Clause 27 - allocation schemes
Homes Bill
9:45 am
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Coventry North East, Labour)
I beg to move amendment No. 105, in page 17, line 3, after `are' insert `to be'.
The Committee may have noticed that there has been a change in tactics on the Government Front Bench. I am now the man who moves the crowd back before the Lord Mayor's show.
This is a technical amendment to correct the Bill's grammar. I am sure that hon. Members will see the sense in it and I commend it to them.
Amendment agreed to.
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 94, in page 17, line 21, at end insert
`but the scheme will not give priority to people being released from prisons at the end of a custodial sentence following criminal conviction.'.
I fear that this amendment is a little more technical than the two words of the previous one. It deals with a subject that is not addressed in the Bill, but which we want the Bill to address as regards allocation schemes and the classification of priority groups. We want to address the subject of preference being given to ex-prisoners. Although it is not in the Bill, Ministers have floated the idea quite strongly and it is likely to feature in forthcoming regulations on allocations.
This is a difficult issue. Of course, people who come from institutionalised backgrounds such as ex-prisoners may find themselves homeless. Figures from some charity organisations, particularly Shelter, show that those people are more vulnerable than others and that the chances of recidivism are greater if they are left in that condition. I will not take issue with some of the work, although it gives a mixed picture.
The Association of London Government has expressed concern that extending the priority need categories to include ex-offenders and others will significantly increase the number of households placed in temporary accommodation and therefore increase further the net costs of temporary accommodation.
At the previous sitting, we dealt with the subject of asylum seekers and people who were not permitted to stay in the country for longer than a certain period. I gave figures for the costs of temporary accommodation in London as surveyed by Westminster city council and for the sharp rise in the cost of temporary accommodation for homeless households, which had risen between 1997 and 1998 alone by some 20 per cent. That trend has continued. The ALG has estimated that extending the priority groups to include the ex-offender classification could increase homeless acceptances by about 10 per cent.
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is precisely because of the particular problems often faced by ex-offenders released from prison that so many of them find halfway house accommodation of the sort provided by the Stonham housing association useful? I happened to be a trustee of one such hostel some years ago, when I was a councillor in Hammersmith and Fulham.
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is right. I shall argue that there are other means and agencies for dealing with ex-offenders, starting with the institutions from which they have come. There is a duty of care on those institutions when releasing offenders, particularly if releasing them early and on parole, to have regard to the circumstances and surroundings into which those people are being released. If they simply open the door and turf them out on to the street without any regard to what will happen to them and what educational benefits and so on they have had in prison, surely the chances that they will reoffend and end up back where they started are that much greater. My hon. Friend mentioned the halfway houses, which have some expertise and a good record in dealing with some of this category of potentially homeless people.
Various institutions are worried that all housing will go to the homeless, with less for those who wait patiently on the register. More responsibility for the homeless is being passed to local authorities, with little extra money to meet the cost. Soundings have been taken from various councils. One says:
``We will have fewer choices on the way we run our register and allocate the Council's housing...This is further evidence of centralisation.''
Another says:
``If the groups of people''
that we
``must assist are extended then the choice available to existing priorities will decrease. We will be obliged to assist more people and this will be at the expense of the Council. Clearly more people will be placed in B&B accommodation. There are no new resources promised to help councils meet the extended obligation. This has clear council tax implications.''
Another says:
``The city council has concerns regarding the intention to place the duty on local authorities to rehouse those from an institutionalised background such as prisons and the armed forces. Whilst fully recognising that a number of rough sleepers come from an institutionalised background, we are nevertheless concerned that a broadly drafted requirement to rehouse such applicants without sufficient regard to vulnerability and need will place an unreasonable and costly burden on inner London boroughs.''
That ties in with what my hon. Friend was saying about liaising with other agencies, which have a specific expertise in this area quite separate from placing a general duty on local authorities.
I believe that it is all summed up by one of my own local authorities, which made the stark point that:
``All the powers and duties in the world will not make any real difference to people's chances without an increase in the supply of housing available to them.''
I fully recognise that there are specific problems with ex-offenders. There are particular problems with housing sex offenders, which need to be dealt with very delicately, using a host of agencies from the police and social services and specialised organisations. That responsibility should not just be dumped on local authorities because—despite what the Minister said on Second Reading, the logic of which is badly flawed—given the finite amount of available accommodation, any addition to the list of priority homeless people, however small, however big, however wide, however narrow, must mean that those who are not covered in those priority allocations, particularly those people who become homeless through no fault of their own and do not fall into one of the priority groups, will find themselves lower down the list or will be given the choice of less amenable and less suitable accommodation than they would have been.
The proposed change to the regulation that has been flagged-up by the Government sends out the wrong message. It suggests that those who have been in jail should receive priority over homeless people with unblemished records. That is the message for thousands of people who have been waiting patiently on homeless housing lists. They might now find themselves pushed down that queue because of priority being given to people from an institutionalised background. I would be delighted if the Minister would explain how those circumstances would not arise when there is a finite amount of housing stock available to accommodate all those different types of people. We have tabled the amendment because if the Government take the route that they have flagged up, it will send out the wrong message to those who have to wait far too long and still end up with inadequate accommodation.
Mr Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)
I agree with only one point made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton) and that is the need for more social housing. I cannot possibly support this amendment. Hon. Members know that ex-offenders are heavily represented among homeless people, and key factors in ensuring that they do not re-offend include stability in housing and access to employment. To exclude them in the way suggested is a recipe for more crime. We will certainly oppose the amendment.
