Clause 15 - Allocation schemes
Homelessness Bill
10:00 am
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I rise to make a brief comment on the amendment proposed by the Liberal Democrats, but more particularly to propose amendment No. 9, which relates to the issue of tenant records of behaviour. We are pleased that the Bill has been beefed up after its previous outing. It now gives a higher regard to the suitability of tenants—assessed on the basis of their behaviour—who are offered accommodation. The Local Government Association's comments are worth noting, and I concur with them:
``it is important that local authorities retain an element of discretion over the use of their own stock. As landlords the local authority must consider the needs and rights of both individual applicants and the surrounding community when determining individual allocations. It would be perverse if an applicant who was evicted for anti-social behaviour or racial harassment then has the right to be offered other council accommodation simply because he has a priority need or because there is no other applicant prepared to accept a particular dwelling. It would effectively make evictions a pointless procedure and would undermine any incentive to such applicants, and to other tenants, to improve their behaviour or pay off their rent arrears.''
The LGA continues by stating that it does not want the terms of the Bill to be weakened in any way. Amendment No. 9 seeks to strengthen those intentions to avoid any confusion later.
We have spoken at length this morning, and previously, about the menace of antisocial neighbours—neighbours from hell. I am sure that all members of the Committee know of numerous such cases in their constituencies. Although there is obviously a degree of duty of care to everybody, there must be a greater duty of care to those tenants of councils and social landlords who play by the rules.
Under the current system, there is little to incentivise good behaviour--if a tenant looks after his or her house, keeps it in a fairly good state of repair, maintains the appearance of the house and the garden, makes sure that the children do not run amok on the estate, is generally a good citizen and pays the rent on time. It is also hard to penalise the tenant who sticks two fingers up at those rules.
When we discussed the matter in previous Committees, we talked about the methods used by housing associations such as the Irwell Valley Housing Association in Salford, which has turned the whole scheme on its head, so that good tenants can opt into a gold service scheme and specifically be rewarded for being good tenants. That so marginalises bad tenants that the reasons for them to be bad tenants almost disappear. The measures that can be brought in against bad behaviour are more effective.
The point about the amendment is the timing. Proposed new subsection (2C)(b) refers to tenants who do not deserve
``to be treated as a member of a group of people who are to be given preference''
and states that the assessment of their bad behaviour is limited to the time at which the case is considered. Account might be taken only of a tenant's recent behaviour, but serial bad neighbours often move from one authority to the next, effectively with a clean sheet. There is a weakness in the system in that respect. Conservative Members want there to be a mutual reference scheme so that councils can place on a database details of bad tenants who have been the subject of evictions or criminal proceedings. A council that is taking a new family into its area could do some checking before placing the family on a priority homeless list.