Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [HL]

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 9th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, today represents a double first for me. It is my first time at the Dispatch Box—as a day tripper, I should make clear—and I am grateful to the Minister for his kind words. More importantly, it is the first time in my seven years in your Lordships’ House that I have been able to welcome a Bill at Second Reading more or less unequivocally.

Before going further, I should like to thank Jacob Secker of Haringey Defend Council Housing, who brought to my attention the issue of the potential impact of loss of security of tenure under the Housing and Planning Bill on victims of domestic abuse. I also thank members of Arden Chambers and Giles Peaker, chair of the Housing Law Practitioners Association, for their advice. I should also make it clear that, while I am aware that men can be the victims of domestic violence, it is women who are the main victims, particularly of serious abuse, and therefore it is women about whom I will speak.

As the Minister has already underlined, the importance of this issue to women, and therefore the importance of the Bill, are stressed by the helpful briefing from Women’s Aid. It makes clear that secure housing is not only a practical need for women and children fleeing abuse, but is integral to their safety and recovery. Concerns about housing are a key barrier to many women trying to escape domestic abuse. Women’s Aid’s annual survey in 2016 showed that nine out of 10 women in a refuge required help with their housing needs. During the passage of the Bill, I drew on research by the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit and Solace Women’s Aid. One of the key messages was:

“Having a home in which women and children can be and feel safe is vital, removing the fear and insecurity which domestic violence creates”.


Housing insecurity interfered with all the processes that the study found,

“enabled them to begin undoing the harms of domestic violence”.

The research also demonstrated why it is insufficient to give local authorities a permissive power to provide victims of domestic violence with a new lifetime tenancy, which was the Government’s original response. The study found that all too often, women fleeing domestic abuse who present to local authority housing services reported that they found them unhelpful, with many describing housing officers as unsympathetic, uninterested and disbelieving. To Ministers’ credit, they listened to the arguments and agreed, as the Minister has said, that regulations would require rather than simply enable local authorities to provide new lifetime tenancies when rehousing a tenant in such circumstances.

It then transpired, however, that the lawyers had discovered that this was not permissible under the terms of the Act. Again to their credit, the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, said that they would announce a concession during the passage of the Bill and immediately apologised to me. At that stage I had understood that the primary legislation would be amended either through the forthcoming domestic abuse Bill or possibly through a Private Member’s Bill. I pay tribute to the Minister for pushing for this Bill to avoid further delay, but I am afraid I cannot resist pointing out that had the Government accepted my original amendment, or something like it, they could have saved themselves an awful lot of bother.

When I said that I can give the Bill a more or less unequivocal welcome, the less arises because of one key omission, also raised by Women’s Aid. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting with me just before Christmas and I am hopeful that we can resolve the issue. When I moved my amendment on Report, I emphasised that the regulations should cover not only the victims of domestic abuse who flee their home but also the situation where a joint tenancy had terminated and a new sole tenancy has been granted in the name of the victim. As presently drafted, the Bill would not cover this situation. Yet I have been advised that this is invariably what happens in the few cases where there is a joint tenancy and the perpetrator is removed by the local authority so that he does not benefit from the abuse by driving his victim from the home. This makes sense because otherwise the perpetrator could give notice to quit and terminate the joint tenancy at some future date, thereby depriving his victim of her rights. What if she dies? That would enable the perpetrator to move back in and continue as an old-style secure tenant, a question raised by my noble friend. I cannot believe that the Government would want that. Indeed, in their recent consultation on improving access to social housing for victims of domestic abuse, they propose that new guidance should strongly encourage local authorities to use their existing powers to support tenants who are the victims of abuse to stay in their homes if they wish to. The consultation recognises that they may well wish to, to avoid the upheaval that fleeing would have on their lives and, I would add, on the lives of their children. I therefore urge the Minister to look at this again and bring forward an amendment in Committee, because otherwise I will do so.