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
Since you will not be here for the usual eulogies at the end of the Committee, Mr Gale, may I take this opportunity to thank you for your enlightened chairmanship?
It comes as no surprise to the Opposition that the Liberal Democrats are rowing-in behind the Government on this issue. The Government have clearly taken fright on this because, over a significant period, they have heavily leaked the fact that ex-offenders would be among those given priority when regulations were made. If, in the light of comments made, the Government have had a damascene conversion, I should be happy to give way to allow the Minister to confirm that and then to move on to the next group of amendments.
As the Bill stands, there is no differentiation between a family with dependent children and a convicted offender being released from prison. Both fall under the catch-all category of ``particular descriptions of people'', which will be left to the discretion of a local authority or be a matter for regulation. There is something sadly wrong here. If we are to pass legislation of this sort, it is up to us to say broadly how we think these matters should be approached. I make no apologies for again quoting the Local Government Association report, ``No Place Like Home''. It says:
``There are real problems for local authorities in reconciling the housing needs of an individual with the legitimate concerns of a community, when considering certain types of applicant, such as sex offenders, ex-offenders and those with a history of anti-social behaviour. ``
I believe that that issue was pursued by the LGA representative at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on 15 January.
We have been concerned, as have others, at the floating of this idea in the press by unattributable spokespersons for the Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions, and no one will be happier than us if it turns out to be wholly untrue. I assume that, since the Minister has not taken the opportunity to intervene so far, there is some truth in the suggestion. The Opposition accept that everyone has the right to a decent home and we know that that can lead to genuine dilemmas for local authorities, among others. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has said, with great care, we do not support the suggestion that those leaving prison should get priority—nor should we encourage the perception that they could—over law-abiding people who have been waiting patiently for housing.
Mr Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Gentleman uses the term ``law-abiding''. Does he think that a consequence of accepting his amendment would be an increase or a reduction in crime?
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
As we know, the Liberal Democrats are limp on matters of law and order and have an incredibly simplistic attitude to crime.
I want to deal with two issues. I think that we must all accept that, as a matter of principle, those who have been tried and convicted and served their sentence have paid their debt to society. However, 23,000 or more prisoners have been released early under the Government's early release scheme and a significant number have gone on to commit further crimes. I remind the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) that that scheme had the full-hearted support of his party's Home Office spokesperson.
My second point is one that I made in an intervention, which is that many ex-offenders released from prison bring with them problems, some of which have been acquired while in prison. It could be a problem with drugs or a simple inability to manage their lives, having been locked in a cell for 23 hours out of 24 and having their entire life regulated. The drugs problem is very significant.
I do not know whether the Minister remembers, but in the late 1960s and early 1970s I was a trustee of the Stonham home in Hammersmith. It was an effective halfway house, principally for ex-offenders, and many of these problems were manifesting at that time. If anything, I am sure that the drugs problem in prison is worse now than it was then. That is an example of why the housing of ex-offenders must be handled sensitively in some situations. I am not suggesting that all ex-offenders have those problems. Many ex-offenders have no problems at all. Having served their sentence, they breathe a sigh of relief, get on with a normal life and never re-offend. We are talking about a minority, but a significant minority.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton, Labour/Co-operative)
The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the large number of people from institutional backgrounds who find themselves on the street when released from their institutions. If we were to pass the amendment that he is suggesting, would that not consign those people to further time on the streets, where they will have to be picked up by the particular initiatives that we are now undertaking?
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. Our amendment does not suggest that ex-offenders should be treated worse than other people—simply that they should not be given any preference over other people. That is perfectly sensible and acceptable. As so often happens with this Government, I suspect that they have floated an idea, more than once, found that it did not float and are now saying that they did not think of it in the first place. Last April, in a statement on the housing Green Paper, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions commented on media leaks and said:
``If I had leaked the statement I would hardly have said that I would give priority to prisoners. That would not be the leak that I should have wanted to give to the press''.—[Official Report, 4 April 2000; Vol.347, c. 817.]
We all know from recent events that even the Prime Minister has difficulties ensuring that his press spokesman says what he is supposed to say. Indeed, the press spokesman seems to have thought that it was his mission in life to rubbish the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when his job was to say what a wonderful asset he had been to the Government and to the country. So little mistakes can happen of course. [Interruption.] The Minister for Housing and Planning is getting terribly excited—it is very early in the morning for that sort of thing. I hope that he gets through the Committee stage without harm. If he can contain himself, I will conclude by saying that if the Government have genuinely had second thoughts about the issue, we will happily withdraw the amendment. We cannot support a proposal to give priority to ex-offenders—we are saying not that they should be put at a disadvantage, but that they should not be given advantages over other deserving people.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Coventry North East, Labour)
This is a nasty, malicious little amendment; there are no other words to describe it. We made it clear on Second Reading that the Government have never said and are not saying now that convicted criminals should be given priority in housing. When the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said that our proposals send out a message, he exposed what is happening: the Opposition's deliberate distortion of the Bill—for the most disgraceful reasons—sends out a transparent message. I repeat what my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning said on Second Reading: there is no intention to give priority to released prisoners. Local authorities are already under a duty to give priority to vulnerable groups and all that is being proposed is that some people from institutional backgrounds who fall within the category of vulnerable people should be given consideration. Those are the facts. There is no justification for the Opposition's attempts at distortion.
The hon. Gentleman said that was another problem: because there is a finite amount of money, giving some people priority inevitably affects everyone else. What kind of a point is that from a supporter of the previous Government, with their record on housing capital investment? It is the current Government who are putting significant extra resources into housing investment—an extra £1.8 billion over the next three years. The Conservatives are responsible for the current dire straits of housing provision, so it is rich for the hon. Gentleman to suggest that our provisions will adversely affect housing provision for families.
