Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Amendment No. 4, in clause 22, page 20, line 4, at end insert
(4A) The Tribunal Procedure Rules shall make provision for the granting by a judge of the First-tier Tribunal of legal aid for appropriate advice and representation in relation to any decision within the jurisdiction of the tribunal systems..
Amendment No. 72, in clause 31, page 26, line 43, at end insert
(11) The Lord Chancellor may be regulations provide for the payment of pensions, allowances or gratuities by way of compensation to or in respect of such persons who suffer loss of office as a result of the abolition of a tribunal by virtue of this section as may be so specified or so determined.
(12) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (11), regulations under this section may make provision
(a) as to the circumstances in which compensation is payable;
(b) as to the amounts which are to be payable by way of compensation;
(c) as to the manner in which and the person to whom any claim for compensation is to be made; and
(d) for the determination of all questions arising under the regulations..
Amendment No. 9, page 141, schedule 6, leave out lines 18 and 19.
Simon Hughes: New clause 3 and amendment No. 4 relate to legal aid and amendment No. 72 is on an entirely different matter, with which amendment No. 9, tabled by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) also deals, and that is the specific matter of the future of the general commissioners of the Revenue and their staff, which is a matter of concern on both sides of the House.
New clause 3 contains the simple but hugely important proposal that the Lord Chancellor, the Minister of Justice, as he now isor, as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk commented, whoever he or his successor is soon to bemust by regulations make provision for legal aid for applicants for relief under clause 15.
The Minister rightly brings to the House a Bill that sets up a new structure for our tribunals, and that is welcome. In that system there is the ability under clause 16 for the upper tribunal to have a judicial review jurisdiction. At the moment, there is provision for legal aid in some tribunals and on some occasions. We accept and believe that in general terms tribunals should not have lots of lawyers doing legally aided work, but there are exceptions when legal aid should be available because a matter is particularly significant, important or difficult. At the moment, that is possible by obtaining ministerial agreement, but we think that that is over-centralist, and that it should be possible for legal aid to be granted through arrangements made by the Minister of Justice in a much more routine and matter-of-fact way.
Courts do important and significant work, but so do tribunals. We all know that, whether it is the social security tribunals dealing with peoples benefits, whether it is the industrial tribunals dealing with peoples employment rights, whether it is the race relations tribunals dealing with equality at work, or whether it is the asylum and immigration tribunals dealing with peoples status, they can determine peoples wealth, or their future in this country, and so on. We therefore believe
that, exceptionally, there should be the ability to have legal aid in those places. New clause 3 would allow that, and we hope that the House will agree to it. Amendment No. 4 is a complementary proposal and I hope that it will commend itself to the House.
The last matter is a ring-fenced one that is of concern to only a small number of people, but it is important enough to deal with here, a view shared by Conservative Members. The clerks to the commissioners who have looked after adjudications on tax matters are remunerated by the Ministry of Justice on a salaried basis. They are dealt with by tax management legislation. The clerks to the general commissioners for taxes may work in a profession that is not terribly popular, but they do an extremely good, competent and valuable job.
Earlier in the year, the treasurer and secretary of the Association of Clerks to the General Commissioners of Income Tax wrote to Members of Parliament expressing a concern that because the general commissioners of income tax are currently a tribunal dealing with income tax and corporation tax matters, as they have been for 210 years, but are to be abolished and disappear with the general tribunal system, they need to be looked after as a group of people who will have no automatic continuing career. The role of the clerk will effectively disappear completely when the Bill becomes law and is implemented.
There are 244 clerksor there were when we were first approachedmostly part-time, and many are retired professionals from other walks of life, business, the law or the Revenue, employed by the general commissioners of tax, paid for by the Ministry of Justice. There is no compensation for loss of office for these people. Therefore we tabled amendment No. 72 to allow the Lord Chancellor, by regulations, to
provide for the payment of pensions, allowances or gratuities by way of compensation to or in respect of such persons who suffer loss of office as a result of the abolition of a tribunal by virtue of this section.
It gives a general permissive power which we hope would allow the Lord Chancellor to treat these people justly when their jobs end.
I had hoped, as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk and others had, that by now this matter would have been resolved amicably. I know that these people and their representatives went to see Ministers and have had many communications. I had a letter dated 24 Aprilcolleagues will have received a similar letterfrom Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the Under-Secretary of State who looked after the Bill in the other place. She tells me that she has carefully considered the issues and merits of including a provision for compensation, but that on balance she does not believe that the Bill should be amended to allow for that, becauseI summarise for the sake of brevitythe legal advice is that these people are fee-paid office holders, which is a status creating no expectation in law of compensation. That was the confirmed ministerial view in April. Since then, even as recently as in the last week, there has been a further meeting with Ministers, but as I understand it, there is still no resolution that is satisfactory to the clerks.
