executive has recognised what was a real difficulty. Within the ideological confines of her mind, the Minister for Communities has, I think, done her best to propose a solution. Only time will tell whether that solution is an adequate response, but I certainly hope that it will be.
The Conservative group will support the bill.
This has been a long but interesting day at the end of a long but interesting process.
Let me start with what I believe will be a point of agreement. We all want to do more to help communities to fight back against the antisocial behaviour that destroys the quality of life of too many people in Scotland and undermines the fabric of too many communities. However, that determination to do something must never lead us to a suspension of our critical faculties. Those of us who have harboured doubts about aspects of the bill have had a duty to raise those doubts in debate. One thing that has at times been disappointing about the tone of our debates has been the tendency of some—it has not been shared by all—to accuse anyone who took a different view on how best to deal with antisocial behaviour as being somehow on the side of the perpetrator rather than that of the victim.
With great respect, I think that the member is being unfair. My charge against Nicola Sturgeon, like Johann Lamont's charge against others, is that we were not presented with any alternatives. Nicola Sturgeon criticised but she came forward with nothing.
If the minister reflects on today's proceedings, she will recognise that that is manifestly not the case.
At times, there has been an intolerance in the debate. Members who did not agree with the Executive on all the details were labelled as people who would do nothing to tackle antisocial behaviour, as if they were on the side of the perpetrators rather than on that of the victims. That is arrant nonsense. I hope that such a tone is not injected into any of our debates in future. The Parliament must never simply be a rubber stamp for the Scottish Executive.
That said, we have had a full debate today on the issues of controversy. The powers of dispersal have been the most controversial issue. We have laid out our concerns in debate as was absolutely right and we feel satisfied at having done that. I am delighted that the Parliament agreed to Stewart Stevenson's constructive amendments, which will ensure that the issue will return to Parliament. In the fullness of time, we will have an opportunity to assess whether people's lives in communities throughout Scotland have been improved. At the end of the day, that is what the bill is all about.
I thank all those who have been involved in the bill, especially people such as the bill team and the committee clerks who have worked behind the scenes. On a personal note, I thank my colleague Stewart Stevenson for his hard work and for securing some important amendments.
Before dealing with the points that have been raised in the debate, let me add my thanks to those that have already been expressed. In particular, I thank the members of the Communities Committee who devoted so much time and energy to the bill. Our constructive debates at stage 2 have led to improvements in the bill that is before us.
I also thank the Justice 2 Committee and the Local Government and Transport Committee. I thank those who gave evidence, particularly those whom we met in local communities. None of us can be unaware of what difficult circumstances some of the people we spoke to have experienced, and yet they showed great bravery in coming forward and putting on the record the problems that they were experiencing and that they expected us to do something about. I also thank the officials, the clerks to the committee and the Executive officials who so ably supported us throughout the process.
The Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill has been groundbreaking in many ways, the first of which is the way in which we were able to carry out the consultative process. This Parliament was established to be as wide ranging and open as possible, and the way in which the consultation on the bill was carried out showed us at our very best. We have listened to people and we have responded, and that is what the Parliament should be about.
I have heard that the greatest concern among members today was about dispersal. We accepted Stewart Stevenson's amendments, and I recognise that they were intended to be constructive. What he proposed is something that we would have done anyway, but it is important to reassure members that those provisions are in the bill.
In response to Mary Scanlon's comments, I have to say that we are damned if we do and damned if we don't on the consultation issue. There has already been a lot of discussion about landlords, and the housing improvement task force had already consulted on the registration of private landlords. It is important that, when we have an opportunity, we take it. Unlike Mary Scanlon, I think that the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill would have been less of a success if we had not included the provisions that she was concerned about.
I was grateful for the Executive's support for my amendments to part 8 of the bill during stage 2. Much has been said this afternoon about the size of the amendments and the substantial work that was involved in them. Will the minister tell the chamber how much the committee's report influenced her decision to support my amendments? The committee called for a national registration scheme and for all private properties to be registered, and that call was supported, as far as I remember, by all committee members.
Cathie Craigie is right, and she in particular should be congratulated on the work that she carried out on that aspect of the bill.
I am disappointed that Patrick Harvie will not be supporting the bill. As a Parliament, we have a responsibility to respond to the real needs that we all saw in the communities that we visited. It is not always possible for things to run in the right order. The children's hearings review will be important, but if we had waited for that we would have been condemning people in our communities to live with antisocial behaviour for that bit longer, and I think that that would have been letting them down.
It was quite strange to hear Colin Fox and the Conservative party arguing that simply providing more police would deal with the problem. That was never going to be the case. During the Justice 2 Committee's consideration of the bill, Karen Whitefield gave an example of a case in which police had actually been present when there were problems, but were unable to deal with some aspects of the difficulties that were going on. We already have more police, but more police will still not be the answer to the problem.
Colin Fox has mentioned Broomhouse frequently, and I know that the First Minister was there yesterday. The community there has worked hard to bring community facilities to the area, including a skateboard park, but they still experience problems on a daily basis that only something like the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill can deal with.
We have an opportunity today to pass a piece of legislation that really will make a difference to the lives of people throughout Scotland, in urban and rural areas and in towns and cities across the country. We have an obligation to make that decision, and those who opt out of it will have to respond to the people when they meet them on the streets.
I ask the Scottish Socialists and the Greens to reconsider voting against the bill today. They should decide whose side they are on and vote for this piece of legislation.