The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) suggested that we are lumping released prisoners into the same category as families—and then cleverly slipped in at the end of his contribution the acknowledgement that that will be left to the discretion of local authorities. The whole tenor of the hon. Gentleman's remarks on the Local Government Bill and this Bill was that Conservatives were trying to act as the friend of local authorities, but his arguments today imply that the authorities are now totally incapable of taking sensible decisions about people in need and about who should get priority.
The strategy behind the Bill is to implement a multi-agency approach to provide people with accommodation that is appropriate to their circumstances and to give them choice wherever possible. Halfway house facilities of the sort to which the hon. Gentleman referred are examples of the facilities that we are discussing and they will be provided through the sort of approach that our proposals will introduce. There is nothing more to say about the amendment, other than that it exposes itself. It is a deliberate and malicious distortion, designed to create an impression that what is being proposed is something other than it is.
It is noticeable that no answer has come from the Member for Eastbourne to the question he was asked about his perception of the amendment's effects on crime levels. Before he replies, I remind him that that he was a supporter of the Government that presided over a doubling of crime in this country. The effect of his amendment will be to take out ex-offenders, put them in a category below and, even when they are most vulnerable, prevent local authorities from looking at their housing needs separately. That is what he says he is trying to achieve, and is presenting to the British people. If he believes that that is any sort of strategy for dealing with crime in this country, which is far too prevalent, he should answer the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and explain what on earth he thinks the amendment's effect on crime would be.
I ask the Committee to reject the amendment. It is clear to everyone concerned that it is a nasty, malicious amendment that is deliberately designed to distort the intent of the Bill.
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
We have really touched a raw nerve. Neither the debate nor the amendment would have been necessary had the Government made absolutely crystal clear when replying to what they are now calling ``distorted'' or ``malicious rumours'' their real intentions for changing the regulation in relation to dealing with institutionalised ex-offenders. They failed to do that. The Minister for Housing and Planning did not make that clear on Second Reading, despite the claim that he did. It was patently unclear.
There was no follow-up to the stories in the press, which is why it was necessary to table the amendment to get to the bottom of the truth. Let us deal with the extraordinary claims coming—not unusually—from the Liberal Democrats. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington raised two points. First, he asked would the amendment lead to an increase or decrease in crime? The amendment would have no effect on that. What we are not doing, as he again put it, is excluding people. The amendment would not exclude anyone. The people to whom it refers are already not included, so the amendment does not exclude them. That comment completely misreads the amendment. We are not saying that those people should be treated differently, separately or prejudicially. We are asking purely for a level playing field and for that to be clearly stated. A change in ex-prisoners' position would be the result of the Government's changing the regulation.
The Under-Secretary of State is out of touch with reality if he believes that people on homeless waiting lists up and down the country—there are many of them, but we shall not debate the exact figures again—think that everything is fine and dandy and that they are being treated fairly. He and I both know that many of those homeless people, some of whom come to our constituency surgeries, do not think that they are being treated fairly; they give examples of other people who seem to get their house faster, or who get a better flat or house. There is already a great feeling of inequity amongst many people in desperate circumstances. There is a view out there—put in the press before we ever tabled the amendment—that yet another class of people would be added to the priority classifications above them on their waiting list, that would add to that feeling of unfairness. That feeling exists, whatever Ministers say, or whatever we do in Committee. Unless the proposals on the regulations—which, we are delighted to learn, will not now be proposed—are scotched once and for all, that feeling of inequity will increase.
Dr Brian Iddon (Bolton South East, Labour)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Bill is about homelessness? Does he accept that a fair percentage of street homeless are ex-prisoners and that many convicted prisoners have already given up a council house or a registered social landlord home because their sentence was too long and they did not have enough money to maintain their home?
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
Absolutely right, but whether and how soon they have their council houses back should be judged on the same basis as the cases of others on the waiting list in different circumstances; that is all that we are saying. The amendment is designed to make it clear that people coming out of an institution should not gain priority over others. There is no question of excluding people—the ludicrous allegation of the Liberal Democrats, who patently fail to understand the amendment. It is about including everybody on the same basis.
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
Does my hon. Friend agree that although our amendment would not deny housing to ex-offenders, the Liberal Democrat interventions and the Minister's speech demonstrate that the Liberal Democrats and the Government are stuck in a 1960s timewarp in which criminality is explained in terms of poor housing? Many people living in poor housing do not engage in criminal behaviour.
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right again. That is the liberal elite establishment talking.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Coventry North East, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is right about one thing. My constituency surgery probably reveals more than his the high number of people in housing need. Many of them feel that they are treated more unfairly than others, so the hon. Gentleman is trading on a feeling that is already there. The best way to deal with those feelings is to invest in lifting the quality and supply of housing and then to offer people as much choice as possible within the system. That is exactly what the Bill is designed to do. The amendment would simply exclude ex-offenders from consideration, even though they are vulnerable people.
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
Of course the second part of the Minister's statement is right. As was clear from the quotes that I read out, the only way to solve the problem for everyone—people who have lost their own home, people coming out of prison, rough sleepers and so forth—is to increase the supply of suitable, affordable, properly placed housing. We all know that. However, that does not apply now.
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
Let me remind the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary of the figures. In the last four years of the previous Conservative Government, 95,000 social houses were built, compared with 59,000 in the first four years of the present Government.
