Schedule 12
Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Tobias Ellwood (Whip, Whips; Bournemouth East, Conservative)
It is a pleasure to be working under your tutelage once again, Mrs. Humble.
I should like to speak to amendments Nos. 161 and 86. Amendment No. 161 is a paving amendment for the core amendment, No. 86. Like the Liberal Democrats, we would like to see more detail included in the Bill, rather than pushed into secondary legislation. The Bill currently leaves any definition of the exemption of goods purely for the regulations. Having sought advice from a number of groups, including citizens advice bureaux, it is clear that there is a desire to see more information in the Bill about exactly what goods can be taken by a bailiff and which are exempt.
Amendment No. 86, would alter schedule 12 by inserting at the end of line 3 a definition of what exempt goods can be precluded from seizure, including
“any goods which are fixtures or fittings...domestic animals”,
guard dogs, any dog for blind persons or
“any animal which is kept for commercial gain”
whose removal would have a direct financial impact on the individual.
The Liberal Democrats also mentioned the sums of money that could or could not be taken by a bailiff. We would like to see limitations on the amount of cash that could be removed, because otherwise we would leave the individual worse off than they would be without such protective measures being put in place. The Zacchaeus 2000 Trust made that clear; the Reverend Paul Nicholson commented on the fact that the seizure of pets should not be left to regulations introduced at a later stage. Although the Minister has argued many times during debates on probing amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk that sometimes we have to bestow a bit of faith in secondary legislation, there is a fine balance between what should be included in the Bill and what should be left out. It would be most appropriate to have some strong definitions of what is exempt to make that clear-cut and not leave it to a body outside Parliament to make that decision.