In addition, I would be grateful if he could answer a number of questions about the Bill, either now or, if need be, in a subsequent letter. First, can he confirm that the Bill will cover an abuse victim who gives up a secure tenure with one local authority and flees to a different one? According to Women’s Aid’s latest annual survey, more than two-thirds of women resident in a refuge on one day in 2017 had come from a different local authority area. Again, this would be consistent with the proposal in the recent consultation document that the guidance would strongly encourage local authorities to exempt from any residency requirements victims of domestic abuse who have fled from another area.

Secondly, when drawing up guidance for local authorities, will the Government consider the recommendations of Women’s Aid concerning the evidence requirements for accessing the domestic abuse exemption and specialist training for local housing officers who will apply it? They propose that the domestic violence gateway for legal aid could be used as a starting point for developing any evidence requirements. As for specialist training, the research to which I referred showed just how necessary it is. Moreover, Article 15 of the Istanbul convention requires relevant professionals dealing with victims or perpetrators of violence against women and domestic violence to receive adequate training.

My third question concerns the regulations on new lifetime tenancies, to which the Minister referred. In his letter to me of 24 October 2016, he stated that these regulations would cover other groups at risk of harm in their current social home and that there would be a consultation on them. In an earlier Written Answer, he suggested that the circumstances in which local authorities may exercise discretion might include tenants who downsize into a smaller home. Here, I emphasise those affected by the bedroom tax. Will he tell us where the department has got to on this and which other groups he envisages will be covered? In particular, during the passage of the Bill the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, confirmed to me that consideration would be given to,

“whether the circumstances should include tenants with severe disabilities, mobility issues or significant care needs, as well as those who need to give or receive care”.—[Official Report, 14/3/16; col. 1715.]

Will he confirm that they will indeed be covered? Our concerns about the loss of security of tenure under the Act remain. My noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark will probably say a bit more about that later, but at the very least it is important that local authorities have the necessary discretion to minimise its impact on these other vulnerable groups.

Finally, Women’s Aid makes the important point that the Bill’s goal of improving housing security for domestic abuse survivors is threatened by other areas of government policy. To reassure the Minister, I do not intend to try to amend the Bill to address these concerns, but given that this is a Second Reading they need to be placed on the record. First, the proposed devolution to local areas of responsibility and resourcing for domestic abuse refuges, which he made sound like rather a wonderful nirvana coming towards us, will, they warn, have a catastrophic impact on refuges and, therefore, their ability to help protect women’s housing security. Particular concerns have been raised that it could mark the end of specialist services for BME, disabled or otherwise marginalised groups of women who are already suffering under the localism model—a concern already raised back in 2015 by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I was then a member.

The JCHR also raised a number of concerns about the possible impact of so-called welfare reform on women subject to domestic abuse—in particular, the payment of universal credit into a single bank account. This could exacerbate financial abuse, which I am very pleased to see is included in the Bill’s definition of domestic abuse. Other concerns raised by Women’s Aid include the impact of the lower benefit cap, the two-child limit and the application of the underoccupation charge to move-on accommodation without any transitional protection.

I am sure these are issues to which we will return in the context of the forthcoming domestic abuse legislation. For now, I am very happy that we are able to give our full support to this Bill in principle. Once again, I thank the Minister for bringing it forward.

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[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in what has been an excellent debate across a range of issues connected with domestic abuse, sometimes going quite a bit further than the targeted and specific Bill before us. However, I will try to do justice to the contributions that have been made. Where I do not do so, either through lack of time, or more likely through lack of knowledge, I will make sure that those points are covered in correspondence to noble Lords and place a copy in the Library.

As many noble Lords have said, the evil and scourge of domestic abuse has come to the fore only relatively recently in the graphic terms it has. I am sure that in all quarters of the House, and indeed throughout the country, this issue is now very high on people’s agendas. As noble Lords have noted, most graphically the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, the Prime Minister is very much wedded to ensuring that action is taken in this area to tackle what, as I say, is a real scourge. That point was also made by my noble friends Lady Hodgson and Lady Bertin, by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester in a powerful contribution, and indeed by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. If this is what she can do on a day trip, imagine what she could do on a longer-term posting. I am not sure that the Labour Party will have the sense to ensure that that happens, but there we are. It has been a very good day’s work, if that is what it is—in all honesty, I think it has been more than that.