Mr David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)
I ask my hon. Friend not to subscribe too enthusiastically to the notion that if enough houses are provided, the problem of homelessness is solved. That is not the case because problems of competence come to the fore. As John Bird, the founder of The Big Issue, said, the last thing that homeless people need is a home. He was referring to the process of training to help people to cope with life: the house comes at the end of the process. Providing many houses does not necessarily solve all the problems associated with homelessness.
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
My right hon. Friend is right and provides an appropriate balance to my comments. It is not just a question of bricks and mortar; it has everything to do with conditions for people, having come from a homeless background, to have a sustainable home. I think we are agreed on that. The Minister has a nerve to try to trot out the figures on crime going back to 1979, for which there are a host of additional reasons on which we could talk and go completely out of order—
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
We shall avoid doing so, because I know that you would very quickly haul me back into order, Mr. Gale.
Entirely missing from the Under-Secretary's comments was any reference to the fact that violent crime has risen sharply. Last year, the crime figures went up for the first time in six years, with 191,000 additional crimes. Many of these crimes are being committed by people who are out on early release. Who is contributing to the problem? Who is exacerbating the problem of people coming out early and perhaps less prepared for a stable housing situation? The answer is, the Government.
The Under-Secretary has a nerve to talk about who is the ``friend of local authorities'', because we are the ones who are saying that choice and discretion over local circumstances and local priorities should be given to local authorities. The amendment merely takes away an extra prescription. In clause 27 the Government are prescribing more categories of people who should be treated as a priority, regardless of whether the local authority likes it, has that problem locally or even has the local circumstances to deal suitably with those priorities. Central prescription is what the present Government are about, but it is not within the terms of what we are saying. If the Government really trusted local government, there would be less prescription of who local authorities should deal with, how and on what terms.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Coventry North East, Labour)
If the issue is prescription, will the hon. Gentleman tell me where in the Bill it says that local authorities must house convicted prisoners, and can he explain why his amendment says clearly that they will not? Who is being prescriptive here?
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
The argument is circular and the Government are creating it. The intention underlying the Government's changes to regulations was to impose yet another list of priority people. We are purely saying that there should not be another list in the form of ex-offenders. We are not adding to that prescription. Two minuses make a plus. The Government are engaging in an awful lot of semantics.
Mr. Ainsworth rose—
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
The Minister wants to intervene again, although it is unlikely to help his case. However, we will not press these amendments, because we now have from the Government an undertaking that they should have given months ago. If they had done so, we would have avoided this debate. As the Minister has realised, the Opposition, far from playing on people's fears, are trying to allay those fears, so that people do not feel even more unfairly treated than many already do. On that basis, we have had an interesting discussion. We have teased out from the Government what I hope are categorical denials, which are long overdue. We hope that they do not slip in under the net when, in the far-flung future, these regulations are brought in, because if they do, a lot of people, especially many local authorities, will feel badly let down. We have aired the subject and I hope that the Government's colours are now well and truly nailed to the mast. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. Brake: I beg to move amendment No. 76, in page 17, line 22, leave out
`may' and insert `shall'.
The Chairman: With this we may discuss amendment No. 93, in page 17,line 24, at end insert
`to include particularly families with dependant children.'.
Mr Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)
The purpose of amendment No. 76 is to require local authorities to frame their allocation scheme to give additional preference to people with the most urgent housing needs. As Members will be aware, clause 27 requires local authorities to frame their allocation schemes to give ``reasonable preference'' to people in housing need. A power is also included to enable an authority to give ``additional preference'' to households with ``urgent housing needs'', but there is no requirement or obligation for them to do so. It is our view that placing a duty on authorities to build urgent needs into their allocation scheme would still give local authorities the flexibility to define what is meant by urgent housing need. Therefore, we are not being prescriptive, but we are giving local authorities the ability to make their own decisions on what is urgent need. The amendment is entirely in keeping with the Government's intention and with the view that meeting housing need should remain the overriding priority in the allocation of social housing.
Mr David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)
I fail to understand the intellectual logic. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that instead of ``may'' we will have ``must'' or ``shall'' but is then saying that it does not make any difference anyway because local authorities define what is meant by urgent need, what on earth is he wasting our time with?
Mr Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)
The right hon. Gentleman was obviously not listening with sufficient attention. We want to place a duty on local authorities to take into account urgent needs in their allocation scheme so that the most vulnerable people are housed within the scheme, but it is entirely consistent to then say that local authorities should be able to establish what constitutes urgent need. I hope that the Government will respond positively to the proposal.
I will listen carefully to what the Minister has to say to Conservative amendment No. 93. We are inclined to support it unless, as may be the case, priority is already given to families with dependent children. If that is the position, the amendment would not be necessary. I hope that the Minister will clarify that point.
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I do not want to embark upon the great ``may'' versus ``shall'' debate, which rages just beneath the surface of this Committee. I wish to speak to amendment No. 93. I am delighted to hear that the Liberal Democrats are inclined to support it. I suppose on the grave of every dead Liberal Democrat is the motto ``on the one hand...and on the other hand''. Hopefully they will make up their minds by the end of the morning.
This amendment is about duty to families with dependent children. The Housing Act 1996 requires authorities to devise allocation schemes that give ``reasonable preference'' to numerous different categories including, specifically, ``families with dependent children''. I can see the force of the argument that will be deployed by the Minister, which is that clause 27 tries to simplify those criteria. We will no doubt get into the eternal argument about whether or not it is better to have things in the Bill. There is a real danger here of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We cannot agree that the inclusion for reasonable preference of families with dependent children, which is the existing situation, should cease to be an explicit criterion and becomes simply a matter for local interpretation. I take on board all the points made about being over-prescriptive, but I think that Parliament is entitled to send some messages about the sort of preferences we have in mind.
