Welfare Reform Bill

moved Amendment No. 82: 82: Clause 30 , leave out Clause 30 The noble Lord said: My Lords, I suggest that since we have only four groupings of amendments to go, which will take slightly over half an hour, we continue until the end, as it seems extremely silly to have another day on Report just for a couple of groups of amendment. Clause 30 is a sanctions clause that allows housing benefit to be withdrawn for anti-social behaviour leading to eviction. In Committee, it was clear that every Member—except, of course, the Minister—was sceptical of the wisdom of doing this. A whole raft of amendments was tabled and, on a close reading of Hansard, it is apparent that the Minister, while criticising them, did practically nothing to defend the clause against the onslaught. We had hoped that our investigations about the clause would satisfy us that the opposition of all the lobby groups, even some local authorities, was misplaced. The only comfort that we received was when the Minister said in Grand Committee: "““Post eviction, when support is offered and the household refuses to engage, an anti-social behaviour co-ordinator will consider whether a sanction is appropriate. This decision will be taken in discussion with relevant agencies. Exactly which agencies become involved will depend on the circumstances of the household and may include the police, social services, mental health agencies, children’s services, housing managers, education or the Family Intervention Project””.—[Official Report, 1/3/07; col. GC 287.]" That was not enough, so this amendment is considerably tougher than those which we tabled in Committee. I do not like the idea of intervention post-eviction one little bit; indeed, I do not like the idea of eviction per se, because the claimant—it may well be a claimant family, as the list that I have just read out suggests—has to find somewhere else to live. As I said at Second Reading, and as the noble Lord, Lord Best, has just remarked, the amount of private rented housing available to people on benefit is a scarce resource. Moreover, if a claimant is evicted, word soon gets round the neighbourhood, and the only available housing is most likely to be local-authority owned. I cannot imagine many existing local-authority tenants relishing a previously evicted family coming to live next door. Support should therefore be provided before the point of eviction, which is itself a form of sanction. To deprive people of their housing benefit, in whole or in part, is to turn the screw too tightly. It is all very well for Ministers to say that they hope that things will never get to this point. Even if they do, the record shows that they believe: "““In reality, we expect it to be used in very few cases””.—[Official Report, 1/3/07; col. GC 291.]" I do not believe that these financial sanctions will be used at all. The Minister in another place implied this. We have heard local authorities which are to operate this power state that they do not want it and will not use it. While I accept that it is optional as far as they are concerned, as subsection (4)(b) makes clear, an option that will not be used is no option at all. This clause is wrong whichever way one looks at it. It is an idea that was first floated in a housing Green Paper in 2000. After serious objections, not least from the Deputy Prime Minister, it was dropped. It has no place on the statute book today. I beg to move.