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Baroness Turner of Camden: My Amendment No. 29 is grouped with this section and it might therefore be appropriate for me to speak to it now.
When we last debated the Bill at Second Reading, I raised the matter of same-sex couples, pointing out that homelessness could be created in a situation in which the partner in whom a tenancy was vested died, leaving the remaining partner in danger of being made homeless since the local authority is perfectly within its rights to seek repossession and would be under no obligation to offer alternative accommodation. There have been incidents where that has in fact happened.
The Minister was kind enough to say that he would write to me and has since done so. It seems that the Government are aware that the rights of couples outside marriage are prompting debate within society. It is felt, however, according to the Minister's letter, that the issues are complex and need to be considered in total, which is currently being done. I had intended to table an amendment which would automatically extend tenancy rights in such cases to the remaining partner, in the same way as exists for married couples. However, it would probably not be appropriate in the light of the Minister's letter and the fact that this Bill is about homelessness rather than tenancy rights.
My amendment therefore looks at the problem from a different angle. The point of the amendment is to oblige local authorities, via their allocation schemes, to give preferential treatment to partners from same-sex couples who have been denied succession to a tenancy under the relevant provision of the various Housing Acts. In other words, the amendment directly seeks to prevent homelessness and is thus relevant to this particular Bill. I would very much welcome hearing from the Minister in response.
Baroness Hamwee: I wholly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, has just said. I thank the Minister for the copy of his letter to the noble Baroness, in which he indicates that there is a detailed cross-departmental review of issues which concern same-sex couples arising not just in the housing area. When he responds, perhaps he can say when we might have some more news of that review. Also, if he is going to oppose the amendment, can he say what harm there might be in at least making this small step in a limited area before we have the result of the whole of the review?
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Maddock: I rise to speak to Amendment No. 36, which is also part of this group. The purpose of the amendment is to require an authority to inform an applicant of the decision that their priority for housing has been adjusted due to behaviour affecting their suitability to be a tenant, or when their preference is removed because of unacceptable behaviour.
There are two points in the Bill at which the local authority can deem an applicant's behaviour unacceptable and refuse to house him or her: the eligibility stage in Clause 13 and the removal of all preferences at Clause 15. At the eligibility stage there is a requirement that the authority should notify the
applicant of the decision, the grounds and the right to review. That is covered in Clause 13(9) and (10). No such requirement exists at the later stage, where all priority is removed. Instead, the onus is on the applicant. That is covered in Clause 15(4). That is inconsistent.On Report in another place, the Minister undertook to consider the problem further. How far have the Government got with those considerations? The Minister also undertook to consult the local authority associations. I would be interested to hear his response now, since the matter is still being raised by people who are concerned about it. There seems to be an inconsistency. I look forward to the Minister's reply.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I hope that the Minister will say something about the growing problem arising out of the nexus of asylum seekers. In many parts of the country, there are people whose business is to purchase properties and let them directly to asylum seekers or to act as an agent for the council. I am disturbed at the desperation that councils often feel, believing that they have to use every agency and avenue available, only to find that they are aiding and abetting the exploitation of the market of desperate people who need housing.
When the Minister seeks to put the onus on councils and housing associations, I hope that he will bear in mind that in many circumstances there is a burgeoning market that meets the bill. I shall not use the term Xunscrupulous". They are businessmen who invest money and provide a service, but the occupants of their properties are part of the whole nexus of homelessness and need some protection.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: The Minister reasonably rebuffed my last attempts to support my noble friend Lady Hanham. In expiation of any fault in this direction on my part at a previous stage, I shall be entirely content if the Minister says that Amendment No. 27, moved by my noble friend, is not required under the wording of the Bill and is superfluous to requirements.
In case he does not say that, I will put forward what I intended to say. Earlier in our deliberations I described London local authorities criss-crossing London, moving tenants around from one authority to another so that there could be as many exports as imports and vice versa. I took that up with the authority in the constituency that I previously represented. I was told that one reason was that my authority was more particular about where it put people and that it was sorry that accommodation that it had rejected within the City of Westminster was being used by other local authorities.