Some useful statistics have been prepared by Sarah Guy of the Catholic Housing Aid Society. They show that out of all local authority homelessness acceptances in priority need, in the fourth quarter of 1999, no less than 59 per cent. were households with dependent children. Judging from one's own surgeries and mailbag that sounds about right. The statistics also show that more than 2 million children live in households in which there is no paid adult in work and which, therefore, may be vulnerable to homelessness. It seems to us, not only on grounds of principle but on grounds of the reality as expressed in those statistics, that it is right to retain that sort of preference on the face of the relevant legislation. We are keen to hear what the Minister has to say.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
Amendment No. 76 seeks to ensure that letting schemes would have to give additional preference to particular descriptions of people within the reasonable preference category, in effect, requiring local housing authorities to identify the categories of people that it would treat as in urgent housing need. Some local authorities, particularly those in high demand areas, may well need to do that, but it would be wholly redundant to require others to do so when they have adequate accommodation to offer everyone social housing. I hope that the hon. Gentleman realises that it is much more sensible to leave the decision to local authorities and to allow them to use their good sense to exercise additional priority where appropriate, but not require them to do so where it is not.
At first sight amendment No. 93 seems reasonable, but a brief examination shows it to be flawed. Where there is need, the provisions of the Bill will enable it to be recognised and met. Homeless families with children are already, as the hon. Member for Eastbourne pointed out, in the priority needs categories and account for a substantial proportion of those households who are assisted. Having children is not of itself an indicator of need. Many families with children are living in perfectly adequate accommodation—including many members of the Committee, who would not for a moment suggest that we should be given priority over others for allocation of council housing. We have perfectly adequate homes of our own—[Interruption.] I am sorry if the hon. Member for Eastbourne is not adequately housed, but on his salary I am sure that he can make adequate provision for himself. I am sure that he would not want his needs to be put ahead of those of low-income households who have no other option. That would be the consequence of his amendment.
At our last sitting the hon. Gentleman argued strongly the case for elderly people and highlighted their needs, as did his hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham; elderly people constitute a significant proportion of their constituents. Their amendment would enable families with children always to take priority over elderly people, irrespective of need. That cannot be right. I hope that they recognises that although the amendment sounds attractive, it would have a perverse consequence.
Mr Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)
I hear what the Minister says about areas of low housing demand. I represent an area of high housing demand where the local authority has to define urgent need. However, I am realistic and I understand that whatever the merits of our amendments my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) and I are slightly outnumbered here today. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 77, in page 17, leave out lines 31 and 32.
Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)
With this it will be convenient to take the following: Amendment No. 91, in page 17, line 34, at end insert `or another authority's district'.
Amendment No. 83, in page 17, line 34, at end insert
`save that the factors may not be taken into account in any case where to do so would be unreasonable having regard to the need of the person or household for an allocation of housing accommodation.'.
Amendment No. 92, in page 17, line 34, at end insert—
`( ) any record of behaviour of a person (or of a member of his household) which has affected the terms of a previous tenancy he has held.'.
Government Amendments Nos. 106 to 108
Amendment No. 96, in page 17, line 47, after `accommodation', insert
`which may be available within the authority's district or within another authority's district'.
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
We have before us three amendments tabled by the Conservatives, which fall into two separate categories. The first category consists of amendments Nos. 91 and 96, dealing with out-of-district accommodation. I am glad that the Liberals have said that they will support, or are inclined to support, amendment No. 91. In the second category is amendment No. 92, relating to the records of previous tenants.
I am afraid that I cannot reciprocate the support offered by the hon. Member for Bath by supporting the Liberal amendment No. 77. The hon. Gentleman has explained that if the Liberal Democrats cannot have what they want, they would prefer to have nothing at all, but if they did, the result would be to take out any regard whatever for tenants' previous behaviour. Therefore, however ghastly certain tenants have been, however guilty of racial abuse in sensitive areas or of domestic violence to members of a family, and however insensitive to the nature of the neighbourhood, that will not matter and need not be taken into consideration. That is obviously wholly unacceptable.
Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)
May I place it firmly on the record that, had we not seen the Government's amendments, I would have said clearly that amendment No. 77 was, by its very nature, a probing amendment to allow us to discuss these issues? I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that if we had accepted amendment No. 77 in isolation, without any amendments, that would have been unacceptable, for the reasons that he has given. I share his concerns about amendment No. 77 in isolation. As he has seen, our amendment has brought forth a large number of fruits from the Government.
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
That being said, the hon. Gentleman did have the opportunity not to move his amendment, in the light of what the Government had proposed. However, I agree with him that the Government's addition is welcome, although late, and does require further discussion. I am sure that Members will be keen to debate the addition on Report and in the Bill's later stages.
I welcome parts of the Government's amendments. Perhaps the Government should propose them first, although I know how they fall in the group, so that we may respond to the proposals. Our amendments, particularly amendment No. 92, depend on what the Government are proposing. We are going to this somewhat blind. However, I welcome amendment No. 107, in particular, with a review process. The absence of a review process was one criticism that I wanted to return to, and the hon. Member for Bath has made a fair point in welcoming that amendment. I am not clear about how prescriptive amendment No. 106 would now be, whereas our amendment is more flexible and gives greater powers to local authorities to determine what is unacceptable behaviour in their area.