I also pay tribute to all the domestic abuse services throughout the country. I have seen some excellent examples of what has been done by local authorities over the last year to 18 months in Liverpool, Newcastle, Norwich, Fenland, Hampshire, London and elsewhere. I also pay tribute, as others have, to the work of some of our partner bodies: Refuge, Women’s Aid and many others that have worked incredibly hard on this area.

I thank noble Lords for their support for this targeted Bill. I repeat that it is very targeted—laser-like, almost. It is something I would like to see us bank. That is not to say that the other issues are not important, but to get this on to the statute book we have to keep it tight. That said, questions have been raised about the particular issue the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised on termination of a joint tenancy and somebody staying in the property. That is something I would like to have a look at, as I have indicated to her. Perhaps she and I, together with officials, could look to see a way forward there. I undertake to do just that.

Let me try to deal with some of the questions raised. For those that I am unable to deal with I will ensure that full responses go to noble Lords, who I am sure will appreciate that some of the questions are well beyond the department’s brief and certainly well beyond my knowledge, but I will make sure that full responses come forward.

I will deal first with the regulations. The noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee, in particular raised this, but many others touched on it as well, such as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. As I said, we are working on those regulations. I will certainly cover in a letter to noble Lords exactly where we have got to on them. When the Housing and Planning Act went through I think we discussed one particular situation where people downsize. That is certainly something that we would want to cover. I will make sure that noble Lords are updated on that ahead of Committee.

I was also asked by various noble Lords about evidential requirements. I am always grateful for noble Lords exaggerating my powers, but I do not think I am in a position to pontificate on precise evidential requirements that come forward relating to establishing domestic abuse. This is something that local authorities have to identify. I will certainly cover this again in a letter, but the legislation deliberately does not go into this because those decisions are currently being made, as far as the department can see, very effectively. Obviously practice will vary from area to area, but this is a matter that is dealt with at present.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. I do not think anyone is suggesting that it should be put in the legislation but, given that there has been a consultation on guidance to local authorities, which someone said has just ended, would it not be appropriate for that guidance to include guidance to local authorities about how to implement this Bill and the evidence they should be looking for? I think that is what noble Lords were saying.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. As I said, this is something local authorities are doing already. They have to make decisions about identification of domestic abuse at present without this legislation. I am saying that the legislation is not altering the position. I will happily cover that in the letter, if I may.

There was a question regarding training for local authorities. Training goes on at the moment. The new code of guidance on homelessness will advise local authorities about the need to have appropriate policies and training in place. We provide funding to the National Homelessness Advice Service to provide training, which is taken up by many—probably most—local authorities. For example, we provided funding to the National Practitioner Support Service for domestic abuse awareness training for front-line housing staff in 2016. That trained 232 front-line housing staff across nine English regions. In addition, a number of local authorities used funding from our £20 million fund for specialist accommodation-based support and service reform to meet the priorities for domestic abuse services to provide training programmes. So training is going on at the moment. Again, I will expand on that in the letter that I will ensure goes to noble Lords.

Broader questions were raised, many of which I can understand and empathise with. The noble Lord, Lord Porter, said that I would have been disappointed if he did not raise the issue of supply. I am not sure that “disappointed” is the mot juste, but he is right that I would have been surprised. Clearly, there is an issue of supply, so perhaps I would have been disappointed; we cannot be complacent about the supply of housing across the piece, and we need to look at that.

Other noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Farmer, Lady Manzoor and Lady Hodgson, raised broader questions about the need to ensure that this agenda is carried forward however hard pressed the legislative programme is. I certainly agree with that and give the undertaking that the Government will do so, because it is absolutely at the forefront of our thinking.

