Clause 13 - Injunctions against anti-social behaviour on application of certain social landlords
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
3:45 pm
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
I do not intend to comment in detail on all the amendments spoken to by the hon. Member for Ludlow before I come to the two standing in my name. I understand his approach and support the principle of trying to find out what the Government are seeking to achieve. I am not going to say that I support or oppose the detail of his amendments, but I support the objective of inquiry behind them and indeed behind my amendments, in particular amendment No. 193.
The hon. Member for Ludlow stated that he could not support that amendment, and indeed I would have been horrified if he could. That is not a partisan comment: I would not support it myself if someone were daft enough to press it to a vote. It was tabled
simply to challenge the Government to remove ''and'' and insert ''or'', as the hon. Gentleman said, and thus separate the issue of management from nuisance and annoyance. That would not be wise, but it enables me in a different way from that chosen by the hon. Gentleman to ask the Minister to explain what he means by ''nuisance and annoyance''. It is part of the overall challenge to the Government. I have tabled other amendments on later clauses that in their own way similarly challenge the Government.
I have great hopes that the Minister might accept amendment No. 232. The reason is straightforward: its phrasing is quite pedantic, but as the Minister and the Committee will know, the Bill follows closely the Housing Act 1996, passed by the Conservative Government, which brought in the concept of introductory tenancies in which the issue of antisocial behaviour was addressed. It seems logical that we should use the same phraseology in the Bill. The proposal came from the Law Society, so with its support I have tabled the amendment to amend the phraseology of clause 13 to retain the current definition—which is proven to be workable—in the 1996 Act by deleting ''capable of causing'' and replacing it with ''causing or is likely to cause''. It is a small change, but it has the merit of consistency with existing legislation that has been proved to work. I hope that the Minister will look sympathetically on that modest proposal.