PM reveals plans to help improve parenting
2 September 2005
Tony Blair has pledged to place parents at the heart of tackling anti-social behaviour.
He wants to highlight the responsibilities they have both to their children and their local community.
The Prime Minister said earlier this year that improving 'respect' in society would play a large part in his third term of office.
He is proposing that voluntary 'parenting contracts' and 'parenting orders' should be used more widely.
Mr Blair suggested that people such as housing officers should have the power to issue the orders. Schools may also be allowed to apply.
In a speech in Watford today after visiting a family centre and meeting local parents, he said:
"A parenting order can make clear to parents their responsibility to ensure that their child attends school, that the child takes part in literacy or numeracy clubs or that they attend programmes dealing with problems such anger management or alcohol misuse.
"Parenting orders can also stop children visiting areas such as shopping centres and ensure a child is at home being supervised at night."
The new powers will apply to children at a much earlier stage, he said, not just when they have committed a criminal offence but when they are about to get involved in anti-social behaviour.
The PM concluded:
"Experience in recent years shows the extent of this problem and it shows also the extent of the concern. But I have never believed that we should be defeatist about any of these issues."
On Saturday the PM, accompanied by Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell, visited a community centre in the Easterhouse district of East Glasgow, where he heard complaints by local residents of gangs roaming the streets at night.
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