The noble Baroness, Lady Burt, raised some pertinent questions, some of which were picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is right that there is power in present legislation for perpetrators of domestic abuse to be forced out of the premises in question. I will endeavour to find out how that is being used, because, as noble Lords indicated, there is clearly a question about how effective it is. I will see what statistics we have and ensure that whatever evidence we have comes round before Committee stage. It is a valid point: we are tending here, understandably, to focus on the victim, but we want not to advantage the perpetrator of the domestic abuse. Often—perhaps not as often as one would like—there will be criminal proceedings and the perpetrator will end up in prison, but there is not any guarantee of that. As we know, some domestic abuse is more insidious; it is not always direct, physical violence, so I accept that there are issues of evidence and proof. I will see what I can find on that, because it is important to look at this issue further.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I think it is fair to say that in the debate this afternoon there were two groups of issues. One group covers a wider area and is probably not in scope for amendments and stuff, but there are some other points where noble Lords raised some practical issues about the legislation and how we go forward with things. I am sure that the noble Lord will be available to meet Members of the House to discuss these. We do not want to get the Bill on the statute book and find ourselves, six months down the line, thinking, “If we had only put a little amendment in, this could have solved another problem”. I think that some of the issues raised around the House deserve further attention before Committee.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I was not quite sure what the Minister meant when he talked about the current consultation. Did he go on to answer the specific questions of a number of noble Lords about what happens if, say, someone who has a tenancy in Luton leaves and goes to Leicester? Will this apply to them when they get to Leicester?

Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [HL]

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert “the same or”

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 1 and speak to Amendment 3, in my name and those of a number of other noble Lords.

The purpose of the two amendments combined is to ensure that the welcome protection this Bill provides to survivors of domestic abuse who give up a secure tenancy covers those who remain in their home and who are granted a new sole tenancy in place of an existing joint tenancy. I am not a lawyer or a housing expert, but I am fortunate in that my good friend Andrew Arden QC is both, and I am grateful to him and his colleague Justin Bates for their help with this amendment.

The amendment addresses a lacuna in the Bill identified by a number of noble Lords at Second Reading. The Minister responded positively with the undertaking to meet to see whether we could find a way forward. True to his word, we met the next day. However, unlike the Minister, the wheels of government move rather slowly and so, while I am confident that we will find a way forward, in the meantime it falls to me to suggest what that way forward might look like.

Before I restate the case, I will say a word again about terminology. First, as some of us noted at Second Reading, while it is true that men as well as women can suffer domestic abuse, women are the main victims, especially of the most serious and sustained forms of abuse; it is thus women who are most likely to have to give up a tenancy because of it. Women’s Aid reminds us of the importance of retaining a gendered understanding of domestic abuse in its various forms. I would like to thank Women’s Aid for all its support on the Bill and pay tribute to its work on behalf of victims of domestic abuse.

Secondly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, rightly observed at Second Reading, the language of victims gives a false impression of,

“passivity in the face of ill treatment”.—[Official Report, 9/1/18; col.139.]

Yes, we are talking about victims of domestic abuse, but these victims are also survivors with agency.

We tend to talk about women fleeing domestic abuse because that is the most common scenario, as a woman escapes a harmful and dangerous situation and tries to find a place of safety, often in a refuge and often in another local authority area—the subject of the next amendments. But there are cases where the perpetrator is removed by the local authority or the police. Indeed, I heard of just such a case last week where the police had removed the perpetrator. Interestingly, it would appear to be government policy to encourage this where it is safe for the woman to remain in the home and she does not want to leave it. This is partly to avoid the upheaval involved in moving home, and—even under the old legislation—a desire not to lose the security of an existing secure tenancy.

