And it usually works, preventing niggling annoyance from turning into serious resentment or full-blown arguments.
He has told campaigners that councils would have to go to court to get the new anti-annoyance orders, which are civil injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance, known as Ipnas, if they wanted to ban carol singers, bell-ringers or charity collectors.
Under the proposals set out in the bill, antisocial behaviour orders (asbos) will be replaced by what are to be called ipnas (injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance).
He said he still believed the "injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance" – or Ipnas – would not have led to carol singers or bellringers being banned.
The government wants to replace antisocial behaviour orders (asbos) with a new type of measure, an ipna (injunction to prevent nuisance and annoyance).
It would replace asbos with ipnas (injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance), which would not only forbid certain forms of behaviour, but also force the recipient to discharge positive obligations.
Home Office ministers have dropped their attempt to replace antisocial behaviour orders with new injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance in the face of widespread criticism and one of the biggest anti-government defeats in the House of Lords.
Our introduction of new injunctions to prevent nuisance or annoyance will not criminalise youngsters but address the underlying causes of antisocial behaviour, nipping such behaviour in the bud before it escalates.
"It is utter nonsense to suggest carol singers and street preachers might be hauled before the courts because of the proposed injunction to prevent nuisance and annoyance," said Baker.
The recent defeat in the House of Lords of the ipna (injunction to prevent nuisance and annoyance) plans is welcome – even if it once again proves the point that unelected, posh peers are ideologically to the left of the government that "represents" the people.
I'm prompted to ask by the discovery that the most illiberal and oppressive instrument proposed by any recent government – injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance in the antisocial behaviour bill – has been attacked by Labour not because it is draconian but because it is not draconian enough.