The cause of my anxiety is that that other accommodation may be cheaper and in circumstances where demand exceeds supply, one would see more of such accommodation being used. Whether that falls into line with what the noble Lord, Lord Graham, alluded to a moment ago, I do not know. I can put on record that, when I was a parent with undergraduate
sons, I could not help noticing that the accommodation in three different universities was all being managed from within the same ethnic group. This suggested that there was a degree of what the noble Lord, Lord Graham, described as a nexus at work. However, if the Minister tells me that those words are not required, I can obviously rest easy.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I hope that I can give the assurance that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, seek, in relation to Amendment No. 27. That amendment would require authorities to include in their allocation schemes a statement on offering applicants for accommodation choice, not only within the authority's own boundaries but also in other areas also.
I am very keen to see authorities co-operating to allow allocations to be made across local housing authority boundaries, which I take to be the intention of this amendment. The noble Baroness, as a member of a London borough council, will be aware of the London Housing Partnership, which is an excellent example of inter-borough co-operation, and of the London Authorities West and North initiative, which gives London social tenants the opportunity to move out of the capital. I also refer to HOMES—the Housing Mobility and Exchange Services, which operates across the UK.
People's choices about where they want to live do not neatly fit into local authority boundaries, as the noble Baroness, above all, will know. There will frequently be excellent reasons for seeking accommodation outside the authority in which an applicant is currently situated. Of course, facilitating movement from areas of high housing demand to areas of low demand makes good sense.
I say that because I wish to make it clear that I fully agree with the spirit of Amendment No. 27, but I do not believe it is necessary to place such a statement on the face of the Bill. The provisions of the 1996 Act about allocations relate to the selection of tenants of an authority's own stock and nominations to tenancies of accommodation held by other housing providers, whether other authorities or RSLs. An authority's policy on offering people a choice of housing implicitly includes its policies in relation to its own accommodation and its arrangements with other authorities. This is a matter that can best be supplemented by guidance and to put it on the face of the Bill would be superfluous.
One small point on Amendment No. 28. The noble Baroness will recall that Part VI of the 1996 Act is concerned with long-term allocations of secure, introductory or assured tenancies. On reflection, it may be that the reference in the amendment to the choice of Xtemporary" accommodation is therefore misplaced.
Amendment No. 28 raises a different issue. It would add a number of additional categories of housing applicants to the categories that must be given reasonable preference for an allocation. In fact, it would restore three categories that are currently on the face of the 1996 Act.
I can see the temptation to restore those particular categories. At first blush, it might look as though the Government had cast aside the housing needs of those who would fall within these categories. However, let me quickly explain that we are doing so such thing.
The provisions in the Bill that deal with the allocations framework seek to give effect to the policies that are set out in Chapter 9 of the housing Green Paper. That sets out the Government's view that meeting housing need must remain the priority for lettings and transfer policies. It also suggested that assessments of housing need should in broad terms consider whether the applicant is homeless or threatened with homelessness, living in housing conditions that are intolerable or has a need to move to avoid hardship. The Bill reshapes the reasonable preference categories to give effect to that approach. We are not tinkering; we are setting out to rationalise the allocations framework and trying to ensure that the circumstances of everyone who may have a need for social housing are captured by the reasonable preference categories.
The starting point was the categories in the 1996 Act, but these are flawed to some extent by the policies underlying the 1996 changes—that is, the implication that households accepted as statutorily homeless should have to wait for an allocation of housing. In 1996, for the first time since the homelessness legislation was introduced in 1977, households that were owed a main homelessness duty were removed from the reasonable preference categories. However, in practice, housing authorities still needed to be able to give preference to these groups or they would not be able to move them on and bring their homelessness duties to an end. Therefore the three categories which are the subject of Amendment No. 28 appear to have been introduced as a proxy for these groups, to facilitate them. Virtually all homelessness applicants accepted as unintentionally homeless and in priority need would fall into one or other of these categories but their housing need derives from the fact that they had experienced homelessness and needed a settled home not from their social circumstances. It makes far more sense, therefore, to construct a single reasonable preference category that reflects that fact—
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