My Lords, I am grateful to all of those who took part in this debate and particularly to the Minister for her reply, which I will come to in a moment. The initial speech was made by my noble friend Lord Randall, who made a forceful speech about the importance of flexibility on local connection. He referred to the postcode lottery due to the different local authorities interpreting the guidance in different ways. In a sense, his plea was the same as mine, namely that it is not enough to leave this to guidance; one wants a legal assurance on the face of the Bill. My noble friend, and others who supported Amendment 147, will want to reflect on the Minister’s reply to that section of the debate.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, reminded us that in Wales the amendment is, in effect, already in place, and that there has been no abuse of it. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, put our debate in a slightly broader context, and reminded us of the need for move-on accommodation in order to free up capacity in the refuges, and she is absolutely right. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for Front-Bench support for the amendments and I am sorry that he was not quick enough off the mark to add his name to my amendment. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, who rightly pointed out that the application for housing, if it is known to come from the survivor, can be a trigger point in a relationship and provoke a violent reaction. This is why it is important that somebody, who she referred to as an ally, should be able to make the application on behalf of the victim to avoid exactly that risk. My noble friend Lord Cormack said that,
unlike the previous amendment that was a probing amendment, these amendments meant business. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, was too modest to say that she spoke with the authority of a former Housing Minister, which of course adds weight to the representations that she has made. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for Front-Bench support from the Liberal Democrats. She used the opportunity to trail an important amendment later on, which puts the emphasis on the perpetrator moving out of the building rather than the victim.
The Minister, my noble friend Lady Williams, is of course a former Minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government as it then was, and so she will have a first-hand knowledge of the issues that we discuss. I am sure that she remembers the passage of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, if not always with happy memories.
I was grateful to my noble friend for saying she entirely shared the objectives of those behind the amendments. She made two points in rebuttal. She referred to the Housing Act 1996, requiring that the accommodation should be suitable for the whole household; however, the whole household may not want to move—it may just be the victim. She did not quite address the point that in Wales and Scotland they have already resolved the issues she described and enabled an application to be made, as I understand it, on behalf of the primary victim.
I very much hope there can be a way through. My noble friend said the guidance says that the initial approach can already be made with consent by a third party. If the initial approach can be made with the consent of the victim, it is not absolutely clear why the substantive approach could not also be made. While I am happy to withdraw the amendment, I very much hope we can have some discussions to see whether we can give the assurance that I think the whole House wants and avoid the issues my noble friend raised in her response. In the mean time, I repeat my thanks to those who have contributed and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.