Women’s Aid quotes a key worker from Solace Women’s Aid who told researchers that many of the women with whom she worked were reluctant to leave a secure tenancy and that some would take massive risks rather than give it up. Where children are involved, we should not underestimate the impact of frequent moves on them, their schooling, their friendships and their general sense of security and belonging. The policy to encourage removal of the perpetrator, where safe to do so, is also motivated by a desire to prevent him from benefiting from the abuse by driving his partner from the home, as spelled out in the recent consultation document, Improving Access to Social Housing for Victims of Domestic Abuse. This concern was raised by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours at Second Reading, when he talked about possible “unintended consequences” where a perpetrator might remain in the home. I suspect it is a situation that might become more common, even if we are talking at present about a very small minority—and even if it is a small minority, minorities matter.

Where it is the perpetrator who leaves the home and there is a joint tenancy, I am advised that it is usual practice for a new sole tenancy to be granted in the name of the survivor. As I pointed out at Second Reading, this make sense, because otherwise the perpetrator could give notice to quit and terminate the joint tenancy at some future date, thereby depriving his victim of both her rights and any real sense of security. And what if she dies? This would enable the perpetrator to move back in and continue as an old-style secure tenant, which would make a mockery of this law.

It was clear at Second Reading that this would be a totally uncontroversial amendment, which would have the support of all parts of your Lordships’ House. I hope, therefore, that the Minister—who has throughout been most supportive on the issue—will be able to give the House an assurance that he will be able to bring forward his own amendment on Report. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I reiterate our strong support for the Bill from these Benches, in the expectation that the Government will be willing either to accept these amendments or to bring forward their own on Report. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, referred to these amendments representing a solution to a lacuna in the Bill. I think that she is entirely right and I support all the points that she has made. Put simply, this has raised the very important issue of what a secure tenancy is. Now we will be in a position—assuming the Government do come back on Report with their own amendment—to ensure the right of victims to stay in their existing home, in the case of a joint tenancy, in addition to being able to move home, which is provided for in the Bill. So I declare our support for both Amendments 1 and 3.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, very much indeed for bringing forward this amendment and for her positive engagement on this issue. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Kennedy, and my noble friend Lady Manzoor who spoke in support of the amendment. I absolutely understand and support the intention of Amendments 1 and 3 to extend the Bill to offer protection not just to tenants seeking to escape domestic abuse but to those who remain in their existing home after the perpetrator has left. That issue was discussed at Second Reading. I absolutely support that intention.

Amendment 1 seeks to extend the Bill so that it applies where a local authority grants a further tenancy to a lifetime tenant in the same home. I listened carefully to the debate at Second Reading and I have found this further discussion in Committee very useful. Granting a further “sole” lifetime tenancy to survivors of domestic abuse who remain in their current home would go further than the original purpose of the Bill, which was to ensure that lifetime tenants were protected where they had to leave their home. However, I recognise that there is a strong, indeed overwhelming, case for ensuring that lifetime tenants who have suffered domestic abuse—I absolutely accept that usually these victims are women—and remain in their home are given the same level of protection as those who have been forced to leave. That is logical and sensible. It would safeguard against the perpetrator bringing the joint tenancy to an end—either tenant may terminate a joint tenancy by serving a notice to quit—or returning to the property. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, made a very forceful point in that regard. It would also be in line with the Government’s wider policy of ensuring that victims of abuse and their families are provided with the stability and security that they need and deserve.

As I said at Second Reading, protecting victims of domestic abuse is a priority for the Prime Minister and the Government. However, while I am sympathetic to the intention behind these amendments, I do not think that they would work in practice as they presume that a local authority would be able to grant a secure tenancy where the tenant has an assured housing association tenancy—that is, in a property which the local authority does not own. This is because a “qualifying tenancy” in the Bill includes both secure local authority and assured housing association tenancies. This point is relatively technical but nevertheless important in terms of the amendment.

In addition, the link to removing the risk of further abuse is maintained. This may not be the most appropriate test where the victim remains in the home and the perpetrator has moved out. However, I am able to give an absolute undertaking that we will bring forward an amendment—or amendments, if necessary—on Report that will meet the intention behind these amendments and ensure that, where local authorities offer a new tenancy to a lifetime tenant in their own home, this must be a further lifetime tenancy where the tenant is a victim of domestic abuse.

