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2.20 pm
The Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality (Alun Michael): The speech of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) was extremely revealing. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) must have been horrified by the fact that, despite the hon. Gentleman's explicit support, only 50 per cent. of Conservative Members in the Chamber supported his Bill.
Everybody should share the desire to protect wild mammals from cruelty. That is one of the criteria by which we define a civilised society. Indeed, the United Kingdom has led the way in the protection of animal welfare over the past 200 years; we can proud of that. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire told us that it is his intention to extend and improve further the protection that the law gives to wild mammals. I have great respect for his willingness to enter into constructive debate, and I accept that he is sincere in his belief that his Bill would reduce cruelty and achieve the outcome of regulating hunting as the middle way group has been advocating, but he is wrong on both counts. As he knows well, I have never considered the middle way group's licensing proposal to be supportable, as I believe it would have the opposite effect, and, indeed, in practice license cruelty.
Even more damaging to the hon. Gentleman's case and his Bill is the fact that it would explicitly end the ban on cruelty that is already on the statute book. He revealingly compared the Bill to the Wild Mammals (Protection) (Amendment) Bill—the hunting Bill—and
not to the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996, which his Bill would amend. That rather exposes the underlying intentions of his Bill and the impact that it would have. His Bill depends on the concept of due suffering—the negative of undue suffering must be due suffering—and yet suggests that someone else should define it. That is the key concept that the hon. Gentleman is putting forward in the Bill.Ever since my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) introduced what was to become the 1996 Act as a private Member's Bill, wild mammals have enjoyed an unprecedented degree of protection. Quite apart from the Act's deterrent effect, there has been a steady stream of successful prosecutions of those who have been deliberately cruel to wild mammals. So the present law is working well. As it is an axiom that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, one must wonder at the motivation of those who so persistently try to change the law.
The key clause in the Bill would abandon a concept well defined in law—that of unnecessary suffering: the definition of cruelty—and instead introduce a definition that would allow cruelty to occur.
Lembit Öpik: The answer to the Minister is simple. I did not dwell on the 1996 Act because it is obvious what the Bill does; it takes away the exclusion for hunting and shooting. That is self-explanatory. If the Minister is so sure of his position, why is he not willing to allow the question of suffering in hunting and so forth to be tested in court? He must accept that his Bill from the previous Session, which in some way cross-references with mine, would have allowed snaring—which he thinks is worse than hunting with dogs—to replace hunting with dogs. Therefore he would have increased suffering, not reduced it.
Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman must explain why he wants to change the concept of unnecessary suffering, which has been tested successfully since the 1996 Act became law. Why has he suddenly confessed that his Bill is not about preventing suffering but about allowing hunting? Confession is good for the soul, and I am delighted that he has exposed the aims of his Bill to the House.
Lembit Öpik: Will the Minister take one last confession?
Alun Michael: I am always ready to hear the hon. Gentleman's confession.
Lembit Öpik: Before I bite my tongue for the remaining five minutes, I confess that I am an extremist when it comes to justice. I want justice in the countryside. If the main problem for the Minister and the Government is the replacement of the word "unnecessary" with "undue", I am happy to make that change. The Government made 10 promises to their Back Benchers when they forced through variable tuition fees by means of the Second Reading of the Higher Education Bill. If the Minister does not accept my concession, that is not a good enough reason to talk the Bill out and prevent it from going into Committee.
Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman has confessed to being an extremist. He says that he is passionate about
justice, and he knows that I am too. However, like other hon. Members who have contributed to our debate, I am passionate about eradicating cruelty.
Alun Michael: Why, then, did the hon. Gentleman introduce a Bill purporting to change the definition of cruelty? All of a sudden, that change does not matter, and clause 1 is not important. The hon. Gentleman has blown himself out of the water, and I am almost speechless at the extent to which he has defeated himself. I would be happy to accept one or two more contributions to see whether other bits of the Bill will fall off as readily.
The Bill would not improve the protection afforded to wild mammals, but would make things worse, which is why the hon. Gentleman has found it difficult to gain support in the Chamber. Precisely because the Bill would be ineffective, some supporters of traditional hunting have tried to use it as a Trojan horse in defence of their favourite blood sport. Irrespective of the hunting issue, the Bill would not achieve its stated objectives and would, in fact, be bad for wild mammals. Great claims have been made for its benefits, as well as those of the similar measure promoted by Lord Donoughue in another place. However, the claim that the hon. Gentleman's Bill would get rid of the supposed limitations of the 1996 Act by creating a new and general offence of intentionally causing undue suffering is nonsense.
