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Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Lady is now making a personal statement. It is a point of order that she has raised, so I have to rule on that point of order. I have to tell her that the Chair does not have any responsibility for the content of reports from Select Committees. She may wish to take the matter up with the Chairman of the Committee.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your advice about the rules of the House relating to Ministers making comments ahead of the Budget. At oral questions earlier, the Secretary of State for Scotland confirmed that he was opposed to the introduction of a windfall tax on the financial services industry, yet he would not say whether he supported the expensive introduction of fraud-prone strip stamps on whisky bottles. While it is clearly a matter for him whether he wants to support the whisky industry and its workers, can you confirm that no rules of the House bar Ministers from giving their opinions during debates or questions ahead of the Budget?
Mr. Speaker: My understanding is that there are conventions regarding Ministers and the lead-up to the Budget. They are not rules of the House but they are
perfectly understandable conventions on matters that may have an influence on the Budget. All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is this: I was present and I am not responsible for the Minister's reply, but I have had enough experience in the House to know that that is the type of reply that we get in the week before the Budget.
Mr. Russell Brown (Dumfries) (Lab): On a point of order, of which I have given you prior notice Mr Speaker. Regrettably, like many others, I ask for your guidance and advice to hon. Members regarding parliamentary protocol. The hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) has circulated literature in the town of Dumfries encouraging townspeople to bring issues to him, as an MP, including issues that could well be constituency casework. Surely, if individuals raise such matters with him, he would not be able to deal with them because of the conventions of the House, and therefore he would be misleading the public. I seek your guidance. Am I interpreting the rules correctly?
Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his concern. As I told the House last week, resolution of such disputes is best left to the good sense of the hon. Members concerned.
Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (Lab/Co-op): What if they do not have any good sense?
Mr. Speaker: Order. All hon. Members have good sense. I understand that the particular newsletter to which the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) has drawn my attention was produced in the context of a prospective change of constituency boundaries that affects many constituencies in Scotland. I think that it would be unwise of me to intervene directly in such cases. I wish to make it clear, however, that regardless of proposals relating to parliamentary constituencies, the existing boundaries remain in force at least until the next general election. I therefore expect hon. Members to pay proper regard to the right of sitting constituency Members to represent their constituents. I add that, as the Member of Parliament for Glasgow, Springburn, I hold several surgeries per month. If any hon. Member wishes to do those surgeries, they are welcome.
Prevention of Homelessness Bill
1.28 pm
Mr. Mohammad Sarwar (Glasgow, Govan) (Lab): I beg to move,
- That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about homelessness.
Part VII of the Housing Act 1996, introduced by the Tories, significantly reduced the rights of homeless persons in England and Wales. It was a Labour Government who reversed the negative effects of the 1996 Act by introducing a Homelessness Bill, enacted as the Homelessness Act 2002. In Scotland, where housing is generally a devolved issue, the Labour-Liberal Executive introduced their own Homelessness Bill, which was enacted in 2003. The Scottish 2003 Act seeks to abolish homelessness by 2012. It will do that by abolishing the "priority need" test. There can be no doubt that the Labour Government and the Labour-led Scottish Executive have done more to eradicate homelessness in the past two years than the Conservative Government did in 18 years in power, but there is more that we can and must do to prevent homelessness in the United Kingdom.
My Bill is relatively modest in its aims, but I sincerely believe that through these small and simple reforms we can prevent thousands of needless cases of homelessness. I hope that all hon. Members will agree that it is always better and less costly to prevent a problem from happening than to spend public money trying to pick up the pieces afterwards.
In the case of homelessness, we are talking about broken lives. I believe that we can prevent a very large number of homelessness cases with the enactment of some very minor changes. At present, tenants and owner-occupiers can resist repossession proceedings, but clause 1 would introduce a general right for any residential occupier to apply to the court for a short suspended possession order. That would include members of the tenant's or owner-occupier's family or lodgers. The intention is to provide residential occupiers with the right to ask the court for a brief period to find reasonable alternative accommodation. By providing that brief period, we could avoid families having to sleep rough or in conditions unfit for human habitation.
A recent trend in the UK has been for home owners to refinance their personal debt as consolidation loans secured on the value of their home. Such loans generally come with a much higher rate of interest than a principal mortgage. When family income drops, whether though illness or some other crisis, it is often the inability to meet consolidation loan payments that results in repossession and homelessness.
Clause 2 would enable the courts to vary interest to no lower than the average rate for a United Kingdom mortgage. The power could be used to provide a period of respite and enable families to get back on their feet
and meet their financial obligations. Importantly, that could enable people to retain their homes. The local law centre in my constituency reports that families facing repossession are often told that they have mortgage arrears of £1,000 or £2,000, when in fact up to a third of the arrears are administrative charges applied by the bank. Most mortgages contain indemnity clauses that force the debtor to pay the bank's legal expenses. Govan law centre reports many cases of people being told that they must pay £1,000 or more to the bank for the cost of being taking to court, even if they win the case. Clause 3 would enable the courts to waive some of those charges when it could mean the difference between someone being able to pay the arrears or facing homelessness.The final part of the Bill is aimed at some of the most vulnerable members of our society who are likely to face repossession and homelessness. When someone, for whatever reason, is in receipt of income support or jobseeker's allowance, they must wait 26 or 39 weeks before the Department for Work and Pensions will help to pay their mortgage interest. The fact that many families have to wait up to nine months often means that they will face repossession in the courts long before they get any help.
Of course, if such families had not purchased their home and were still renting from a social landlord, they would not face eviction and would get immediate help from the local authority. Some have argued that the position is discriminatory against low-income home owners, and I am aware of one legal challenge to the relevant social security regulation in my constituency, under articles 8 and 14 of the European convention on human rights. I understand that the case is currently before the social security commissioners.
Help with housing costs for home owners was substantially reduced by the Conservative Government in 1995. Since then, housing tenure has continued to shift generally towards home ownership. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister reported in 2002 that only 19 per cent. of people in the United Kingdom rented their home from a social landlord, while 10 per cent. rented from a private landlord, and a massive 70 per cent. of all households were owner-occupiers, with 29 per cent. of those owning their home outright while 42 per cent. had a mortgage.
Mortgage protection insurance is important, but it has not been the answer in practice. The simple fact is that many low and modestly paid families cannot afford it, and many policies are ineffective because of exclusion provisions.
Clause 4 would enable the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to intervene in appropriate cases in order to prevent homelessness. The stark reality is that the failure to intervene and provide additional help will cost the state more money in the long run—more money to accommodate a family in expensive temporary
accommodation under the Homelessness Act 2002; more than it costs to accommodate a family in social rented housing in receipt of full housing benefit.It is important to remember that many of the people facing repossession purchased their house because it cost less each month than renting it. That is why their eviction will be more costly to the state, which ends up paying a more expensive rent through housing benefit but does not provide any help for a cheaper mortgage. There is no policy logic in the current arrangements. I call on hon. Members to support the Bill and, by introducing some small legal reforms, help to make homelessness a thing of the past in the United Kingdom.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mohammed Sarwar, Mr. Khalid Mahmood, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Angus Robertson, Jim Dobbin, Mr. Frank Roy, Sandra Osborne and Mrs. Helen Liddell.
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