Housing Benefit (Withholding of Payment) Bill
11:30 am
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead, Labour)
Indeed, and that is why, although we will not discuss the amendments today, I was pleased that the Opposition tabled an amendment changing the period during which the penalties might operate from three to five years.
Probably nobody in Parliament will say that he or she is against the Bill or its objectives. The Opposition will say that we all stand shoulder to shoulder, are all appalled by the rise in antisocial behaviour and are all just as sympathetic towards our constituents as I am in proposing the measure. Then they will say that they have just a small doubt and do not think that the Bill is quite the right way to go.
Those people have every right to pursue that argument and to try to convince the Commons and the Lords of it, but I believe that their constituents will be watching them. Well before the next election this will be one of the big issues on which our electorate will ask for action from us. Of course, there is one part of my nature that does not like doing things because the majority wants them and feels that one ought to stand out and test whether such a measure is the right way forward. Members who hold the view that it is
right to deal with the issue but not in this way will therefore have an important function.
Come election day, one of the pieces of information that our opponents will be circulating against us is how we have voted on this and similar measures. As the old politics of class clearly belongs to the past, the new politics of behaviour will dominate how people vote, even if not all politicians will have managed to catch up with that agenda by the time of the general election.
I am immensely pleased that we have had the opportunity in discussing this sittings motion to have such a wide-ranging debate and for all of us to say how we feel the Bill fits in with how our own constituents think politics is developing and how Government and Opposition see that. I end by asking your advice, Mr. O'Hara. If the Committee goes on to discuss the amendments on the amendment paper, would that mean that we could not come back to them in the other sittings?