I shall deal first with amendment No. 92 on the subject of unacceptable behaviour or, as we all know it, dealing with neighbours from hell. We all know that persistent antisocial behaviour is one of the biggest causes of misery in residential areas. That is a particular problem when it arises in social housing estates. We have all heard about it in our surgeries. I was asked last Friday to visit a group of constituents in a residential area with mixed tenure, where just three households of about 100 are wreaking havoc. Tenants have been beaten up and hospitalised. Their children are being terrorised in school. Spark plugs, stones and mud are being thrown at people, including little old ladies in gardens. Cars are being vandalised. That area had been perfectly peaceful. Many of its residents had been there for 20 years and had no trouble at all until those problem families were moved in.
The problem was accentuated by moving several problem families into the same area; the effect mushrooms. It is obviously absurd for a tenant whose previous record includes having been evicted for antisocial behaviour to be treated on an equal basis with well-behaved tenants or owner-occupiers. Why should neighbours from hell enjoy decent accommodation on a par with others who have a clean slate? Why should they avoid the inconvenience of less favourable or temporary bed-and-breakfast accommodation? One school of thought would contend that problem neighbours are dealt with more appropriately within the private sector. Some interesting work has been done on that.
Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 gave grounds for landlords to evict people from shorthold tenancies, and section 162 of the Housing Act 1996 gave local authorities the power to apply for injunctions against antisocial behaviour. Subsequently, the Government introduced further criminal justice legislation and adopted limited use of antisocial behaviour orders, which should be used more extensively despite their flaws.
The key problem is that the system militates against good neighbours. Many of our housing estates are remarkable for the lack of incentives to promote good neighbourliness. Last year I visited the Irwell Valley housing association in Salford, which has turned the problem on its head. The staff of this association in a previously run-down outskirt of Manchester reflected on why 70 per cent. of their time and 75 per cent. of their resources were spent on only 10 to 15 per cent. of their tenants and homes. They wondered why 70 per cent. of their repair bill was spent on tenants who were either in arrears or had intentionally caused damage to their properties—a fair point.
Legally, housing associations can do little to reward or incentivise tenants who are living peacefully in harmony with their neighbours, looking after their property and putting something back into their communities. The Irwell Valley housing association introduced a gold service, in which the rights of tenants were reappraised. People who signed up to the service undertook to maintain a certain level of behaviour and responsibility. In return, they received preferential repair times, quicker access to better homes, access to training and job opportunities within the housing association's estates, reductions on goods and services and so forth.
Other housing associations are reflecting on what that interesting experiment achieved. The results of the scheme included a 12 per cent. reduction in the average level of arrears; rising customer satisfaction with 65 per cent. of tenants receiving a radically enhanced service; a 27 per cent. reduction in security costs; void turnround times reduced by almost 30 per cent.; and re-let times reduced by 18 per cent. The upshot was that savings were ploughed back into providing more and better accommodation and services. Everyone was happy.
When I visited the housing association last year I met many tenants who spoke in glowing terms about what had happened. Good tenants and good neighbours had been rewarded. The reverse side of the coin is the housing association's tough policy for dealing with neighbours who choose not to sign up and to flout the rules or to sign up but still flout the rules. That association probably has one of the toughest eviction policies allowed within the law, but it has one of the lowest eviction rates of any equivalent housing association in the country. It is interesting that being tough and providing incentives for people who play by the rules makes everyone behave better.
Another school of thought says that people who are in the most desperate circumstances and in most need of a home should be the best behaved tenants, because they have the most to lose. However, that needs to be reinforced by schemes such as the one that I have described, which highlight the rewards for being a good neighbour and the risks of not being a good tenant. Such schemes are being considered.
Wandsworth has come up with a scheme to produce contracts between the council and its tenants in order to cut down on criminal or immoral acts by people who fail to control their children, cause noise and disturbance, dump rubbish and so on. There are interesting examples to follow. It is right that local authorities should have powers to use their resources to clamp down on people who do not have a track record of being good neighbours and specifically on those who have been highly disruptive—whether through criminal or highly antisocial activities—and who are likely to replicate those activities in a new home.
I realise that organisations such as Shelter have raised concerns, and I agree that such stipulation should not be used lightly. The clause should not provide an easy option to be used against people who go into rent arrears, often because of the force of their domestic circumstances or the failure of the benefits system to pay their housing benefit on time. In no way does that constitute antisocial behaviour. I want to make it clear that we are talking about antisocial behaviour, not financial difficulties. There is a clear distinction. I therefore welcome Government amendment No. 107, which provides for a review procedure, so that tenants who feel that they have been wrongly classified as antisocial neighbours for what is not antisocial behaviour have a right of appeal.
Surely the underlying principle is that people who play by the rules and get on with their neighbours should not suffer at the hands of a minority of neighbours from hell. That is why I propose the rather more flexible amendment No. 92. I want to hear what the Government have to say. It is a key subject to raise on Report.
I shall deal more briefly with amendments Nos. 91 and 96, which represent an attempt to give some legislative weight to the increasing instances of reciprocal allocation arrangements between different local authorities. There is an increasing number of such arrangements in London. Westminster has arrangements with councils in the north of England. I believe that Camden has an arrangement with Kirklees council about passing on people who are low on the homeless list. One local authority might be able to offer certain housing conditions, whether in terms of type, number or both, that are not available in another. That is pertinent to London and the rest of the south-east, with the pressures that have often been discussed.
There is another point to the amendments. Such inter-council arrangements can offer a way out of the trap into which many people fall. They may be far from home, in miserable conditions, perhaps with no roof. The arrangements enable them to make a fresh start, among friends and family, in a part of the country with which they have some previous connection. They may have no hope of doing that as the Bill currently stands.
