The home secretary has pledged to tackle the scourge of anti-social behaviour with hard-hitting new laws.

David Blunkett said the government's Anti-Social Behaviour Bill was not just aimed at giving police officers new powers but was a "symbol of the need for cultural change".

Blunkett said he was learning from the mistakes of past attempts to take on problems such as alcohol-related street violence.

At the heart of the government's plans was a move to offer offenders "the chance to remedy their behaviour".

Opening a second reading debate in the Commons, the home secretary warned that the legislation was "an indication we mean business".

Blunkett said his plans would tackle areas of Britain where "lawlessness had overwhelmed the community".

The people targeted were those "cocking a snoop at the police, at housing departments at their neighbours and the wider community".

"The legislation we're moving this afternoon is an endeavour to send that signal that we're no longer prepared to tolerate it," Blunkett told MPs.

The home secretary defended his decision to bring forward the new provisions, saying the public was demanding action.

"We knew when we published the white paper that we were going to have to act swiftly. We had to balance further scrutiny with the speed of implementation that would allow within this parliament those who are going to be empowered to actually do the job," he said.

"In the end we have to balance whether people we represent would thank us if we promised that we might do something to legislate in a year's time which might be implemented in two or three year's time or whether they'd prefer for us to get on with it now."

He admitted that some past measures - such as anti-social behaviour orders - had not worked.

The home secretary said past initiatives had been too bureaucratic and failed because of a lack of police and other frontline staff.

The Conservatives signalled they would give broad support to the bill.

Shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin said the legislation contained some good measures .

But he indicated there were "minor disadvantages" that he would lobby to change in committee.

Letwin argued that aspects of the bill were unworkable and other sections concentrated on separate legislation that not yet been implemented.

He warned that the new laws would only be effective if the manpower was available to use them and called for a "step-change in policing".

"If we had 40,000 additional police officers, as we are committed to having, then it would be worth attending to brushing up a bit of legislation.

"We are systematically under policed. It ought to be a matter of consensus across this House," Letwin said.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes warned the government was "dangerously confusing things" by muddling old criminal law with new measures.

"We're now putting other things into the pot. Dropping litter is not in the same league as using a firearm," he said.

He also challenged the government's plans to give police powers to disperse groups of young people in the street, arguing there was no similar provision for adults.

The home secretary countered that the new power was specific in order to show young people from an early age that they were not above the law.

Blunkett also called on members of the public to lobby senior police and officials in their area if officers proved reluctant to use their new powers.

"If people aren't prepared to use the power then we can't force them but local people can," he said.

Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes said the government "had fallen into the populist trap rather than the principled trap" ahead of next month's local election.

"This bill is a muddle. It is a shop window of a bill. It is a window dressing of a bill," he said.

"If the bill isn't improved and the rubbish taken out of it then we will vote against it at third reading."