Mr.
Hunt: We are not
doves.
Mr.
Ruffley: My hon. Friend says from a sedentary position
that we are not doves. Could we be hawkish doves? I do not know, but we
are going to scrutinise it very carefully and look at it like
hawks. I
have two final points. First, the clause makes it clear that
rehabilitation services and support will be deployed. I hope that that
will be before any decision to dock the benefit, which is clearly
envisioned in the legislation. That is fine, but there are doubts as to
whether those rehabilitation services will be widely available. My
understanding is that the DWP says the rehabilitation that is
envisioned in the clause will be provided through existing services. Is
more money going to be made available? Can the Minister tell us
specifically about that? In the experience of all of us, current levels
of, for example, drug and alcohol dependency services and mental health
services are not anywhere near good enough. We all share a
responsibility for that; we can always do more and always do better.
However, the hon. Lady cannot rely on the proposal contained in this
clause about their being rehabilitation and warning notices and help
and support before any benefit sanction if those rehabilitation
services are not properly resourced. It is not just about help and
advice with managing one’s
lifestyle; it could actually involve quite sharp-end interventions to do
with drugs and health conditions. Mr.
Boswell: Does my hon. Friend agree that
the whole point is that many people, such as those we have been hearing
about in relation to the Dundee families project, require the most
intense attention, a greatdeal of time and what might be
called “tough love”. Although it is not clear to me, is
it clear to himwhether the existence of rehabilitation
services in the Government’s terms is a formal condition of
proceeding? If that is so, is there any guarantee written in that those
rehabilitation services have to be of an adequate or appropriate
quality?
Mr.
Ruffley: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I
understand that rehabilitation services would have to be provided and
fail before any sanction was deployed. We should be comfortable with
the terms of the Bill. There is a firewall, as it were, in that
rehabilitation services have to be accessed and must be succeeding in
turning around the offending behaviour. However, I am concerned that,
if those services are not adequately resourced, they might not be
adequate. The Under-Secretary needs to say whether the provision will
be funded from existing budgets or whether there will be
additional
money. Perhaps the
Under-Secretary will be open to a proposal from Shelter and Citizens
Advice that might be worth piloting, in relation to those persons in
hardship—mums and people over 60 and others—who might be
subject to a sanction. Shelter says that the30 per
cent. reduction in benefit, which is part of the current proposals, is
too high and would be quite a big hit to the family finances. Shelter
suggests reasonably that, where there is hardship, the 30 per cent.
reduction should be limited to 10 per cent. throughout the whole
restriction period, rather than there being a 30 per cent. reduction in
the post-eight-week period. The Under-Secretary might want to take that
on board in the trialling and piloting that she eloquently described,
which will happen over a two-year period. Is that is on her
agenda? I started by
departing from the path of righteous, but I have veered back. We
appreciate what the Under-Secretary said in the previous debate, but
could she consider Shelter’s proposal and tell the Committee a
bit more about resourcing? I know that, if she had the money, she would
put it in tomorrow. However, there is a question about whether the
Treasury will be similarly
minded.
Danny
Alexander: I will be brief. I have a few pertinent points
to make, which I aired in the previous debate but to which the Minister
did not respond. I
share the concern of the hon. Member for BurySt. Edmunds that
the principal motivation behind these measures is more to grab
headlines than to deal effectively with problems of antisocial
behaviour. This is more legislation-as-Government-press-release than
something that is seriously intended to do the job that all parties
agree on: taking tough measures that will be effective in tackling
antisocial
behaviour. I share the
concern of the hon. Member for BurySt. Edmunds on funding for
rehabilitation services. To
what extent does the Under-Secretary expect that services of the quality
of the Dundee families project will be available in every area of the
country? Will such services have to be available and exist as a
condition before the sanction proposed in the measures can be
applied? 4.15
pm I want to
reiterate my concerns about two particular groups of people. The
Under-Secretary has said that the Government intend the measure largely
to apply to single people, but can she be sure of that? I am concerned
about the impact on families with dependent children and child poverty.
