Street Begging

I listened to an interesting debate on Radio Scotland the other day about a proposal from Aberdeen City Council to introduce a local by-law to make begging in the streets unlawful.

The councillor from Aberdeen, whose name I didn't catch, made the sensible point that a local by-law some years ago had been brought in to outlaw the consumption of alcohol in public places, so why not do the same in relation to begging.

The chap also revealed that in a recent police operation 32 persistent beggars were identified in Aberdeen, but that none of them were homeless although clearly they had other problems requiring some kind of support and intervention.

The Highland Hostel for the Homeless also waded into the discussion and expressed its support for getting beggars off the street because whatever problems people were experiencing the worse place to be was sitting alone on a city pavement for several hours a day.

In Glasgow, as in other cities, there are organised groups of beggars who travel hundreds of miles to beg in Scotland, sometimes using young children as part of their activities, and again this is a practice that ought to be discouraged because they are simply trying to inveigle money out of people under false pretences.

So who knows what may happen, but I applaud the initiative being taken in Aberdeen because they appear to be doing something to tackle the underlying problems of persistent begging on our streets which is a much better strategy, if you ask me, than just walking on by or leaving the people involved to their own devices.