My Lords, perhaps I may begin by saying that I have great sympathy with the wish of the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, to
firmly stamp out the illegal eviction of tenants. This distressing activity has no place in our society and it is an unacceptable practice carried out by rogue landlords, perpetrated on tenants.
I totally agree that the police and local authorities need to work together to tackle that. Many noble Lords have spoken in today’s Committee who have experience of this type of multiagency working. It is essential in terms of supporting the vulnerable, and there are many examples of that. I always talk about the troubled families programme, which is one such intervention but it is such an important one because some people have multiple problems. It is a fantastic way for agencies to sort them out together. Local authorities and the police also have mechanisms in place to work collaboratively to tackle criminal landlords. The police are also able to establish protocols for information sharing, which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, spoke about. We expect them to use those protocols to their full extent to aid investigations into illegal evictions and enforce the law.
If the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, has examples that suggest a lack of effective co-operation, I should be very happy to pass them on to my colleagues in DLUHC. As has been pointed out, there are lots of good examples of how interventions have worked well, particularly in Westminster. If there is an issue, the solution here is not more legislation. The existing powers we have are sufficient. But I accept that it is incumbent on the police and local authorities to work collaboratively to tackle crime in their areas, including on illegal eviction investigations. As regards the point about police saying that issues are a civil matter, which the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of Cradley and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, mentioned, the police have powers of arrest and it is important that those powers are used appropriately, including on illegal eviction investigations.
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As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, explained, Amendment 292J would provide for a new duty on specified authorities to collaborate to support children affected by domestic violence or those children at high risk of criminal exploitation. We touched on these issues when we were debating the serious violence duty. Some of my initial comments on the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, apply here as well.
Ensuring that vulnerable children remain protected is such a high priority for the Government and society. In 2017, we introduced significant reforms requiring local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and chief officers of police to form multiagency safeguarding partnerships. They were fully established in 2019, and we continue to work across government and with local partners to ensure that they are as effective as possible. With strategic oversight from health, policing and local authority leaders, those multiagency safeguarding arrangements can co-ordinate identification, protection and intervention for those at risk of harm in a way that best responds to local circumstances. I should say that the troubled families programme often identifies other interventions that are needed.
As safeguarding partners, local authority, police and health leaders already have a statutory duty to collaborate in their child safeguarding functions, which includes working together to identify and respond to the needs of children in their areas. These partners are able to name other authorities, as noble Lords will know, including representatives from the education and criminal justice sectors, as relevant agencies in their arrangements. Where named, these agencies are under a statutory obligation to comply with those arrangements. That duty to collaborate in supporting children at risk of, or affected by, these crimes therefore already exists on a statutory footing. However, we recognise the imperative to give focus to the twin issues that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised in his amendment.