Clause 1 - Withholding of housing benefit on grounds of anti-social behaviour
Housing Benefit (Withholding of Payment) Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Gentleman's comment only reinforces my point that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee must look at the alternatives, because those alternatives are working. Families who exhibit antisocial behaviour are really concerned about the possibility of being evicted when they sign a contract. That is what the evidence shows. That is the experience. People should take notice when a council or local police force says that it is an effective remedy.
Acceptable behaviour contracts are one element of the sort of thing that I envisage would be considered as an alternative, prior to the imposition of benefits sanctions, if amendments Nos. 23 or 24 were made. Other solutions could also be considered prior to the benefits sanctions being triggered. I am grateful to the social exclusion policy action team for its report of March 2000, which highlighted some of the successful alternatives, one of which is mediation.
Like other hon. Members, I have had to use mediation services. When constituents come to my advice sessions, which I hold twice a week, I get to hear of neighbourhood disputes and antisocial behaviour, and mediation is one of the solutions that I discuss when people present such problems to me. Mediation services are not well developed in my borough and we rely on the voluntary sector to provide some of them. I often end up having to use a voluntary provider if my constituents feel that mediation is best for them.
In Nottingham, there is a very efficient, proactive mediation service. It was developed and is managed by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, which is interesting. In different ways, it is trying to ensure that people who exhibit appalling behaviour are made to face up to the impact that it has on their victims. That is essential. It is vastly different from the benefit sanctions approach,
which does not tell the individual what is happening and what they are doing. There is no process that forces them to face up to their crimes and the consequences for the poor victims.
The mediation service that has done extremely well in Nottingham does that. Thus, it does not merely move the problem on, which I fear the Bill will do; instead, it finds a proper, long-term solution. I am told that the success rate is two thirds, which is high. That shows that we can avoid going down the route of the benefit sanction if we employ a panoply of measures, many of which I explored this morning.