I am very happy to work with the noble Baroness and other noble Lords to achieve what we clearly all want in this regard. I hope that the commitment I am giving to extend the Bill to include tenants who remain in their homes will give noble Lords and the noble Baroness the reassurance they seek. As I say, I will be very happy to work with noble Lords in this regard. On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in support of the amendment. In particular, I am extremely grateful to the Minister. I am very happy with his reassurance. As I said, I am neither a housing expert nor a lawyer, so I will certainly not argue about technicalities. The Minister has given a very firm commitment, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of the Local Government Association and as the leader of South Holland District Council. I put on record my personal support and the wider sector’s support for the Bill. I am not aware of any council in the country that would want to resist any of the good proposals in the Bill. However, as the Minister said earlier on the previous set of amendments, and as the noble Lord opposite just raised, there is an anomaly between types of landlord. While the Government may not be able to compel registered social landlords to offer like-for-like tenancies, given that most registered social landlords use taxpayers’ money to build those homes in the first place, perhaps the Minister could find a form of words that would give some form of encouragement to anybody who is expecting to get taxpayer-funded properties of the expectation that they would voluntarily put their properties into a scheme that allowed secure tenancies for victims of domestic abuse if they should happen to flee to an area where the council is not the primary landlord.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I support this amendment. Towards the end of Second Reading I questioned the Minister about this issue during his summing up. He responded:

“The intention is for the legislation to cover that”.—[Official Report, 9/1/18; col. 161.]


Later on he said that,

“it is central to the legislation that we want to cover the Luton-to-Leicester situation”,

that I had referred to. I invite the Minister to say something rather more definitive now, because “intention” and “want” seem to me, as a non-lawyer, perhaps not to give quite the reassurance that somebody in this situation might look for in the legislation. Therefore, if it is necessary to spell it out more explicitly in the legislation, perhaps the Minister could give a commitment to come back on that on Report, or, at the very least, if the legislation covers it now, he could make a more explicit statement at this stage.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on Amendment 2. I will try to deal with the various points that have, understandably, been raised on this. The amendment aims to ensure that the requirement to offer a lifetime tenancy would apply where the victim of domestic abuse applies to be rehoused in another local authority district.

Before I come on to that specific issue, I will deal with the housing association point that was made. I agree with the summary of where we are at the moment that was provided by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and I take the point he made about the gap. My noble friend Lord Porter also addressed this issue and asked me—kindly exaggerating my powers and talking them up—to come up with a form of words on housing associations. We covered this point to some extent at Second Reading, when I said that housing associations are of course now bodies that we cannot give directions to without compromising the position of being off balance sheet and that therefore the legislation has been designed with that very much in mind. That said, of course the Government are totally sympathetic to that position. If I may, I would like to come back on Report and say something in relation to this issue, but I do not want to hold out the hope of being able to do anything other than possibly indicating what we think is a morally defensible position.

I move on to the very specific and fair point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, in relation to the legislation. My background is as a lawyer and I think I can say without fear of contradiction that this drafting provides for moving from, for example, Luton to Leicester. That is very much the intention and the reality of this legislation. We recognise that in many, although not all, cases that is exactly what somebody will seek to do—they will not want to remain in their local authority area because of the nature of the domestic abuse and the possibility of the perpetrator being in that area, there being difficult memories and so on. Therefore, this proposed provision is totally unnecessary —I will not say ineffective—because that is what the legislation provides for. I want to nail that down and, on that basis, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to withdraw his amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

4: Clause 1, page 1, line 15, at end insert—
“(2AA) The Secretary of State must by regulations issue guidance as to— (a) the identification of persons entitled to be offered a tenancy under subsection (2A) including the evidence required of domestic abuse, and(b) the training of local authority officials in matters relevant to the exercise of the duties of local authorities under subsection (2A).(2AB) Before issuing the guidance the Secretary of State must consult such persons and the representatives of such persons as he or she considers appropriate.(2AC) Regulations under this section shall be made by statutory instrument and may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to ensure that, after consultation, the Government issue guidance to local authorities about, first, the identification of survivors of domestic abuse entitled to a new old-style secure tenancy under the Bill, including appropriate evidence requirements, and, secondly, the training of local authority officials who will be responsible for the exercise of the duties contained in the Bill.

