| Anti-social Behaviour Bill
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Matthew Green: We come to the crux of this part of the Bill—injunctions against antisocial behaviour used on application. I shall run through our amendments as quickly as I can. Some are designed to establish the Government's thinking on the detail of the clause. Amendment No. 138 would remove the phrase ''capable of'' from proposed new section 153A(1)(a), making it read:
We want the Government to clarify what they mean by conduct ''capable of'' causing nuisance or annoyance. Excessively loud music, late night parties and people hanging around outside might be capable of causing nuisance to people, but surrounding tenants may be entirely happy that that is happening. I accept that that is unlikely, but we are testing why the Government have used the phrase ''capable of causing nuisance'' rather than ''is causing nuisance''. Amendment No. 139 is designed to test the difference between nuisance and annoyance. Nuisance is an understandable condition, but many different things could be described as causing annoyance to neighbours, some of which would not be at all reasonable. What do the Government class as annoyance? There is a clearer line on nuisance. In passing, I should say that we do not support Conservative amendment No. 193. Using ''or'' instead Column Number: 220 of ''and'' would mean that the proposed new section could apply to conduct
without reference to the nuisance test. I think that the Conservatives want the amendment to work differently, but it would not quite achieve their aim. Amendment Nos. 140 and 141 go together. They are similar to previous amendments and relate to the idea that the people in question should be actually engaged in behaviour that causes a problem. Subsection (3) talks about a person who
I am uncertain about the condition of threatening to engage in antisocial behaviour, as the requirement that the person is engaging or has engaged in such conduct would be sufficient. Will the Minister explain why it is necessary to include the other condition? Does he have in mind specific circumstances in which it might apply? We are concerned that the wording is not tight enough, so we seek clarification. Amendment No. 142 would remove the phrase ''capable of'', again tightening the drafting. It is the same as amendment No. 138, and the question is whether any conduct is causing a nuisance, rather than is just capable of causing a nuisance. Amendment No. 143 is similar to amendments Nos. 140 and 141. If it were made, subsection (1) would refer to conduct which
We are seeking to discover what problem the Government see in using the idea that someone might do something rather than actually doing it.
3.45 pmAmendments Nos. 146 and 147 are along the same lines. Clause 14 includes:
That is perhaps more understandable if someone has threatened, for example, to play his music all night long every night. It may be slightly more relevant than in the implied circumstances in which someone has not actually engaged in antisocial behaviour but might have done. There is a broad theme to the amendments. I hope that the Minister can explain why those phrases should remain in the Bill. Mr. Paice: I do not intend to comment in detail on all the amendments spoken to by the hon. Member for Ludlow before I come to the two standing in my name. I understand his approach and support the principle of trying to find out what the Government are seeking to achieve. I am not going to say that I support or oppose the detail of his amendments, but I support the objective of inquiry behind them and indeed behind my amendments, in particular amendment No. 193. The hon. Member for Ludlow stated that he could not support that amendment, and indeed I would have been horrified if he could. That is not a partisan comment: I would not support it myself if someone were daft enough to press it to a vote. It was tabled Column Number: 221 simply to challenge the Government to remove ''and'' and insert ''or'', as the hon. Gentleman said, and thus separate the issue of management from nuisance and annoyance. That would not be wise, but it enables me in a different way from that chosen by the hon. Gentleman to ask the Minister to explain what he means by ''nuisance and annoyance''. It is part of the overall challenge to the Government. I have tabled other amendments on later clauses that in their own way similarly challenge the Government.I have great hopes that the Minister might accept amendment No. 232. The reason is straightforward: its phrasing is quite pedantic, but as the Minister and the Committee will know, the Bill follows closely the Housing Act 1996, passed by the Conservative Government, which brought in the concept of introductory tenancies in which the issue of antisocial behaviour was addressed. It seems logical that we should use the same phraseology in the Bill. The proposal came from the Law Society, so with its support I have tabled the amendment to amend the phraseology of clause 13 to retain the current definition—which is proven to be workable—in the 1996 Act by deleting ''capable of causing'' and replacing it with ''causing or is likely to cause''. It is a small change, but it has the merit of consistency with existing legislation that has been proved to work. I hope that the Minister will look sympathetically on that modest proposal. Mr. McNulty: Without pre-empting what I shall say subsequently on amendment No. 232, I admit that I shall probably disappoint the hon. Gentleman. The essence of clause 13 and, I accept, the thrust of many of the amendments is that people's behaviour has consequences. That is the key. If there is a theme to the Liberal Democrat amendments, it is to narrow our ability and limit the powers of HATs, RSLs and local housing authorities to secure injunctions and correct antisocial behaviour. I am sure that that is not the purpose of the amendments, but it would be the outcome. Amendments Nos. 138 and 142 would limit the use of injunctions to circumstances in which behaviour had caused nuisance or annoyance to a relevant person, rather than circumstances in which behaviour was capable of causing nuisance or annoyance. That would require a victim to be identified before the landlord could take action and would severely limit what landlords could do in the broader proactive and preventive sense to try to arrest the early stage of antisocial behaviour before it turned into something that ultimately had real consequences. The amendment would prevent third parties from acting as witnesses where a victim was too scared or intimidated to come to court, which is a real concern. For example, some landlords use professional witnesses on estates where a fear of reprisals has prevented tenants from coming forward to give evidence, not least because their experience of raising their head above the parapet in the past has been sorely disappointing and found wanting. Some of the most successful schemes that are in place to arrest the early stage of antisocial behaviour and restore greater confidence in local communities Column Number: 222 are the various street neighbourhood and community warden schemes in which the professional witness model or duty is part and parcel of the role. That works terribly well. If the Bill referred only to circumstances in which nuisance or annoyance had been caused, that would severely limit the proactive nature of what authorities could do.The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire was right: amendment No. 232 refers back to the language of the Housing Act 1996. However, it would narrow the ability of social landlords to obtain an injunction to occasions on which the behaviour was causing nuisance or annoyance or on which it was likely to do so. We chose the language of clause 13 very carefully to make the test easier, in the context of being proactive and preventive as well as simply reactive. I am afraid that I have to pretend to be a lawyer now, at least in some regard, and go through the notion of nuisance and annoyance, which underpins at least some of the amendments. That phrase has been readily understood by the courts. The same wording is used in existing housing injunctions under the powers in the 1996 Act and in the nuisance grounds for possession applicable to secure and assured tenants. The courts have said that those words should be given their usual meaning: nuisance and annoyance are given their ordinary everyday meanings. Behaviour must be such as to annoy an ordinary person, not an ultra-sensitive person. That relates not least to some of the matters that the Committee discussed under previous provisions and will probably discuss again. The Bill is about antisocial behaviour that deviates from the norm, not about putting everything in the context of how someone ultra-sensitive—probably like me—would react to the circumstances. For example, in one case a possession order was made because a tenant kept cats in the back garden that caused nuisance and annoyance to several adjoining occupiers. Were there only one or two cats? No, there were 38. Such a number can be a nuisance and an annoyance in the wider sense. Legal argument has tended to focus not on the meaning of nuisance and annoyance, but on whether it is reasonable to grant an injunction or possession order on the basis of the nuisance and annoyance. The phraseology is broadly interpreted in a normal sense and, as ever, the test is of the reasonableness of granting an injunction or possession order on that basis. That is why the words ''nuisance'' and ''annoyance'' are included in the clause.
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