Clause 7 - Events which cause the duty to cease
Homelessness Bill
5:00 pm
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
We return to this issue, having dealt with it to some extent in the Committee stage of the previous Bill. In case he springs to his feet to try to claim it for himself, let me say immediately that the provenance for the amendment was an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bath. [Interruption.] If his relationship with the Minister gets any broader or deeper, we could be talking about the Privy Council—who knows?
We thought that amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bath, although it had its good points, was overly modest. The issue is how long applicants may take to make a decision on a firm offer of accommodation. We had some evidence, probably anecdotal, that some local authorities—no doubt those with enormous pressure of demand—require a decision within 24 hours. That struck all members of the Committee as being wrong. Clearly, if someone is minded to make a decision that quickly, that is another matter. However, 24 or 48 hours struck us as too short a period. If the hon. Member for Bath does not mind me stealing his thunder, he referred to the London borough of Southwark, which generously set the decision time on a definite offer up to 48 hours.