My Lords, I pay tribute to the contributions that we have heard this afternoon. They have been incredibly thoughtful and based on evidence. On my Amendment 292H, we have heard many examples supporting the words that I used: there is evidence out there of what works, in the same way that there is evidence of what does not work. This is a real opportunity to get to grips with this issue for the sake of the victims of eviction and their families. I assure the Minister that everyone who has access to evidence will be extremely happy to supply it, with the expectation that it will be considered as we make further progress with this Bill. This is a real opportunity to get things right.
I thought that I was going back a long way, to 1997, not back 200 years, but it clearly is not good enough that, where there are powers, they are not being used. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti put it well: there must be an express duty to focus minds. It is not enough for us to say that in certain parts of the country this is being done. I can attest from my time as leader of Leeds City Council that there was incredible progress in this area and a real expectation that everyone would come to the table. Not sharing data was never an excuse. It was expected and supported by all the partners. It can be done everywhere but it is not being done everywhere. The resources are not there within the police or local authorities—they are diminishing—to ensure that enforcement is seen through. We are talking about innocent victims who suffer from the lack of enforcement. I made the point that all we are asking for is a simple change, through the amendment, that would bring to an end so much misery for people that does not need to happen.
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I pay tribute to my noble friends Lord Hunt and Lady Armstrong for the work that has gone into their Amendment 292J. I support all the comments that were made about appropriate intervention at the right time. I get incredibly disappointed standing here and raising points while being told that millions of pounds are being spent. If they are not being spent properly and appropriately to have the necessary intervention to deal with the problem up front, then we all have some responsibility for accounting for that.
I hope that everyone agrees that more thought needs to be put into this. I sensed that the Minister had some sympathy with our expressions of frustration in both these areas and I hope that we can come to some accommodation, because it seems to me that we will miss a real opportunity if we do not bring this forward. The Public Services Committee, chaired so ably by my noble friend Lady Armstrong, has made the case clearly, as supported by other members today, for the early intervention model. This focuses on children. We know that when you get that early intervention right, not only do you get better outcomes for children and young people, as well as their families, but the resource that you spend can effectively be ploughed back and reinvested in supporting the early intervention that we know works. I am sure that all of us will supply any amount of evidence to demonstrate those points.
I am grateful for the interventions from my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti on Amendments 320 and 328. I feel that we will be forced to come back to this issue. Again, this seems an incredibly wasted opportunity. We need to get this right and move on because, as we know, the opportunities to get a grip of this issue are few and far between. I hope that we will continue these discussions and that my noble friends will be included in those further discussions, particularly around the review and other matters. I also hope that we can move to some sensible, timely changes in what has been proposed. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.