Mrs.
McGuire: Perhaps
not.
Kali
Mountford: I will send my hon. Friend a copy of the
report, which shows that in some circumstances, the median can be lower
than the midpoint that is used at present, whether the top and bottom
figures are excluded or not. That is a concern. In every case where the
top and bottom figures are excluded, the median is significantly lower
than the midpoint that is being used. Will she consider that
point?
Mrs.
McGuire: I would be delighted to look at that evidence. My
understanding is that under the system that we will roll out, using the
median will at least ensure that 50 per cent. of the properties in the
locality—if we can call it that for shorthand—will be
affordable to those on the new local housing allowance. I would be
interested, however, in seeing the evidence
that my hon. Friend has highlighted. We are very clear that we want rent
officers to use all the evidence in the area.
I am trying to run through all
the other points that have been made. The change in size criteria was
mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly; I assure him
that the criteria do not mean that the claimants will have fewer rooms.
They mean that local housing allowance rates are set and published
according only to the number of bedrooms in a property, which reflects
the reality of the letting structure. People do not advertise living
rooms and so on; they advertise a three-bedroomed property, for
example, and the new allowance will be calculated on that
basis. The Minister
from the Welsh Assembly Government has grave concerns about some
aspects of the Bill. I know that she has had extensive consultation and
discussion with the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my
hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr.
Plaskitt), who has primary responsibility for housing benefit. I
appreciate that we may not have allayed all her fears, but we are
certainly well aware of some of the issues relating to the Welsh
Assembly Government. A reassurance has been given that we are sensitive
to those concerns, but we think that the roll-out of the local housing
allowance is in the best interests of those who are looking to rent in
the private sector in Wales, and not only those in other parts of
Britain. On the
linking rules, there is an extended payment scheme, of which
Mrs. Hart may not be aware, that allows an additional four
weeks’ continued payment of LHA if somebody moves into work. In
addition, we are not taking the powers to roll out the LHA in the
social sector, nor even to test it. We have given continued assurances
that we shall not do anything like that.
I hope that I have addressed
most of the points in our wide-ranging debate and that I have allayed
most concerns. I shall finish where I started: LHA will for the first
time put those who are on benefit, and who are looking to rent in the
private sector, into a system that should impact on their ability to
decide whether to move into employment. It is not just a question of
having a system that is more transparent and less complicated. Most
importantly, it will give people on benefit the capacity, for the first
time, to negotiate in the private sector rental market in the same way
as has long been the case for those who are not on housing
benefit. With those
few—or rather, with those extensive—comments, I commend
clause 27 to the Committee.
Question put and agreed
to. Clause 27
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
28Loss
of housing benefit following eviction for anti-social behaviour,
etc.
The
Chairman: There was originally a slight mistake on the
amendment paper but hon. Members now have the correct
version.
Danny
Alexander: I beg to move amendmentNo. 263, in
page 24, line 44, at end
add— ‘130H
Limitation (1)
Regulations to which this section applies may not remain in force after
January 2010. (2) This section
applies to regulations made under any of sections 130B to 130F
above.’. Thank
you for drawing the Committee’s attention to the correct version
of the amendment, Mr. Amess. The amendment proposes what is
colloquially known as a sunset provision that would ensure that
regulations under the clause would cease to have effect after January
2010. The arguments in favour pertain to the content of the clause, and
I hope that you will permit me to range quite widely, in the hope that
the need for a clause stand part debate may thereby be
obviated—from my point of view at least.
[Interruption.] I was going to say that the clause
refers to antisocial behaviour. We may have just seen an example. I do
not think that the hon. Member for South-West Surrey is in receipt of
an antisocial behaviour order, but maybe one would be appropriate. I do
not know what other Committee members
think.
Mr.
Hunt: May I ask the hon. Gentleman to clarify for
the sake of the record why he thinks that it might be appropriate for
me to be in receipt of an antisocial behaviour
order?
Danny
Alexander: I shall not try the Chairman’s patience
too much on that. Throwing bottles around is generally deemed to be at
the antisocial end of the spectrum, although I appreciate that in this
case it was accidental and I withdraw my comment.
