Clause 28
Welfare Reform Bill
3:00 pm
Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)
I shall not try the Chairman’s patience too much on that. Throwing bottles around is generally deemed to be at the antisocial end of the spectrum, although I appreciate that in this case it was accidental and I withdraw my comment.
There are significant concerns as to the powers in the Bill, as I said on Second Reading. I understand that the Government intend to pilot the idea, but as Committee members know, the Bill contains power whereby the housing benefit of someone who has been evicted for antisocial behaviour can be progressively sanctioned to nil for a period of up to five years. That is quite a severe financial sanction.
The Under-Secretary may wish to clarify, but it seems that the power will not be that widely used. I have seen figures—I think that they are public—indicating that the Government envisage 1,500 cases. I gather that in Scotland there might be six cases where this might apply. In practice, given the severity of the sanction and the poor quality of rehabilitation services for antisocial behaviour in many parts of the country, it may be used much less than that. This power is in the Bill more to grab headlines than to do anything serious to tackle antisocial behaviour. That would be my first reason for worrying about allowing these powers to remain in the Bill and to be rolled out across the country without any further primary legislation or debate on the Floor of the House.
I have listened to the views of a wide variety of external organisations and I have not been able to find a single organisation that has lobbied in favour of these provisions. The Under-Secretary may have been lobbied extensively in favour of them, but I certainly have not. Whether it is the Social Landlords Crime and Nuisance Group, the Child Poverty Action Group, the British Council of Disabled People, Shelter, the National Housing Federation and especially the National Landlords Association, they have all made strong representations against the inclusion of these powers. There are a number of reasons for that.
First, there is the question that I raised on Second Reading about the impact on families and children. There is a serious concern that removing housing benefit could have unintended consequences for the dependants of those people, whether it is the children of the person who is behaving antisocially or perhaps the parents if the child is behaving antisocially.There were reports today, according to a study for the Youth Justice Board, of antisocial behaviour orders becoming a badge of honour among young people. Of the 137 young people surveyed, 67 have breached their ASBOs at least once, 42 more than once and six on six occasions or more. There are already questions about the way in which this approach is working.
When it is the antisocial behaviour of a child that has resulted in an eviction, the parent may be unable to control the child and the rehabilitation services may not be available in that area. As hon. Members know, there are serious concerns about the quality of rehabilitation services for antisocial behaviour that are available in different parts of the country, so we could have a postcode lottery in the implementation of this provision.