Clause 260
Housing and Regeneration Bill
10:30 am
Iain Wright (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Hartlepool, Labour)
Good morning to you, Mr. Gale, and to the rest of the Committee. May I say what a pleasure it is to see you back in the Chair.
We now come to amendment No. 103. To be honest, I did not think that we would get this far, but we have. For the reasons suggested by the hon. Member for St. Ives, I shall take the two amendments together. As he said, they are identical and apply to two separate provisions in the clause.
The amendments would have significant implications for the delivery of the family intervention programme. Although the Department for Children, Schools and Families and its partners have developed close working relationships with projects that receive Government funding, that relationship does not involve formal designation or accreditation. We would therefore need to consider in some detail how any formal accreditation would work and to assess the burdens that it would place on projects. We would not wish to impose rigid criteria on projects if that served to shackle their innovation or restrict their flexibility in tailoring individual services to the specific needs of individual families. For example, it is unclear whether the amendments propose that projects should be subject to performance management or inspection as a condition of any designation.
I am aware that there are concerns about the possible misuse of family intervention tenancies, but I strongly believe that such concerns are unfounded, and I have a FIT in my constituency. Family intervention projects continue to prove how successful they are at tackling the root causes of antisocial behaviour. Over time, similar approaches may come into existence to provide equally effective behavioural support to antisocial families, but such approaches may not necessarily be classed as family intervention projects or receive direct Government funding, and we do not want them to be unable to include family intervention tenancies. To that end, we have specified in the Bill that family intervention tenancies can be used only in the context of behaviour support services, by which we mean that they must address antisocial behaviour. That sets the necessary parameters for the use of such tenancies without creating undue restrictions.
In moving the amendment, the hon. Gentleman said—I think that I am quoting him correctly, but he can always intervene if I have got this wrong—that these insecure tenancies cause a burden in terms of any landlord. That is a crucial point, which I want to address on the record. It is very important to note that family intervention tenancies can be used only by social landlords, such as local authorities and registered social landlords, because FITs will be applicable only to those tenants who have a secure or an assured tenancy. As we are aware and as we will debate when we consider part 2 of the Bill, both types of landlord are subject to regulation. Because of that crucial point, I do not think that we need to consider the new layer of regulation that the amendments would impose. I hope, therefore, that my explanation has allayed the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has about the misuse of family intervention tenancies.