Clause 1 - Withholding of housing benefit on grounds of anti-social behaviour
Housing Benefit (Withholding of Payment) Bill
9:45 am
Mr Malcolm Wicks (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions; Croydon North, Labour)
Those are points we listen to, and in a few moments I shall move on to the Government's position on some of the issues relating to tenancies.
A further difference from the original version of the Bill is that the Government amendments would only apply when the benefit claimant has acted antisocially. They would not cover antisocial behaviour carried out by other family members. I recognise that that is a weakness in our amendments. It is the reason why I describe our amendments as providing a weapon in the armoury against the antisocial person, but not the main weapon. I recognise the difficulties that we face and I want to explain our position.
Our starting point is that it would be unfair to sanction claimants for someone else's behaviour unless they had been given their chance to put their case before the court. There would need to be a decision that the claimant was in some way responsible for allowing or condoning the antisocial behaviour. It is theoretically possible to allow that to happen. Tenants may be evicted because of antisocial behaviour by a family member, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead reminded us. The difference is that eviction is a stand-alone procedure and the tenant has the full right to make representations.
Our amendments have been designed to provide a relatively streamlined process that sits on top of decisions that the courts are already making. We do not believe that it would be possible at the moment to add procedures to give a right of hearing to a claimant without creating substantial new work for the courts. We have had to confront a practical issue. However, we do not believe that that weakens the overall effect of the policy. There are many other strands to the Government's strategy on antisocial behaviour and we would never maintain that the Bill is a comprehensive solution.
The amendments do not provide a specific sanction for landlords. I know that that will disappoint my right hon. Friend, but we shall return to the matter on clause 2.