Simon Hughes (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Attorney General, Constitutional Affairs; North Southwark & Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to the new clause. It was tabled specifically followingan approach by Vivien Gambling, the chair of the Housing Law Practitioners Association, a well-regarded organisation of which the Minister will know. I shall describe the new clause as the association does, as the proposition comes via us from the association.

The new clause is concerned with the manner in which orders for possession of land are enforced. The current law allows a lender or landlord to enforce an order for eviction in the county court by completing an administrative form in the court office. That might result in the enforcement of the order without notice to the occupier, and without lender or landlord having to give evidence of any breach. The risk of injustice to the occupier is obvious. In the High Court the party seeking a possession order has to apply for permission on notice for a warrant to issue.

The new clause would align the procedures across all civil courts, so the risk of injustice would not arise. A short supplementary note was prepared by Nowsheen Bhatti, the association’s parliamentary officer, which it will be helpful to put on the record as it completes the argument:

“The vast majority of possession orders are made against tenants of social landlords (councils and housing associations) and home-owners (mortgage borrowers). The bulk of those are orders ‘suspended’ or ‘postponed’ on terms which provide that the order shall not be enforceable so long as the occupier complies with certain conditions (e.g. to pay the mortgage instalments or the rent or to comply with other tenancy conditions). A lender or landlord wishing to enforce an unconditional order or a ‘suspended’ or ‘postponed’ order (e.g. in the belief that the terms have not been complied with) may obtain a bailiffs warrant for eviction in the County Court by the simple completion of an administrative form...In the High Court, the practice ...is currently reflected in the Rules of the Supreme Court RSC Ord 45 r3)...The need for such amendment was well demonstrated by the case of a council tenant who was evicted while going in and out of hospitals for treatment {Leicester CC v Aldwinkle [1992] 24HLR 49). In that case, the Court of Appeal said that the injustice would not have arisen had the practice of the County Court been the same as that of the High Court. This amendment is long overdue.”

From my constituency experience, I can say that that is a common state of affairs. It might be slightly different in other constituencies; I think that I still represent a larger proportion of council tenants than any of my colleagues in England. Such situations arise often with council property and, as the notes said, they arise with similar frequency with social housing, housing association and housing trust property. They also arise in the context of people who are paying off a  mortgage. People regularly get into trouble. Cases regularly end up going to court and the court, in the first place, normally makes a suspended possession order and lays down the conditions. If we believe—as we do, and the law has obviously established the principle—that nobody can be deprived of their occupancy without a court making that decision, it seems absolutely vital in the interests of justice that, if someone is on notice that they might lose their possession and matters then develop, there should at least be an opportunity for a hearing before a judge who can weigh the balance of the argument.

The case cited—the Leicester city council case—was a case where somebody was in hospital. There may be many circumstances where entirely unforeseen and unpredictable events arise: somebody may have a heart attack or a stroke, suffer bereavement, have a terrible accident, become mentally ill, be coping with the severe illness or death of a relative, and so on. Therefore, it is not sufficient that a piece of paperwork turns the threat over someone’s head into the reality of people coming to throw them out. I hope that this measure is something that the Minister can be sympathetic to and I commend the new clause to the Minister and hon. Members in all parts of the Committee.

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