In the past year I have visited many inner-city areas in metropolitan boroughs in the north and in the midlands. I stood for a seat in Sheffield in the 1992 general election. My first photo opportunity there was on an estate in Brightside. It was a mass of empty, boarded-up council houses; the road was full of weeds, and there were dumped cars. I was told that those houses were going to be demolished. I have been back to Sheffield many times since then, but I went back to that estate last summer. I had another photo opportunity in the very same road, in front of the same houses. The only difference was that a few more houses were boarded up, a few more roof tiles were missing, and it was difficult to distinguish the tarmac from the weeds. That is a great waste, because those houses are perfectly liveable in, and could be renovated. The reason for that waste is largely to do with 50 years of misery under Labour in Sheffield, which I fear has not been reversed by the past 12 months under the Liberal Democrats yet.
My point is that 40,000 households are temporarily accommodated by London boroughs, including over 5,000 in bed and breakfasts. There are 40,000 local authority homes and 10,000 housing association properties in northern England standing empty at the current time so I have a great deal of sympathy with calls for a national housing scheme, which I know that councils such as Westminster, among others, are proposing.
The purpose of the amendments is to stop us losing sight of the fact that we should not just place responsibilities and obligations on local authorities within their own districts. There is far more scope for addressing homelessness by encouraging local authorities to look beyond their boundaries and come up with reciprocal arrangements with councils in areas where there is not such pressure on housing, particularly in the north of England.
Mr Neil Turner (Wigan, Labour)
Amendment No. 83 is the mirror image of amendments Nos. 81 and 82 to clause 25, which we discussed on Tuesday, moved so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love). Indeed, he moved them so eloquently that I thought for a moment that he was reading my notes.
The purpose of the three amendments is to ensure that the housing priority of the applicant is given the highest importance. The hon. Members for Bath and for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned the difficulties that local authorities have. While they have a duty to look after the homeless, they also have a clear duty to look after their tenants. We have to draw a fine line within the Bill. If we draw the line too widely, the homeless will suffer, but if we draw it too narrowly, the existing tenants will suffer in the ways that both hon. Members have suggested.
What we are trying to do with this amendment is to ensure that the reasons and needs that the Government set out in the housing Green Paper are reflected in the Bill. I have looked quickly at Government amendments Nos. 106 to 108, and it seems to me that the difficulties that we tried to address in amendments No. 81 and 82 have been considered very closely and have been dealt with. I will not take any more of the Committee's time and I will not press my amendment, should the Minister satisfy me that the Government amendments cover the points that have been raised.
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I fully endorse everything that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has said with such eloquence.
Mixed tenure is a positive reason for our amendments. It is an important buzz phrase in the housing field, because if we are to prevent social housing from being increasingly ghetto-ised, mixed tenure has to be at least part of the future. However, it can be wholly derailed by antisocial behaviour on the part of so-called neighbours from hell.
I had a case in my constituency, on the imaginatively designed and well-built Kingsmere estate, which replaced some truly dreadful housing. I met with the four housing associations involved before a brick was laid, so that everyone was clear on tenanting policy—a of owner occupation, shared ownership and rented social housing. I suppose that it was inevitable that, early in its life, two or three problem families would somehow find their way on to the new development. The local newspapers carried wall-to-wall coverage about the problems of drugs, threatening behaviour and the half-repaired cars which always seem to feature in such cases. It was a real tragedy, but, after a great deal of effort from the police, social services, housing associations, local counsellors and even myself, the estate is now a happy community and a good example of mixed tenure working well.
That provides a positive reason to support our amendments relating to antisocial neighbours, because unless one is in a position to act quickly and decisively, a downward spiral can start that slowly turns a brand new, expensive and well-designed estate into the sort of estate that faces demolition. We have seen that happen time and again over the years.
Dr Brian Iddon (Bolton South East, Labour)
The problem has become more complex because of the right to buy. Many former right-to-buy houses have been sold on to private landlords, so councils find it far more difficult to deal neighbours from hell who have been evicted from public sector properties, but end up in privately rented houses on the same estate. Bolton overcame that problem by starting a mediation service between neighbours, whether in the private or public sector. The service is working extremely well, but the problems remain complicated. On one of our estates, more than 50 per cent. of the homes have been sold through the right to buy.
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I do not deny that the situation is complex—the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that. However, he should not pretend that the right to buy is always the villain. We are not talking about a problem that solely affects social housing: a dreadful case in my constituency involves private sector rented accommodation in which a tenant with mental problems is causing misery to other tenants. None the less, if mixed tenure is to be one of the solutions for the future, with social housing continuing to exist cheek by jowl with other types of accommodation, we have to give people the powers to deal with so-called neighbours from hell.
Mr David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)
The debate has revealed a broad consensus—albeit a tough-minded one—that local authorities cannot be made subject to an absolute requirement to house people, even if those people in severe need, if the costs to the community of providing that accommodation outweigh the benefits to the individual. It is tough to say that, but we have to carefully avoid the philosophy that holds that a homeless person is necessarily a victim. There may be some homeless people who have victimised other people and so been the authors of their own misfortune. That does not mean that we should not do whatever is possible and practical to overcome the problems to which that gives rise, but we must not always assume that such people's rights are predominant.
