Karen Buck: The Minister himself acknowledged that the spectre of famine is stalking Gaza. I applaud his aim to restore the pre-war level of 500 or so trucks going into Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, but will he tell us how many trucks actually went through in the last 24 hours? Is it true that in some cases trucks are waiting up to 15 days for clearance and that trucks are taken out of the convoy of...
Karen Buck: With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians now homeless and parts of northern Gaza rendered effectively uninhabitable, there is understandably real concern that many people will not be able to return to their homes. Can the Minister tell us what representations he has made to make it absolutely clear that permanent forced displacement of the Gazan population is unacceptable, not just across...
Karen Buck: Before the Minister sits down, will he deal with the issue of licences? Those of us who deal with a large number of people in homeless accommodation know that those in temporary accommodation, whose accommodation is held under licence, often endure the worst conditions of all, and very little of this legislation currently applies to them. Will he bring something forward?
Karen Buck: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about the variation in performance between local authorities. Enforcement in some of them definitely reflects a variation in interest and concern. Does he also recognise that there is also a fundamental issue of resource capacity for enforcement in local government? As this largely discretionary service is being squeezed by the pressures on local...
Karen Buck: I just want to press the Minister on this point. It is right that there is an issue about balance, but by asking the Committee to accept that the detail will be brought forward in regulations—without our having any idea of where the balance might lie and what kind of exceptions we are talking about—the Minister is asking us to approve the clause rather in the dark.
Karen Buck: Will the Minister clarify that, if the courts found grounds to evict a tenant under this lower threshold—without certain circumstances, such as special needs, mental health, and so on—would a local authority find that household to be intentionally homeless?
Karen Buck: I absolutely agree. The sword of Damocles is hanging over the heads of lots of people just living a fairly ordinary life. Families with special needs children are a particularly high-risk category. A woman and her representative came to me recently to say that her current property is unsuitable. She lives with her non-verbal autistic 19-year-old son, and they have occupied the property for...
Karen Buck: Of course I am not suggesting that landlords should be forced. I am saying that a balance needs to be struck. As I have said several times, the Minister is completely failing to recognise that the Government have chosen to use the private rented sector for housing, at scale, households who previously would often have been provided with social housing and supported. The Government have to...
Karen Buck: I want to press the Minister on his thinking and on the motivations for widening ground 14 in respect of antisocial behaviour. I support the hon. Member for North Shropshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. There is a continuing theme of the Government looking at this world as they want it to be, rather than at the rather messier reality. In respect of private...
Karen Buck: If the Minister is going to propose a change to the law, it is incumbent on him to have some indication of what the implications might be; otherwise, I am not sure why the Government would make the change. I do not understand that argument at all. It might be difficult to provide quantified figures, but the Minister has a duty to present to the Committee a sense of the type of instances that...
Karen Buck: I have a very large Grainger development in my constituency, and it is not an issue that has come to me at any scale. Obviously—the Minister is right—landlords are likely to want these powers. Of course, if a landlord is able to circumvent the abolition of section 21 by using powers of eviction in other ways, at a lower threshold or with a lower evidential base, then they are going to...
Karen Buck: Once again, the Government are falling into the trap of creating a system that will create problems for itself, because they refuse to accept the sheer complexity of real people’s lives. Making these grounds mandatory will prevent the courts from doing what they are so good at, which is considering the circumstances that prevail in individual cases. Not only will that inevitably lead to...
Karen Buck: I agree with my hon. Friend about all this. In fact, tragically, my office is dealing at the moment with a family where the children have been taken into care as a consequence. These things can indeed happen; we have touched on that occasionally in the passage of this Bill, but I just wish that the Government had not rather short-sightedly removed things like debt advice from the scope of...
Karen Buck: I absolutely agree. It is an issue for the self-employed; the very small businesses operating at the margin; the people who, because of the structure of our labour market, dip in and out of employment and have highly variable earnings; and the people who are on zero-hour contracts. It is exactly those people who end up in difficulties. It would be lovely if the system had the competency and...
Karen Buck: As this point was raised with the Minister, can he share with the Committee the statistics that demonstrate the scale of that problem?
Karen Buck: I really do hope that the Minister will concede on this point. One of the striking themes that emerged in the evidence sessions was just how little we know about what is happening in the private rented sector. It is to the shame of the Government, and probably even the previous Government, that this massive transformation in the life of the country and throughout the housing stock, which is...
Karen Buck: indicated assent.
Karen Buck: I, too, urge the Minister to accept the amendment. It is common knowledge that London is at the sharp end of the pressures in this respect, and the need for a more flexible approach is pressing. The Government are missing a recognition that the private rented sector, and moves within it, are not as they were, as we touched on earlier. The profile of renters is now completely different...
Karen Buck: I rise briefly to speak in support of the amendments, which seek to address two key themes. One is that tenants start disproportionately from a position of lack of power, and a large minority of tenants are in a position where they are limited by their access to advice and representation and a lack of alternative accommodation. They are frequently unable, without stronger legislative...
Karen Buck: I rise briefly to reinforce the key points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster and I share in our borough what I think is the largest private rental market in the country, so these issues are of particular concern to us. I am sure that she, like me, deals with consequences of section 21 evictions constantly. We are...