I would be grateful if she were to address that
issue. I would also be
grateful if the Under-Secretary were to address the impact of sanctions
on those people, whom I mentioned before, who are wrongly labelled as
antisocial, where the issue might be a consequence of a mental health
problem or a lack of understanding and training. According to some
research, that is the case with 18 per cent. of those who currently
have antisocial behaviour orders. It would be a matter of grave concern
to both sides of the Committee if people who are mislabelled as a
result of mental health problems have their benefits sanctioned,
too. Finally, as the
hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds has said, it might be useful to hear
the Under-Secretary’s response to the proposal that has been put
forward by Shelter and the Child Poverty Action Group about reducing
the level of sanctions in the case of vulnerable people. I add to that
a question about the unusually lengthy period for which sanctions can
apply, which is up to five years. Will the Under-Secretary tell the
Committee more about the Government’s thinking on having
sanctions in place for such a long
period?
Kali
Mountford: I want to ask the Under-Secretary to take
special notice of one group of people. I fully understand the reason
behind the piloting of the scheme and all the safeguards that she has
outlined, which will hopefully bring somebody into line, if we can put
it that way, before any sanction is necessary. The group of people who
I hope receive special attention in the pilot is people experiencing
domestic
violence. Domestic
violence is often regarded as antisocial behaviour, but there is a much
deeper concern of which we should all be aware. I know that the police
deal with domestic violence differently in different areas. In my area,
there is a database which should be referred to at every report of any
kind of incident in which a victim of domestic violence is named.
However, it does not always work, and I know that other areas do not
have a similar database. I am anxious to ensure that what is apparently
antisocial behaviour, but is actually of much deeper concern, is
properly accounted for in the
pilot.
Mrs.
McGuire: It is worth reflecting on the fact that this is
not the first time that sanctions have been introduced into the
benefits system. Indeed, sanctions have been part of the benefit system
since 1913, so in many respects the Liberals and their successors
blazed a trail on sanctions. I have to admit that I am not sure
whether the sanctions that were imposed then would be supported by the
hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and his party
now. We need to
return to the point about the rights and responsibilities agenda. For a
moment, the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds lost his warm and cuddly
cool—my hon. Friend the Minister of State and I have been taking
bets on how long it would last. My hon. Friend and I will not divorce
ourselves in any way from the respect agenda, because we think it
important that we rebalance the rights and responsibilities agenda in
this country—I know that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds
was perhaps trying to make a political point in looking towards the
Prime Minister. I should reassure the Committee that the proposal is
not about antisocial behaviour orders, but about antisocial behaviour
and what we can do to help deal with some aspects of it. It has the
overwhelming support of most of my colleagues in the parliamentary
Labour party, because we recognise that many communities are blighted
by serious antisocial behaviour. Yet, even after eviction has taken
place, there is no current sanction to stop those who make their
neighbours’ lives a total misery from going back into the
housing sector with the same rights and privileges. That is a powerful
argument. We are not
proposing sanctions against people who are currently in tenancies,
because the most severe sanction—eviction—will already
have taken place. We shall not write off people after eviction, even if
it is only 1,500 people, or the six people in Scotland—I feel
like Abraham trying to find 100 just people. Even if people’s
behaviour has been so bad that the local authority has gone to court,
has presented evidence, and has gone through the long process of
eviction, we will still offer people rehabilitation, if they want it,
to protect their rights under the benefits system. I think that that is
a reasonable deal, given the misery that is sometimes caused by
antisocial behaviour—even in sunny
Inverness.
Danny
Alexander: The Under-Secretary is
absolutely right. Antisocial behaviour is an incredibly serious problem
and blights hundreds of families in my constituency and in the
constituency of every hon. Member. There is no disagreement in the
Committee on the need to take tough measures to tackle antisocial
behaviour. I referred earlier to an idea proposed by my hon. Friend the
Member for Rochdale, which, while serving a similar purpose, may in
some ways even be tougher—the introduction of probationary
tenancies so that people may lose not their benefits, but their
house.
Mrs.