The amendment is tabled jointly with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who I do not think is in her place today but to whom I am grateful for her help with its drafting and for her general support on the Bill. It is tabled also with the support of my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark.

Our aim in tabling it was to enable a proper, focused discussion on two issues raised at Second Reading by a number of noble Lords: evidence requirements and training. These are concerns raised by Women’s Aid, which, although giving the Bill a warm welcome, nevertheless has warned that, for its goal to be achieved, it is crucial that new guidance is issued to local authorities on these two matters.

Our focus is mainly on the question of evidence but I repeat the point that I made at Second Reading: that the poor treatment of some domestic abuse survivors by housing officers—sometimes, according to research, portraying victim-blaming attitudes—indicates that, despite what the Minister said in his helpful letter to Peers, there is still some way to go to ensure that all officials exercising such responsibilities are adequately trained. That is particularly the case given the welcome wide definition of “abuse” in the Bill, as concepts such as controlling behaviour and emotional, financial or psychological abuse are, I believe, still not widely understood. Such training for relevant professionals is, after all, required by Article 15 of the Istanbul convention.

Turning to the question of evidence, at Second Reading the Minister responded to concerns raised by pointing out that identifying survivors of domestic abuse is something that local authorities are doing already and that this legislation does not alter that. In his letter to Peers, he repeated the point and referred to the updated homelessness code of practice, which, he said, will provide extensive advice to help local authorities to handle cases that involve domestic abuse, including on what sort of corroborative evidence might be appropriate. However, unless I have missed something, as far as I can see, the draft homelessness code, on which the Government have recently consulted, simply says that housing authorities may,

“wish to seek information from friends and relatives of the applicant, social services and the police, as appropriate. In some cases, corroborative evidence of actual or threatened violence may not be available, for example, because there were no adult witnesses and/or the applicant was too frightened or ashamed to report incidents to family, friends or the police”.

I do not consider that extensive guidance, and it comes nowhere near what Women’s Aid is recommending.

Women’s Aid’s experience and research suggests considerable inconsistency in how local authorities exercise their current responsibilities towards survivors of domestic abuse. In a small number of cases in a study which tracked 404 women unable to access a refuge space in 2016-17, the housing authority did not consider domestic abuse to be a significant risk factor meriting a homelessness application. Women’s Aid cites examples of women being told to return to the perpetrator or to come back when the situation got worse. It argues persuasively that it is crucial that there is clear national guidance as to how to apply this legislation.

A key area is what constitutes appropriate evidence. In particular, Women’s Aid argues that such evidence should not be confined to that arising from interaction with the criminal justice system because most women experiencing domestic abuse do not report to the police and may have little or no contact with the criminal justice system. As I suggested at Second Reading, the revised evidence requirements for the legal aid domestic violence gateway offer one possible model, as it has been significantly widened to include evidence from health professionals, domestic abuse services and refuges. However this is not exhaustive, and in a note on evidence requirements which I have passed to officials, Women’s Aid provides a list of other possible sources of evidence which could be included in guidance, but again emphasises that these should not be presented as prescriptive or exhaustive.

The amendment also provides for there to be consultation prior to the issue of such guidance. This should go beyond the usual written consultation document seeking responses to a set of written questions. It would be useful, too, for officials to sit down with those who work with survivors of domestic abuse, such as Women’s Aid. Ideally, it might also be helpful to hear from survivors who have had experience of trying to prove they have suffered domestic abuse. Increasingly there is recognition of the value of listening to what is sometimes called “experts by experience”.

