GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN
Rishi Sunak’s anti-social behaviour action plan is ‘dressing old laws up in new clothes’
Rishi Sunak unveiled an anti-social behaviour action plan last week that could see rough sleepers face fines of £500 for breaching community orders and criminalised in similar ways to the 200-year-old Vagrancy Act, experts warned. The PM announced more powers for police and local councils to take action against people obstructing shop doorways or begging at cash points. His plan to “stamp out these crimes once and for all” will also make it an offence for criminal gangs to organise begging networks.
Meanwhile, fines for breaching public space protection orders and community protection notices, which have been used to target rough sleepers in recent years, are set to be increased from £100 to £500.
Sunak’s plan comes two years after the government pledged to repeal the Vagrancy Act – a law criminalising rough sleeping and begging that stretched back almost 200 years to the Napoleonic Wars.
Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, said: “Labelling destitute people a nuisance and threatening to move people on is not the answer to tackling rough sleeping. It’s incredibly disappointing to see the government resorting to this rhetoric at a time when rough sleeping numbers are once again surging as the rising cost of living pushes more people into poverty.
“Dressing the Vagrancy Act up in new clothes is not the answer – all this will do is criminalise and punish the poorest in society.”
Centrepoint’s Balbir Kaur Chatrik said the government should “stop deflecting with headline-grabbing measures” and
