| Anti-social Behaviour Bill
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Shona McIsaac (Cleethorpes): I shall speak briefly. Mine may be a somewhat technical query about the amendments and the clause. It relates to leasehold property. My hon. Friend the Minister has been consulting various people about the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, and knows of my interest in that issue. More than 20,000 properties in north-east Lincolnshire, mainly in Grimsby and Cleethorpes, are leasehold houses. One thing that became evident from the discussions on that Bill was that, in law, those homeowners—they have mortgages—are classified as tenants, and the freeholder is regarded as the landlord. I want to know how the provision would impact on homeowners in my area. As I said, it is a fairly technical point, and the Minister may want to write to me about how the amendments and the clause would affect my local residents. I have come across unscrupulous behaviour by freeholders with regard Column Number: 213 to forfeiture of leases, and I do not want the clause to give unscrupulous freeholders more reason to use forfeiture proceedings to seize a person's home, sell it and take all the profits regardless of the fact that someone else has paid all the mortgage on the property.Mr. McNulty: I appreciate and understand the concern articulated by Opposition Members and by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac). We must understand that the search for consistency, which is right and proper, should be within a national framework. That is why we believe that it is appropriate that the guidance is dictated from the centre.
3.15 pmWe must also remember two points. First, the existing reporting mechanisms for local housing authority tenants and organisations and for RSLs are distinct, and I shall return to that point in a moment. Secondly, we need as far as possible to allow the autonomy necessary for quick, local, flexible responses to specific circumstances in a given locality. That, in a nutshell, is why I have some difficulties with amendment No. 96. As the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said, the amendment would place a requirement on local housing authorities to publish guidance on antisocial behaviour in social housing in its area and the procedures for dealing with it. It would also require the policies and procedures that social landlords have a duty to publish under clause 12 to follow that guidance. Although the hon. Gentleman said that the intention of the amendment is to ensure strategic guidance and consistency in the way that antisocial behaviour is tackled, like many later amendments, it would not achieve that. However, existing clauses will do so, for reasons that I shall come to. There are several problems with the amendment, not least the fact that it confuses the local authority's strategic role with its landlord responsibilities. Imposing an extra duty would result in some duplication. As I hinted, it would confuse the lines of accountability for registered social landlords. The activities of RSLs, including their action to take on housing-related antisocial behaviour, are regulated by the Housing Corporation, and any formal or binding guidance to RSLs must be issued by the corporation. The local housing authority would have to issue guidance to itself, which is an unnecessary duplication of work, and as I have said, it would remove or lessen the autonomy of RSLs to decide the best ways of dealing with antisocial behaviour depending on the circumstances within wider strategic guidance. I understand where hon. Members are coming from, but I do not agree with how they get there or that the amendments would improve on the provisions already in the Bill. Mr. Paice: I half follow the logic of the Minister's argument, but will he elaborate on how he believes that subsection (7) will improve consistency. Under the Bill, the Secretary of State will set guidance for housing authorities and housing action trusts and the Column Number: 214 Housing Corporation will set it for registered social landlords. The Bill builds in an inconsistency, and I do not entirely follow his argument about why my proposition, which would at least create total consistency within the area of a local authority, would produce any more problems than having two different ''authorities'' issuing guidance.Mr. McNulty: The point at which the hon. Gentleman and I part is in seeking strategic consistency. We agree that there should be a strategic framework in which to deal with antisocial behaviour in social housing. The chase is for that consistency at a local authority level; surely we want consistency at national level. Subsection (7) merely reflects existing the accountability lines. Happily for me I am no lawyer, and I cannot begin to think about the unpicking of legislation that will be necessary in respect of the Housing Corporation, its relations with RSLs, how the two will relate to local authorities and how they all relate to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The amendment would create an unnecessary layer on top of existing levels of accountability. It must be right to have a strategic oversight at national level and to preserve a degree of autonomy at local level for housing authorities or RSLs. Although I agree with the hunt for consistency, it must be at a wider level than the hon. Gentleman's amendment suggested. It follows, too—recent experience has shown it to be the case—that there is a strong argument that the guidance issued by the Housing Corporation to RSLs on how to manage antisocial behaviour in the context of the legislation should have to consider, materially and relevantly, the guidance issued by the First Secretary of State, the Deputy Prime Minister, to HATs and local housing authorities. Although from the Bill it appears that there is plenty of scope for the two to be entirely distinct and to go off at random and in different directions, if I had anything to do with it I would ensure that the guidance issued by the Department and by the Housing Corporation is the same. However, I emphasise that we want the strategic guidance at national level so that we know roughly how the housing authorities, HATs and RSLs are being guided in dealing with antisocial behaviour. It is at local level that further autonomy is needed. Liz Blackman: It would be a way forward if there were a requirement to have regard to the Secretary of State's guidance, as that would strengthen consistency. Strategic guidance also spreads best practice. Mr. McNulty: I endorse what my hon. Friend says. We would need to reflect equally the local authorities' input and responsibilities, rather than those of the local housing authorities, in a range of other local partnerships, not least crime and disorder partnerships and others in the local domain, such as homelessness strategies. I shall return to such matters shortly. Amendments Nos. 136 and 98 would require landlords to provide each tenant, and anyone who may become a tenant, with a copy of the policies and procedures. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire was ahead of me in anticipating my response, which is that the proposal is unnecessarily Column Number: 215 prescriptive and may put a provision in the Bill that in economic terms is not necessary and in terms of efficacy is not the most appropriate way to disseminate the necessary information.The policies are not relevant simply to tenants: landlords may take out injunctions to protect leaseholders, lodgers, visitors to the locality and a landlord's staff. It would not be feasible or cost-effective to identify anyone who may benefit from knowing about the policies and provide them with a copy. The existing provision enables anyone, whatever their link with the landlord, to obtain a copy, and that is preferable. I do not mean to be churlish, but amendment No. 134 is completely unnecessary, like many proposals that come from the Liberal Democrats. Local authority landlords already have a statutory duty to consult their tenants on any matter to do with housing management. The Housing Corporation also requires RSLs to consult tenants on housing management issues. Wide concerns about consultation on various matters, including antisocial behaviour, are already taken into account in existing measures. Amendment No. 137 would have little practical effect and might even increase landlords' work loads unnecessarily. Nothing is stopping landlords consulting any body or person whom they want to consult when preparing their policies and procedures. In any case, the amendment would not require landlords who did not consider it appropriate to consult anyone else. It simply states, ''as they consider appropriate.'' It is betwixt and between: either they do not have to do it and it produces unnecessary burdens, or they should do it, in which case the amendment should be worded entirely differently. I suspect that the guidance, when issued, will exhort local housing authorities, HATs and RSLs to use the broadest policy context when drawing up their specific local guidance. It is entirely unnecessary to say about such an important dimension of housing policy and antisocial behaviour that because it is not in the Bill, RSLs, HATs or local housing authorities need have no regard to crime and disorder partnerships, existing homelessness strategies and all the other elements. We need to see all these elements in the wider context of what is going on at local authority level, county level and in housing generally, as we did with the limited elements of previous clauses. The fact that they are not in the Bill does not mean that we are prescribing that RSLs, HATs or local housing authorities should have no regard for those wider, very germane and relevant policies. Mrs. Brooke: I, too, welcome the Minister to the Committee. I want to ask a question that I have asked in debates on other legislation: is he convinced that all housing associations of any size participate sufficiently in local crime and disorder partnerships? I understand that there is no requirement for them to participate, and I have sought such a requirement because I am sure that some housing associations do not participate fully. Will the Minister at least confirm that there Column Number: 216 should be some recognition of those points in the guidance?
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