Clause 10 - Persons claiming to be homeless who are at risk of violence
Homelessness Bill
5:45 pm
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
My observations relate more to what is not in the clause than to what is there. In Committee on the Homes Bill, we discussed at length the problem of domestic violence leading to homelessness. Opposition Members fully support any strengthening of the legislation and the availability of alternative accommodation for people who are homeless through no fault of their own, but because of violence or the threat of it that does not necessarily constitute making them unintentionally homeless. That includes the threat of violence from neighbours, which may escalate into rather nasty cases of violence. We have all probably dealt with cases of intimidation that lead to violence from antisocial neighbours.
When we discussed the matter previously, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King), who was a member of the previous Committee, proposed new clause 15, which dealt specifically with racial violence. At the time, we said that she presented her case effectively and forcefully, and we were supportive of it. I responded to the points that she made about her new clause, although she saw fit to withdraw it because the Minister was sympathetic and promised to consider the situation with a view to ensuring that her points were included in the thrust of the regulations, even if they were not in the Bill. However, I cannot see any reference to homelessness caused by racial violence or threats of racial violence in this Bill or in the explanatory notes. Yet, as we have seen in the events of recent weeks, that menace has not gone away and may be more topical now than when we discussed it in January, although the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow gave harrowing examples of racial abuse against her own constituents.
We all know the problems of the hon. Lady's east London constituency, in which residents had missiles thrown at them and burning rubbish and petrol bombs pushed through their letter boxes. I remember her mentioning long-term hate campaigns that may not result in actual violence but that are intimidation of such a high order that people live in fear for their lives, which constitutes racial abuse.
I have encountered cases in my constituency in which people who live in their own home—they are private-owner occupiers—or who live in council or another sort of landlord accommodation leave their home because of abuse that they are getting at that address and not because there is something wrong with the home. Those people will sleep on sofas and floors with friends or relatives but, to all intents and purposes, they are in need of alternative accommodation. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow gave the example of people who had their own home but who could not afford to pay the mortgage on that and rent another residence. They wanted to do that because they were scared stiff to live in their own home.
Such people are not only tenants, but owner-occupiers, and are virtually unprotected by current law. We must improve their access to the homelessness safety net. I hoped that the hon. Lady's comments would lead to a beefing up of the Bill, or at least the accompanying notes, or the promise of problem being addressed in the code because otherwise people will fall through the safety net.
The hon. Lady rightly said that under half of local housing authorities have provisions for such racial abuse and violence that affects peoples' homeless status. A similar figure was heard with regard to other conditions this morning.
I think that it is correct to raise this matter when discussing clause 10. We concur with the new provisions that deal with violence, intimidation and particularly women fleeing home from domestic violence, but will the Minister address the issues that I raised about the apparent absence of a beefing-up of help for those who are the subject of racial rather than domestic or ordinary violence?