Clause 21 - Abolition of minimum period for which an authority is subject to main homelessness duty
Homes Bill
12:45 pm
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman has a curious way of putting his argument. The first authority he quoted in his defence was someone saying that the two-year duty has never been implemented; if that is true, he should understand that it is entirely appropriate to remove from statute a provision that has clearly fallen into disrepute because more than two years have passed since it came into force. I accept that in many areas it has not been applied because it is inappropriate: local authorities know it is not the right way to handle their responsibilities toward homeless people. Unfortunately, however, in some areas there has been a belief that it is a statutory requirement and therefore the authority has to go through the curious bureaucratic treadmill of reviewing people's cases after a two-year period has elapsed.
Of course, problems can arise. Consider the problems that may surround a family that has been accepted as a homeless family with children if, in the course of two years, the children have passed the age of 16 and are no longer children; the family might have ceased to be regarded as being in priority need. All sorts of things could happen that could have an adverse impact on the individuals involved. In the ``No Place Like Home'' report the LGA makes the point very clearly that:
Reviewing the circumstances of priority homeless households after two years has created additional bureaucracy without uncovering, in the majority of cases, any significant change in the applicants' eligibility for rehousing.
On very simple grounds, the provision is undesirable because it is based on a completely erroneous conception of the nature of homelessness, it is ineffective and it imposes unreasonable bureaucratic burden. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees with the Government that it is high time that it was swept away by clause 21.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.