McGuire: I wonder whether we are talking at
cross-purposes. I have said that the sanction will not kick in until
two criteria are met. One is that the person has already lost their
house, and the second is that they have refused to accept
rehabilitation. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is agreeing or
disagreeing with me, or whether, like many Liberal Democrats, as it is
late on a Thursday afternoon, he is doing both. It is all right for him
to say that he is against antisocial behaviour, but him and his party
need to answer a question. The question concerns the worst offenders,
of
whom we estimate there are 1,500 in the country, who are so bad in their
behaviour both in the private and publicly rented sectors that their
private or social landlord has gone to the bother and expense of
serving an eviction order. Is he not willing at least to try ways of
bringing those people back into the housing
fold?
Mr.
Hunt: The Under-Secretary spoke persuasively about her
vision of what should happen under the system. If someone behaves
antisocially, goes through the process that she has described, is
evicted, refuses rehabilitation and is then not offered any support for
housing benefit, what will happen next and where will that person
go?
Mrs.
McGuire: This is the great philosophical argument that we
are all going to have to deal with—the rights and
responsibilities issue. We cannot say that people can opt out of their
responsibilities to other members of their community, and that is not
only in respect of accepting a benefit from the state. The hon.
Gentleman perhaps answered his question in a previous debate, although
a little more starkly than I would have done. I reassure the Committee
that if the individual co-operates with the rehabilitation process and
the support that will be built into it, the sanction can be lifted at
any point. That is what we are seeking to
do. When he returns to
Inverness tonight, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and
Strathspey might wish to reflect on what he will say to the neighbours
of the six people who are so bad that Highland council is going to
evict them if he will not support the piloting—we are not
rolling it out—of the sanction regime. The sanction regime tells
people starkly, “We are at the end of our tether with your
behaviour. We are still prepared to invest in you and we still want to
get you back into the mainstream, but you have to do something
too.” The Dundee projects and other projects have shown that
that can happen, if there is give and take on both sides by the state
and the community and by the
individual. I turn to
the issue of resources, which the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds has
mentioned. The Government are investing heavily in rehabilitation. The
respect action plan announced our commitment to establish a national
network of family intervention centres. We are on track to deliver them
in 50 areas by the end of
2006.
Mrs.
McGuire: This might deal with the hon. Gentleman’s
question. If the appropriate support is not available in the local
authority, that authority would not be able to use the sanction, so the
two go hand in hand. I do not know whether that deals with the hon.
Gentleman’s question.
Mr.
Boswell: It helps a good deal with one
of our major worries, but I have a rather narrower question for the
Under-Secretary. The benefit sanction of course applies to the
recipient of housing benefit. The Under-Secretary has said that most of
the cases that she envisages would involve single persons but, as it
happens,
much of the debate has been about families, partly because of the Dundee
project. Will she assure the Committee that the rehabilitation support
will be holistic and available to the whole family, notwithstanding the
fact that, technically, only one person stands to lose their
benefit?
Mrs.
McGuire: The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. We
would not seek to victimise other members of a family where only one
person is the perpetrator of the difficulties. There is a good case for
ensuring that we support the whole family, and we will. To reassure
Opposition Members and some of my hon. Friends, I have said that
sanctions are more likely to be used on single people. The reason why
we say that is that single people are more likely to be evicted for
antisocial behaviour and are therefore more likely to be in the
pool—if I may call it that—to be
sanctioned. Several
new intervention projects have been established since 2003, six of
which have been run by the National Children’s Home and one of
which has been run by Sheffield city council. The rehabilitation
results have been first class, because the process is not only about
reintegrating people into their communities, but about ensuring that
children attend school. For example, there are reports of an 84 per
cent. improvement in school attendance, which illustrates the holistic
approach highlighted by the hon. Member for
Daventry.
Adam
Afriyie: There are many such projects, including those in
Aberdeen and other places that the Minister has mentioned, but will she
tell us whether financial sanctions were imposed on the families
involved? 4.30
pm
Mrs.
McGuire: I said to the hon. Gentleman earlier that we are
using such projects as illustrations of the benefits of rehabilitation.
Yes, of course they are operating under the current process, but to
repeat my earlier point, the most severe sanction in the instance to
which we are referring this afternoon has already been levied. The most
severe sanction is the eviction of people from their home. We are
providing the opportunity for that sanction to be lifted and for people
to move back into
housing.
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