There are significant concerns
as to the powers in the Bill, as I said on Second Reading. I understand
that the Government intend to pilot the idea, but as Committee members
know, the Bill contains power whereby the housing benefit of someone
who has been evicted for antisocial behaviour can be progressively
sanctioned to nil for a period of up to five years. That is quite a
severe financial
sanction. The
Under-Secretary may wish to clarify, but it seems that the power will
not be that widely used. I have seen figures—I think that they
are public—indicating that the Government envisage 1,500 cases.
I gather that in Scotland there might be six cases where this might
apply. In practice, given the severity of the sanction and the poor
quality of rehabilitation services for antisocial behaviour in many
parts of the country, it may be used much less than that. This power is
in the Bill more to grab headlines than to do anything serious to
tackle antisocial behaviour. That would be my first reason for worrying
about allowing these powers to remain in the Bill and to be rolled out
across the country without any further primary legislation or debate on
the Floor of the
House. 3.15
pm I
have listened to the views of a wide variety of external organisations
and I have not been able to find a single organisation that has lobbied
in favour of these provisions. The Under-Secretary may have been
lobbied extensively in favour of them, but I certainly have not.
Whether it is the Social Landlords Crime and Nuisance
Group, the Child Poverty Action Group, the British Council of Disabled
People, Shelter, the National Housing Federation and especially the
National Landlords Association, they have all made strong
representations against the inclusion of these powers. There are a
number of reasons for that. First, there is the question
that I raised on Second Reading about the impact on families and
children. There is a serious concern that removing housing benefit
could have unintended consequences for the dependants of those people,
whether it is the children of the person who is behaving antisocially
or perhaps the parents if the child is behaving
antisocially.There were reports today, according to a study
for the Youth Justice Board, of antisocial behaviour orders becoming a
badge of honour among young people. Of the 137 young people surveyed,
67 have breached their ASBOs at least once, 42 more than once and six
on six occasions or more. There are already questions about the way in
which this approach is working.
When it is the antisocial
behaviour of a child that has resulted in an eviction, the parent may
be unable to control the child and the rehabilitation services may not
be available in that area. As hon. Members know, there are serious
concerns about the quality of rehabilitation services for antisocial
behaviour that are available in different parts of the country, so we
could have a postcode lottery in the implementation of this
provision. Natascha
Engel (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab): One of the other
elements that has alarmed people, quite apart from a postcode lottery,
is that in the former pit villages that I represent where there was a
lot of social housing and many people exercised the right to buy and
are now private tenants, there is one rule for private tenants and a
completely different one for those people who are in social housing.
From the outside they appear to be exactly the same sort of houses, and
the provision seems to discriminate against those with less
money.
Danny
Alexander: The hon. Lady makes a very important point and
I was going to come to that. It is yet another reason why a sunset
clause, which would cause the powers of the Bill to lapse after three
years so that the matter would have to come back to the Floor of the
House to be debated before it could be rolled out across the country,
would be a good idea.
Another objection to these
powers is that they are discriminatory between people in receipt of
housing benefit and those who are not. There is no such sanction for
someone who is not in receipt of housing benefit. I should be grateful
for the Under-Secretary’s response to this. On Second Reading,
my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) referred to the
idea of probationary tenancies as an alternative to these sanctions as
they could have a wider application.
Mr.
Boswell: I cannot forget to allow my civil libertarian
instincts to come out from time to time on these sorts of issues. Does
the hon. Gentleman not agree that the clause appears to set no limits
on the warning that a local authority may issue? Not many people who
have been evicted from a house will have a
tame in-house lawyer to take them to judicial review, but nevertheless,
I suppose that local authorities always have a duty to be reasonable.
However, there is no circumscription of the powers. The clause does not
even say that they must be relevant to the housing experience as
such—if I may put it that way. Should not that be judicially
tied down a
little?
Danny
Alexander: As usual, the hon. Gentleman makes a useful and
important point, which I hope the Under-Secretary will consider in her
response.