The 1996 Act works well in its present form, and like comparable legislation, it defines cruelty as the causing of unnecessary suffering. We discussed that at great length in debates on the Hunting Bill last year, and I do not intend to repeat the arguments. The terms used in the 1996 Act, including "unnecessary suffering" are well understood by the courts. By contrast, the reference in the hon. Gentleman's Bill to "undue suffering" would explicitly allow people to cause unnecessary suffering as long as it is not excessive. Surely it is axiomatic that causing any unnecessary suffering is wrong, so the Bill would license cruelty.
Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman cannot restrain himself for five minutes, but if he wishes to talk his Bill out, who am I to prevent him from doing so?
Lembit Öpik: I offer the Minister a deal. I commit to changing the word "undue" to "unnecessary"—the single issue that he has raised—if he allows the Bill to proceed to Committee. If he does not allow that to happen, can he confirm that it is his intention to stifle debate on a serious proposal to improve animal welfare by talking my Bill out?
Alun Michael: Giving way to the hon. Gentleman three times within the short period that I have in which to try to deal with these complex issues hardly suggests that I am willing to stifle debate. I am happy to debate with him, as I have done, he will agree, for many hours, in many different places, including that secret place, the Committee Corridor. The Bill consists of two elements—the destruction of a well understood
definition of cruelty as "unnecessary suffering" and the creation of a permit or licensing system for cruelty. It would protect hunting, which the hon. Gentleman seems to hold dear, and has therefore gained the support of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, who explicitly raised the issue of red coats and hunting activities in his short contribution.
Mr. Dismore: I do not know how many times the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) has intervened. He tried to intervene on me in the short time available—
It being half-past Two o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the debate, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Debate to be resumed Friday 5 March.
Remaining Private Members' Bills
HIGHWAYS (OBSTRUCTION BY BODY CORPORATE) BILL
Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).
Housing (Vulnerable People)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Paul Clark.]
2.30 pm
Ms Sally Keeble (Northampton, North) (Lab): I am grateful to have the chance in this Adjournment debate to raise some problems facing vulnerable families who cannot get housing. A number of cases that I shall cite are from my constituency in Northampton. Indeed, over the years I have had a steady stream of such cases, although I know that I am not alone in that. There is a real problem with how some of the most vulnerable families in our country are treated and how they manage to slip through some of the large holes in the safety net of the welfare state.
I am particularly concerned about two main groups of families, both of which involve children. The first is families who are refused housing because they are deemed to be intentionally homeless, but who are in fact completely homeless, and the choice is either to house them in social housing or to let the parents and children sleep on the streets. The second is families who have no recourse to public funds because they do not have residential status in the UK. Again, they are victims of circumstance and completely destitute. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning will have heard those concerns.
Perhaps it will help if I give an example of each group—but just the bare bones. On families judged to be intentionally homeless, Miss P left her council home with her three children, aged three to seven, because of the domestic violence of her former partner. However, the local housing authority judged her to be intentionally homeless. Miss P has had a difficult time, having been in care as a child and having had problems with antisocial behaviour. However, she is keen to go to college and get some training, and she is well motivated to establish a secure and stable home for her three lovely children. She has spent eight months in a hostel for victims of domestic violence—she is still there—with absolutely no prospect of being able to move out. She cannot get a private tenancy because the council has accused her of antisocial behaviour. She cannot get a council tenancy because the council says she is intentionally homeless.
The other example refers to the group of families with no recourse to public funds. Mrs. B, who has three children aged under 14, came to the UK from Bangladesh to join her husband, who is a UK citizen. They lived in the family home, a privately owned property in Northampton, where Mrs. B suffered violence perpetrated by her husband. Ultimately, she left with the children. In fact, he attacked one of the children. She then visited relatives elsewhere in the country to try to get help, but failed, returning to Northampton after three months. A charity housed the whole family in a single room.
Mrs. B was already pregnant when she left her husband, and her baby was born prematurely with profound disabilities. She stayed in hospital in a maternity ward for three weeks until his life support machine was turned off. She then had to remain another five or six weeks because she had nowhere to go. She also had no one to talk to for most of that time because she cannot speak English.
Going to see Mrs. B in hospital was one of the grimmest things I have had to do. She was completely destitute. She had no money and no home. Her baby was desperately sick. Her three older children were taken away by her estranged husband's family, and all her worldly possessions were in a black canvas bag beside her hospital bed. The hospital was wonderful to her, but ultimately could not solve her problem. The local authority refused to house her because she had no recourse to public funds as she did not have permanent leave to remain in this country. She had no chance of getting a private tenancy because she had no money for the deposit. In summer last year, she moved into a women's refuge and her children joined her. She is still there.
