Alex Norris

That is why we are making changes within the Renters’ Rights Bill. In those cases, the neighbours must tear their hair out and wonder what has to happen for the right thing to be done. I am conscious of the time remaining, but I wanted to mention our approach to antisocial behaviour and policing more generally, because we must have neighbourhood police back on the street. We have lost neighbourhood policing in this country. The shadow Minister talked about the importance of tackling low-level crime. We have essentially decriminalised retail crime in this country. We have seen an explosion in it, with all that misery. We must have the proper policing resource to get into that space. That is why the Prime Minister announced on 5 December, through our plan for change, our zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour and, critically, our 13,000 more police and police community support officers. They are named contacts, working on antisocial behaviour action plans with local communities and using new tools, such as the respect orders, to ensure that individuals doing the wrong thing are tackled about their behaviour. There is a straight line across that. After 13 years of talking to people about problems with their neighbours, my first question—I really cross my fingers behind my back—is whether their neighbour is a private or a social housing tenant. It is much easier with a social housing tenant, because there tend to be behaviour contracts and a legislative framework. If I have to chase a private landlord who might not live in Nottingham—I cannot believe anyone would not, but if not, or if they lived in Derby, for example—or even in Britain, that becomes really hard. We need broader tools that go beyond the ones with which we could work with social housing providers. That will be in our crime and policing Bill in this Session. To conclude, I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield for securing this important debate and all hon. Members for their contributions to it. We are alive to the issue, and that is why we are acting through the Renters Rights’ Bill and have the policing and crime Bill to come. We are interested in hearing people’s ideas. We will always engage with them properly. I have given a sense today of the direction in which we are going, and I look forward to working with colleagues in the future.