Lee Anderson says “feral” council tenants wreaking havoc across Britain and blighting the lives of their decent, hard-working neighbours must be subject to a “three-strikes-and-out” rule enabling them to be evicted more easily.

And he received the backing of Labour MP Steve Yemm, who represents the neighbouring constituency of Mansfield, who argued that the rules should be even more stringent.

The outspoken Reform UK MP for Ashfield made his remarks at the start of a Westminster Hall debate on the issue of antisocial behaviour, chaired by former Tory minister Esther McVey.

Mr Anderson, who said the Labour Government of Clement Attlee in 1945 had adopted a similar approach to the one he was advocating, told MPs: “Fast forward 80 years, and I think Captain Clement would turn in his grave looking at some of the council estates up and down the country at the moment.

“Council estates like Carsick estate, Leamington estate, Coxmore estate in Ashfield, Bull Farm estate over in Mansfield, Ladybrook, where we have these families that are creating mayhem and misery.

“They call them feral families in my neck of the woods. these are people that are just causing problems on every single council estate throughout Mansfield, throughout Ashfield, and it’s a big problem, and in this place, we have the power to sort this out.”

Mr Anderson continued: “Most of us MPs in here, I would imagine, live in nice houses.

“We’ve got security, we’ve got CCTV, we’ve got panic alarms. Some of us live in nice, big, posh pads in gated communities, it’s all right for us.

“We don’t have to go home each night and put up with this horrible nuisance criminal behaviour.

“Now imagine after a hard day’s work at the factory like many people in Ashfield do, and all you can hear is swearing, verbal threats, intimidation, shouting, screaming, outrageous noises.

“This is happening in every constituency throughout our great country. And then when you put up this behaviour, when you’ve got home from a hard day’s graft, you go to bed and the noise continues.

“You can hear the music playing. You can hear the idiots from across the street on the motorbikes revving up, up and down the street.

“Then you manage to get a few hours sleep, at six o’clock your alarm clock goes off, and these idiots are just about going to bed at this time because they’ve been up all night, creative mayhem, causing crime and being complete nuisances.

“Yet when you get up at six o’clock in the morning to go to work to pay your taxes, you’re paying for these idiots to live in their social housing, you pay for their rent, you pay for their benefits, etc.”

A survey commissioned by the Government in 2022 indicated that 26% of social housing tenants suffered from anti-social behaviour, Mr Anderson pointed out, adding: “It’s a disgrace in this country.”

Mr Anderson continued: “The important thing is we need a deterrent, and I can go back to a situation I had when I was a councillor in Ashfield where we had youths on the local park who were creating mayhem all sorts of horrible feral behaviour in the local park.

“We found that with a lot of these youths who were causing the problems their parents lived in social housing on the nearby estate.

“So we wrote to every single parent of these children and said to them, ‘if your child carries this on, you’re breaching your tenancy agreement, and we might have to look at booting you out’. And you know what? It stopped straight away.”

“I believe in a three-strikes-and out sort of law, where you give them a warning, then another warning, and then on the third warning, you’d gone.

“And quite frankly, I’m not that interested where these people go and live, because my my focus, my concern, really is the decent, hardworking people who do put a shift in, and who haven’t got much money and who rely on social housing to keep them.”

Mr Yemm added: “The Labour Government has a very clear mission to tackle anti social behaviour and halve violence against women and girls. And my constituency in Mansfield is particularly troubled by endemic anti social behaviour, both domestically and in our town centre, as well as this.

“My experience from listening to victims of antisocial behaviour in this context, they’re often women who are being systematically failed by a response system that’s really not fit for purpose and therefore disadvantages women victims in their journey for justice that they face with this abuse.

“This is not a criticism of the police at all, or necessarily even community safety and housing teams and officers within local authorities, but broadly speaking, my experience is that they’re doing their utmost to deal with the situation that they face, within the legal framework that they face and the resources that they have.”

Mr Yamm continued: “The Honourable Member for Ashfield has mentioned his desire to implement a three-strike rule for social housing tenants, and he’s talked about it again today, that would see them evicted after three instances of antisocial behaviour which meets the evidence threshold that would demonstrate that instance. I would argue that this proposition is somewhat too liberal and lenient and doesn’t go far enough to address the issues.”

Asked by an “astounded” Mr Anderson whether he would back a “one strike and out” rule, Mr Yemm agreed.

Local authorities and housing associations can use tools like injunctions, possession orders, or community protection notices to address problem tenants, but these measures are often hindered by bureaucratic delays and high evidential thresholds.

This can leave neighbours and communities enduring persistent issues such as noise disturbances, vandalism, or threatening behaviour for prolonged periods.

Additionally, cuts to local government budgets have weakened the capacity of enforcement teams, limiting their ability to investigate and act on complaints promptly.