This is a plea that those people, who have been public servants in the most important of jobs, done
hugely professionally, should not be left out in the cold as a by-product of the legislation. I hope that at this last hour we can persuade Ministers either to accept amendment No. 72 or amendment No. 9.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott) represents a city where a large number of people are employed by the Revenue and look after Revenue matters for Member of Parliament. I think that all Members tax matters are dealt with in Cardiff, so my hon. Friend has a particular constituency interest, and we also have a general interest. These are people who have served us specifically and the country at large, and I hope that we can look after them, at their request, and treat them decently.
Mr. Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con): New clause 11 refers to park homes, the legislation behind which can be found in the Mobile Homes Act 1983, as amended. The Government were genuine in the amendments they made to park homes legislation in the Housing Act 2004. I am the first to admit that the new clause is very broad in its attempt to resolve a serious problem and I hope the Minister can help me in finding the best way forward.
I have 11 park home sites in my constituency, the largest of which has over 150 units. Bizarrely, these are not dwellings under the law, but chattels. They have many of the rights of properties, but they cannot be considered as such under the law. Most park home sites are well managed and I am a great supporter of this type of living, which affords the occupants an excellent life choice; an affordable home and a way of maintaining savings while living in a social environment.
All is not well in park homes across the country, however. This week I attended a meeting of the all-party group on mobile homes, chaired by the excellent hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner). We heard from the National Association of Park Home Residents that despite all the recent legislation and genuine attempts from both sides of the House to address the problems, dwellers in mobile homes are worse off than ever.
Under the provisions of the Housing Act 2004, unscrupulous site owners have been free to charge huge additional sums for the extra administration caused by legislation. Under the new legislation, park home owners may require the site owner to give notice of 14 days before entering their buildings. Site owners are now asking residents to put electricity meters outside their homes and to pay for that. All these costs resulting from legislation, along with changes to the RPI and other matters, are piling pressure on to some of the most financially challenged people in our communities.
The majority of park home sites are well managed. Residents get on well with the site owner and they can enjoy their lives. But in too many sites, unscrupulous owners behave in a way that sometimes defies belief. I have used terms like Dickensian and robber baron perhaps too freely, to the point where I am exaggerating a little, but there is great misery and concern.
The clause concerns the resolving of disputes. One problem area is the sale of properties. Let us say that an elderly park home owner has to move into residential care and puts her home on the market. Under the
terms of legislation and her agreement, she can sell to anyone, but the site owner has to agree that that person can take over. He cannot take an unreasonable attitude to the new purchaser and has 28 days to approve. However, he can comply with the legislation precisely by saying, I am delighted that you have bought this park home and that you will be living on my site. I think you should know that Im going to make your life hell. I am going to try to increase pitch fees to the maximum, put more units on the site and not resurface the roads. Pretty soon, the purchaser realises that this is not where they want to spend the more leisurely years of their life and pulls out of the deal. After that has happened two or three times, the vendor is so desperate that she agrees to sell at a knock-down price to the park site owner. To add insult to injury, he then takes 10 per cent. of the sale fee.
I am seeking to allow park home owners to raise such horrendous matters in a more appropriate form of tribunal than currently exists. It takes great courage for individuals to follow due process, be it through the courts or a tribunal, to achieve redress. There is the added problem that local authorities, who have huge responsibilities for park homes sites, are not exercising their full powers. I am not blaming my local authorityit is reasonably assiduousbut there are many stories of local authorities not exercising their powers within licensing agreements to improve the quality of life for park home dwellers.
I want to raise the issue of park home owners who wish to have a residents association. On well-run sites, enlightened site owners welcome residents associations. It can be a mutually beneficial experience, as the site owner can have a direct link, through one group of people, to all the park home owners. Conversely, people feel that they have a conduit for their concerns on a regulated basis through an organisation with a constitution.
The unscrupulous site owner finds such associations a threat, however. In one site in my constituency, the owner has written to residents to set out his reasons why he does not want a residents association on the site. He said in his letter that those who are pushing for an association have a hidden agenda and that such schemes often cause ill-feeling between residents and park owners. He is really saying that he does not want the residents of that park home to be empowered, as they are entitled to be under the law, to represent their concerns in a properly constituted body.
The standard trick by the unscrupulous site owner is to divide and rule. I have witnessed many cases where the owner has asked people to withdraw their names from petitions calling for a residents association, with the proposed association then falling. There have been even worse cases where owners have passed out private information about the circumstances of individuals who are trying to set up residents associations.
