Welfare Reform Bill

Amendments Nos. 105, 106 and 107 stand in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Thomas. The clause allows for pilots of measures to cut or stop housing benefit following eviction for anti-social behaviour. Let us be clear. We on these Benches are determined to deal with anti-social behaviour. There are many effective ways of doing so, some of which we have developed in our local authorities. We support effective ways of dealing with the problem, but this is not one of them. For us even to consider accepting the clause it must contain a sunset provision, as we have proposed in Amendment No. 107, which would ensure that regulations under the clause would cease to have effect after January 2012. A very similar amendment, with one change, was tabled by my colleague Danny Alexander in the Commons. I shall address some key points raised by the Minister in Committee in the Commons, which we have dealt with in our rewording. He said that the Government, "““intend to commence the pilots for the proposal as soon as is practical—in the winter of 2007-08””.—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee A, 2/11/06; col. 464.]" The Government were talking about two years only. Our amendment in the Commons, supported by the Conservatives, introduced a sunset clause that would take effect after January 2010. The Government said that the difficulty with that was that it left no flexibility on the start time. We were not entirely convinced by that argument, but in the spirit of compromise and taking the Minister’s objections at face value we have changed the date to January 2012, which offers the Government the flexibility that they need with ample time to conduct the pilots for this measure. The Minister in the Commons, replying to my honourable friend Danny Alexander, said: "““The hon. Gentleman would be proposing a sunset clause without knowing when sunrise was going to take place, so I ask him to withdraw the amendment””.—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee A, 2/11/06; col. 464.]" I thought that was rather a clever phrase. Now we do know when sunrise is to take place and that is why we have given this a full breathing space, if you like. It is essential that there is full evaluation of these proposals with parliamentary debate before a full rollout. We cannot just give the Government the discretion that would allow them to take a view on the evaluations before deciding whether to go ahead. We discussed yesterday the issue of the Government being the judge and jury in their own case. This would be another example of that if the Bill went through unamended. The noble Lord on this side has already mentioned that it is believed that a small number of people will be involved. That concerns me because, if it does involve only a small number, which I agree is probably likely, why is the measure there at all? It is pretty obvious: it is in order to catch the headlines. Even so, however small the number, if they are affected by a severe measure such as this—one which we believe will have a disproportionately damaging effect on a larger number of people—it is still wrong. We have been lobbied by many organisations about the huge impact that this will have on families and children. Tenants and families who are removed are likely to be placed in insecure and temporary environments which are unlikely to help rehabilitation. The Child Poverty Action Group says that, "““these proposals could result in families with children being made street homeless, or children being taken into care. There is no protection for the claimants judged to be anti-social either from social stigma or from the poverty these proposals will cause. There is no requirement in the Bill for the interests of children affected to be considered when sanctions are applied””." We really are talking about a proposal to visit, in many cases, the sins of the fathers on the children: "““The risk that families with children could be made homeless is contrary to the Government’s stated aim to eradicate child poverty in a generation””." We are also concerned that these powers discriminate between people who are in receipt of housing benefit and those who are not. After all, homeowners and tenants who are not in receipt of housing benefit are also perfectly capable of behaving in ways that are considered anti-social. Why are housing benefit claimants being picked out and stigmatised? Further, as the noble Lord on this side also pointed out, mental health problems make this whole provision exceptionally difficult. Untreated mental illness can appear to the rest of us to be anti-social behaviour. Some 18 per cent of ASBOs are given to people with mental illness, but someone behaving anti-socially as a result of mental illness requires a different intervention from someone behaving anti-socially as a result of ill will. For example, someone who hears voices may play loud music at night in order to quell them. The right intervention in that case would be to offer them a pair of headphones, not to sanction them with a reduction in housing benefit. The Government also talked in the Commons Standing Committee about the Dundee Families Project and the positive effect that it has had on people who they think would be caught by this provision. They talked about the importance of rehabilitation in changing the lives of families whose behaviour was unacceptable, but the project did not involve any form of benefits sanction. It pointed to the importance of improved services for rehabilitation, not quick-fix legislation. So, in trying to look tough on anti-social behaviour, the Government are bringing forward an idea which runs the very real risk of creating the conditions that will breed more anti-social behaviour. Our proposal is fair and sensible. We are not stopping the Government from going ahead with their pilots, although we have grave reservations about them, but we do say that a pilot should only be rolled out via primary legislation following full and robust evaluation. We are giving the Government the chance to come back to us at a later date if the pilots really work. They are always talking about ““what works””. Let us see whether this works, and then let all of us judge whether it works and not let just the Government decide. Otherwise, I am afraid, we are talking about another nasty New Labour headline-grabbing stunt.