We must therefore say bluntly that it may be right in certain circumstances to disqualify people from a tenancy. It is certainly right that in such cases people should have a right of appeal and know the reason for the disqualification and, as the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) said, services should exist to remedy the problems that gave rise to that decision. However, all hon. Members will know the type of complaint that can arise from their own constituencies—even in a constituency such as mine, a widely scattered rural constituency stretching across the Pennines; one can have areas with many of the characteristics of inner-city areas even in small market towns.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne and other hon. Friends are right to say that it takes only two or three profoundly disruptive families for an entire estate to become almost uninhabitable. Our surgeries are besieged by people who do not come bleating for charity but who ask why we cannot get rid of those who are causing the problems, so that they can lead a modestly civilised existence. A nuisance may sometimes seem relatively minor, such as refusal to control dogs, the amount of dog dirt left around, children, noise or abuse, but the range includes more significant issues such as allegations of drug dealing with people using premises as temporary accommodation and leaving syringes outside and so on. The litany does not require much imagination, because it is invoked repeatedly in our surgeries. Local authorities have to uphold the standards and quality of life on estates. If, in the hope of improving the life of one family or group of people, they take deliberate action that degrades the life of many people, they take a risk that any social, actuarial assessment might demonstrate to be wrong.
I am therefore sympathetic to the remarks of the hon. Member for Bath, although I realise that his amendment is exploratory and that the Government's amendments have rendered it redundant. I am equally sympathetic to the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Eastbourne and for East Worthing and Shoreham about the need to ensure that advantage may be taken of areas in which housing provision is in surplus—although I caution against the assumption that people from London would necessarily find it easy to accommodate themselves to the rigours of Bradford or that the people of Bradford would expect people from London to do so.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
Disgraceful slur.
Mr David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)
I leave it to the hon. Gentleman to decide whether the slur is directed at Bradford or at London. In my constituency, Bradford is regarded as virtually a London suburb.
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
As I was born in Bradford, I hope that my right hon. Friend will have a care.
Mr David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than for Bradford to survive in the premier league this season, although I fear that that expectation may be one goal too far.
Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)
And I fear that we are wandering into the realms of fantasy.
Mr David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)
There is a fantasy league, Mr. Gale, as you know.
The serious point is that local authorities should be able to co-operate. In fact much co-operation exists between neighbouring or relatively neighbouring authorities. Westminster, for example, builds houses south of the river and there is an agreement about the division of accommodation allocated by Westminster and by the host authority. One must be cautious before assuming that one can move people up and down the A1 and expect them to settle. People are very particular; there are such things as local communities. When I was doing the Minister's job, I remember that there were parts of Bradford that had effectively become controlled by single criminal families. The local housing was controlled and, if the local authority tried to allocate a house to someone who did not meet the family's approval, they were bombed out. It sounds brutal, but that is the reality in some places.
I am sure that the Minister will explain his amendments, which go some way towards meeting the demands of the hon. Member for Bath, and which are entirely compatible with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friends. The sum of it all is that we must not assume that a homeless person is inevitably and necessarily a victim. We must also assume that responsibility must go to a wider community, which sometimes means taking rather tough decisions about individuals for the benefit of the broader constituency for which the local authority is responsible.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
I know that our morning sitting is coming to an end, Mr. Gale, so I wish to add my thanks to those of other hon. Members for your characteristically humorous and effective chairmanship of our Committee. We shall miss you this afternoon, but we shall be delighted to see Mr. Stevenson. Sadly, we cannot have both of you in tandem.
I hope that I will not incur your wrath, Mr Gale, if I briefly allude to our geographical excursion to Bradford. There does seem to be an extraordinary Bradford connection in this Committee. The hon. Member for Eastbourne announced that he was born in Bradford, and I must confess—this sounds like even more of a fantasy— that I spent a year of my life living in a caravan in Bradford some 51 years ago.
Amendments Nos. 77, 91, 83, 92 and 96 seek to vary the levels of preference of priority that different groups might attract, to change the balance between the various factors or to specify new factors that might be taken into account when assessing finer degrees of preference or priority.
We are in search of the four Ps: the perfect preference prioritising process. However, like the treasure at the end of the rainbow, which the daughter of my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Hope) will be pursuing that next week as she plays the lead in a well-known entertainment—
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
Like treasure at the end of the rainbow, it would elude us. We have established a vast, transparent and objective framework within which local authorities can come to balanced and fair judgements. The framework provides authorities with the flexibility to take account of local circumstance and the particulars of individual cases. It requires authorities to make balanced judgements, taking into account many factors. Authorities will not always make the right decisions; no one and no system is perfect and no system is foolproof. However, given a sound framework and discretion, local authorities have a better chance of getting it right than if the Government try to dictate every detail of every scheme.
Amendment No. 77 seeks to remove from the factors that the scheme may allow to be taken into account:
``any behaviour of a person or a member of his household which affects his suitability to be a tenant''.
The hon. Member for Bath is mistaken in proposing that amendment. It cannot be right that local authorities should be required to give reasonable preference to individuals who behave outrageously. I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman would seriously argue that a violent, destructive, vindictive racist yob should be awarded reasonable preference.
Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)
I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that I placed firmly on record my view on that in an earlier intervention on the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
I understand that, but the amendment is on the amendment paper in the hon. Gentleman's name and I do think that it is misguided. It would undermine the whole framework underlying local crime and disorder strategies and the use of antisocial behaviour orders to tackle such intolerable behaviour problems. The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) said, quite rightly, that in some cases the homeless are not necessarily the victims. They may be homeless as a result of eviction because they have intimidated whole neighbourhoods and made other people's lives a misery. We must take account of that.
It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven O'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned till this day at half-past Two O'clock.