What options exist for an aggrieved park home dweller to resolve a dispute? Really, the only option is the county court, which is a laborious and expensive process. By and large, the people concerned have reached the stage of their lives where they do not want or need the hassle of going to a county court to resolve a dispute. There must be a better way of doing it. I have discovered that local authorities can, if they wish, set up tribunals to carry out their functions in settling
disputes or dealing with local authority matters. Basically, local authorities can do what they like when exercising their own powers, but they may not set up a tribunal to deal with something that is out of their jurisdiction. They can, for example, deal with licensing measures, but they cannot act when residents are trying to set up a residents association but are unable to do so. That is the problem that I seek to resolve through the new clause. In some circumstances, it is in peoples interests to go to the county court, because if they get a bad judgment they can at least appeal. That route remains attractive in dealing with several kinds of disputes, but for a great many people the county court remains a daunting prospect, to the point where they are not prepared to go down that path.
I hope that the way in which the Mobile Homes Act 1983 was amended by statutory instrument last year may offer a way forward. If the Minister is willing to meet me, and perhaps members of interested bodies on both sides, to discuss that option, I will be prepared to consider withdrawing the new clause to find a better method of resolving the situation. In any event, I hope that she will take from this debate the serious concerns that exist among thousands of people, many of whom have reached a point in their lives where they simply do not want the overbearing responsibility, difficulty, expense and process of going to a county court when there must be a better and more local tribunal system that can deal with their concerns.
Mr. Bellingham: I would like first to address my remarks to new clause 11, which was so ably discussed by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon), who put the case very well and made his points extremely eloquently.
We all have experiences of mobile home parks in our constituencies. The vast majority are well run, well managed and enjoy a happy state of affairs, as in the case of the 10 or 11 in my constituency. That is endorsed by what I have heard from the National Association of Park Home Residents. There is none the less the danger that unscrupulous site managers or owners may want to adopt a particular course of action. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury said, many of them are opposed to the idea of residents associations. Sometimes their agenda is to remove existing tenants who have sub-standard vans. There have been several examples of that around the country, including a case in Oxfordshire and one in Cambridgeshire, where a site changed hands and the new owners wanted to replace the existing vans with a much more upmarket type for which they could charge much more rent. They use every tactic in the book to try to frighten people off. There are examples of straightforward intimidation, noise harassment and blackmail, where people were told that if they did not sell their van and move on they would have services cut off and pitch fees increased. It was a catalogue of the most unscrupulous behaviour that I have ever seen.
When such an example occurred in my constituency, on the Hardwick road site, I am pleased to say that some of the worst excesses of behaviour did not take place, but there were still grounds for concern. It belongs to the local authority, which had let it to a site owner. There was nothing in the lease to prevent the tenant from sub-letting it, so they sub-let it to a new
site manager, who decided that he wanted to change the whole character and complexion of the site and move from fairly middle-of-the-range types of vans to smart, upmarket vans, each of which cost in excess of £60,000 or £70,000, and sometimes much more. As a result, we have a well managed, smart site, but at the expense of some of the tenants who wanted to stay there.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury pointed out, many people adopt a lifestyle choice whereby they do not want the aggro of all the expense, commitment and responsibility that people have when they live in a normal home. It may well be that their marriage has broken down, that they have retired or that they have a house abroad. I would describe some of the people on mobile home sites in my constituency as being non-asset rich but cash-richthey can have lovely holidays, go abroad a lot and make various choices. That is in direct contrast with many other pensioners who are asset-rich but cash-poor. We are talking about people who do not have many rights and can easily be exploited, and there are plenty of examples of that happening. Taking a dispute to the county court is a blunt instrument. By the time the case has been brought, we can imagine the amount of harassment that could have taken place and the amount of pressure that the individual could have been put under. It can be quite appalling. That is why we need a simple system to enable these people to resolve their disputes.
I do not know whether my hon. Friends proposal is 100 per cent. workable or the ideal solution, but it is a brave and imaginative attempt to get to the bottom of a particularly difficult problem and to give people who are potentially among the most vulnerable in society a way of having their disputes and problems resolved at the minimum expense and with the minimum fuss. I congratulate him and hope that the Minister will be able to respond in a positive manner. We want a simple process that enables mobile home sites to work properly. Good will is required between the two partiesthe site owner or manager and the residentsand if that breaks down, it creates serious problems. I hope that my hon. Friend will continue his campaign, because he will do a great deal of good for many hon. Members on both sides of the House who have experienced similar problems in their constituencies.
Let me turn to new clause 3 and the consequential amendment No. 4, which stand in the names of the Liberal Democrats. When legal aid was debated in Committee, we took the view that the situation is in no way satisfactory. Of course, as the Minister explained at the time, it is possible to get legal aid if one has to take a case to tribunal or if a case in which one is involved is taken to tribunal, but that happens through ministerial approval and is a formal, distant process. I should like the process to be a great deal more flexible and consumer-friendly.
Next Section | Index | Home Page |