Kali
Mountford: May I take the point
that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha
Engel) raised a bit further? The issue is not about whether a person
lives next door to somebody who is also in receipt of housing benefit,
but about people who live in similar accommodation and who are
sometimes also on low pay or housing benefit. However, the terms of
their tenancies vary, because some people rent from private landlords
and some live in social housing. The problem is that sanctions can
apply in social housing, but no sanctions apply where accommodation has
been bought. People living in such accommodation can cause dreadful
mayhem for the people in their neighbourhood. It is the tenants who
live in the locality who want some sanction to apply, not the landlords
who want their
rent.
Danny
Alexander: My response to that—I thought that this
was the point that the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire was
making, but perhaps I misunderstood—is that antisocial behaviour
can be caused by a range of people, irrespective of the nature of their
tenancy or whether they receive housing benefit. I am sure that the
hon. Member for Colne Valley would not claim that there is a
preponderance of antisocial behaviour among housing benefit recipients,
so her comment does not affect my argument in favour of restricting the
powers in the
Bill.
Natascha
Engel: Just to clarify, the issue really has nothing to do
with housing benefit and everything to do with whether a person is in
social housing as opposed to privately owned housing. That is the
distinction. It is wrong to have additional powers to penalise somebody
for being in social housing rather than a privately owned
property.
Danny
Alexander: The hon. Lady makes a fair point, but my
argument is that the problems that I have identified with the powers in
the Bill are such that they apply whether somebody is in social
housing, private sector housing or whatever. I seek to curtail those
powers with the amendment. She is right that there is an argument for
the same considerations to apply to everybody, but I question the
motivation behind introducing the powers, their potential impact and
the extent to which the Government should be free to continue to roll
such powers out throughout the country without having further recourse
to Parliament through primary legislation. That is what I should like
them to have to do, which is why I seek to have the amendment inserted
into the Bill.
Mr.
Hunt: I slightly disagree with the hon. Gentleman and the
hon. Members for Colne Valley and for North-East Derbyshire on one
point. Of course anyone is capable of antisocial behaviour, whether
they are in the private rented sector, the social housing sector or
whatever. However if they are in receipt of my and other
taxpayers’ money, which allows them to live there, I object to
their using that to behave
antisocially.
Kali
Mountford indicated
assent.
Mr.
Hunt: Perhaps I am not disagreeing with the hon. Lady, in
which case I am delighted to agree with her. My point is that I object
to such behaviour as a taxpayer. As taxpayers, we are perfectly at
liberty to say that if we subsidise someone’s living costs, we
expect them to use that money to behave responsibly. Furthermore, other
people on the street, who are also taxpayers, feel that particularly
strongly.
Danny
Alexander: I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point.
My point is not that we should not be tough with people who are guilty
of antisocial behaviour. Many measures are available to deal with such
behaviour and Liberal Democrat Members have made proposals for others.
I am just not convinced that this measure will have the consequence
that we all desire—that of curtailing antisocial behaviour. I
suspect that we are all agreed on that. This is a question—to
use an earlier phrase of the hon. Member for Bury St.
Edmunds—about means and practicalities, not ends or
principles. Having
expressed reservations about the powers in this Bill, I conclude by
asking the Under-Secretary to reflect on another issue. I know that one
of the conditions in the provision is that, in addition to someone
having to be evicted from their tenancy, they would also have to have
refused engagement with rehabilitation services. It is important to say
that the quality of rehabilitation services is patchy across the
country. What proposals does the Under-Secretary have to improve those
services and what right of appeal does she have in mind against these
sanctions, particularly on those grounds? Is she aware—and I am
sure, as the Minister with responsibility for disabled people, that she
will be—of the problem of mislabelling disabled people, who have
been inappropriately served with an antisocial behaviour disorder? Two
out of three individuals described as being involved in antisocial
behaviour have some form of vulnerability, 18 per cent. have a mental
disability and 9 per cent. have a physical disability. Is she really
saying that people who are already in a vulnerable position—for
a variety of reasons, perhaps to do with a lack of understanding among
the services dealing with antisocial behaviour—should have their
benefit taken away as well as being
evicted?
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