Shadow home secretary focuses on antisocial behaviour

In a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank on Thursday (9 April), the Tory frontbencher said that there were "near to thirty-five million acts of antisocial behaviour" in Britain last year.

"The minor criminality committed by younger teenagers so often leads to worse if it goes unchecked," he said. "That's why it's so important to deal with it before some of those young people are dragged into something much worse."

He promised "effective punishments every time young people step out of line", such as grounding orders that keep young people at home out of school hours, that didn't involve the courts, prosecutions and criminal records.

Grayling also backed school exclusions for "young troublemakers" and said that head teachers should never be overruled when they took a decision to exclude a pupil from school.

"I'm not in favour of wanton exclusions," he said. "But I do think that a sudden change of environment - the loss of trusted allies in the school gang - the uncertainty of being in a new place can serve as a wake-up call to a young troublemaker. It won't always work, but it can make a difference."