A children's worker at the refuge helps with the children, but, as my right hon. Friend knows, the funds for children's work in such refuges are not secure. That is a separate issue, however, and I shall not go into it at present. At Christmas, Mrs B received indefinite leave to remain because of her husband's domestic violence. More than a year after her marriage first broke down, she will now start to apply for housing again, but this time it will be outside Northampton.
I have raised those and similar cases with my right hon. Friend the Minister in correspondence, and I have spoken about them to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health, because those cases involve various complex, inter-related problems. Everyone assures me that those families should be picked up by the local authorities under the provisions of the Children Act 1989, and that the needs of the children—including their housing needs and the need for them to be housed with their mothers if that is judged to be in the children's best interests—should be met. The Minister for Children has given written advice to that effect, and I am told that the whole point of the 1989 Act is to deal with just such cases. However, it is not working.
Of course, it is always possible for women to take the council to court to secure their rights, and there have been important test cases on these issues in London and Oxford. However, such women are the people least likely to obtain access to justice through the courts, and the process imposes a heavy burden on people who are already the victims of circumstances. In Northampton, and some other places, real difficulties also arise from the lack of legal aid services. The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux has today published a report highlighting that problem and, in particular, the lack of lawyers under the community legal service who specialise in housing and family law, and who would deal with the kind of case that I am raising. That has been an acute problem for those women.
I know that I am not the only MP who has found that that is a problem. It was also raised when the Homelessness Act 2002 was passed, when some housing groups, including Shelter, and individual MPs made proposals to use that legislation to amend the Children Act 1989. That was not possible, but I believe that some additional guidance was issued to local authorities. However, I have to say that if it was, that is not working either.
Of course, I realise that local authorities need to be able to refuse to house people. They need to have sanctions that they can apply to tenants who wilfully refuse to pay the rent and run up big arrears, or who are completely antisocial. If, in practice, they cannot refuse to house people who have children, however big the arrears or however bad the behaviour, council housing becomes completely unmanageable. However, there has to be a balance between evicting rogue tenants and rendering destitute families who are themselves victims.
There must also be the possibility that neighbours from hell might, with the right support services, be enabled to hold down a tenancy without disrupting the entire neighbourhood. In the longer term, it is important that the cycle of disadvantage that has often scarred the parents should not be revisited on the children, and that the children should not be taken into care. We all know that the prospects for children in care are not very good.
It is difficult for local authorities to distinguish between the genuinely destitute and families who are able to get private tenancies or to stay with friends or relatives—but that is the issue. I strongly believe that there is a need for clear protocols for inter-agency working on such cases, including for joint working across two-tier local government. I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to look into providing such protocols. My area has two-tier local government: the housing authority operates at district council level within Northampton borough council, while social services operate at county council level, in Northamptonshire county council. They do not have adequate arrangements for joint working and liaising on these issues.
The protocols would have to cover referrals, data sharing and arrangements for access to local authority housing stock. At present, if social services house a family, they tend to allocate not to existing social housing but to hostels or to bed-and-breakfast accommodation, which is not particularly suitable for families. The data sharing would need to make it possible for references to be made between social services and housing authorities and departments. That means proper referrals, rather than those couched in terms such as, "Well, we can send you to the social workers, but they might take your children away."
Clear guidance needs to be given to local authorities about their legal duties and responsibilities under both housing and social services legislation, so that if they are supposed to provide housing as well as emergency financial payments, they are clear about what to do. They must also be clear about the standard of housing that has to be provided. For example, in April, we are supposed to see the end of the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for families with children, except in an emergency, and then for not more than six weeks. I assume that that will also apply to families picked up by social services under the Children Act; otherwise the rule about not putting families into hostel-type accommodation will be completely ineffective, because social services would simply put families into such accommodation.
In the longer term, I believe that there will be a need to amend the relevant legislation, but that will obviously depend on circumstances that are beyond my right hon. Friend's control. Perhaps legislation arising from the children's Green Paper "Every Child Matters" will
provide an opportunity for that. In the meantime, these very vulnerable families need help to break the logjam and to get themselves housed as a first step to rebuilding their lives. The two families whom I mentioned have a total of six young children in need of proper homes, and two mothers who are completely committed to re-establishing their families but are unable to do so. There are many more families like them up and down the country, and we need to establish clarity for them, and to ensure that they are not further punished by a system that is supposed to support them.
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