As I have said, although the Minister initially responded that he did not believe additional guidance was necessary, I welcome the fact that he has an open mind on this. In his letter he said:

“We will certainly consider whether it would be helpful to provide further guidance in the context of this Bill”.


I hope that today’s debate will persuade him of the case for doing so and that he and officials will find it helpful when considering such further guidance. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My noble friend Lady Hamwee has put her name to this amendment but at present she has to be elsewhere in the House.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, that this is an important amendment. It is important that the Government consult on how local authorities should collect evidence and on how their officials should be trained. The two issues are closely related.

Perhaps I may give an example of a problem that could arise if procedures are not properly understood by staff in a local authority. Consider the case of a housing association tenant in one local authority area moving to another local authority area—possibly some long distance away—and having to request rehousing by that other local authority, not by a housing association. This raises issues of the collection of evidence and an understanding of the statutory responsibility of that new local authority to give assistance. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has explained the issue clearly and I hope the Government are prepared to consult widely to ensure that the guidance is better than it might otherwise be. It will be crucial in assisting local authority officers to fulfil their statutory duties.

In terms of the training needed on what evidence is required, housing officers will need to understand that victims of abuse may have difficulty presenting essential evidence. The ability to listen and to obtain relevant information will be very important. For that reason, I have been thinking about how the training might be organised. I would suggest that local authorities should not try to do it all by themselves. Given that there are many local housing authorities in England, would it not be better if they were brought together to organise training in this area across boundaries? There are two benefits in that. It would lead to better and more professional training, and it would enable staff from different councils to meet each other, as well as enabling the staff of local authorities and housing associations to do so. That informal communication will help in a case that is particularly difficult or complex.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and other noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this amendment, which relates to evidence and training. I understand what has motivated the amendment. I will deal with where we are at the moment and then what I propose to do in relation to it.

Local authorities are used to making decisions when people apply for social housing that require them to identify whether the applicant has been a victim of domestic abuse. While the Bill includes important protections for victims, it does not require local authorities to make decisions relating to domestic abuse which may be qualitatively different from those they already make. We have ensured that the definition of domestic abuse in the Bill is on very similar lines to the definition in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. This should help to ensure a consistent approach by local authorities. I appreciate that this is not the main point that has been made on consistency, but there is an issue here that it is important to address.

As the noble Baroness set out, the current 2014 statutory homelessness guidance recognises that local authorities may wish to seek information from a range of sources, including friends and relatives, social services and the police, but it also recognises that corroborative evidence of actual or threatened violence may not be available. That is a point that the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, made—I was going to call him my noble friend; he is my friend, but not my noble friend—that corroborative evidence will often not be available, for example, because there were no adult witnesses and maybe because the applicant was too frightened or ashamed to report incidents to family, friends or the police. These are issues that I recognise do exist.

As the noble Baroness again pointed out, we have had a consultation on an updated homelessness code of guidance. It finished on 11 December last year. It will cover the Homelessness Reduction Act duties, integrate separate documents published since 2006, and update and streamline guidance on existing law. The consultative draft provides extensive advice to help local authorities handle cases that involve domestic abuse, including on what sort of corroborative evidence might be appropriate. This final code of guidance will be published in spring this year. I will of course ensure that noble Lords who participated in the debate receive a copy of it as it is made available.

In addition, I was very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for drawing my attention and that of the House to the domestic violence gateway for legal aid during Second Reading and for forwarding me a document prepared by Women’s Aid on evidence requirements regarding victims of domestic abuse, which I consider very helpful. In addition to the consultation and the evidence brought forward on the responses to it, I am ensuring that we consider the documents supplied by Women’s Aid with the other responses. I will be taking a close personal interest in the development of the code, as will the Minister in the Commons, my honourable friend Heather Wheeler, who is responsible for policy in this area.

The consultative draft of the homelessness code of guidance also advises local authorities about the need to have appropriate policies and training in place to identify and respond to domestic abuse. It advises that specialist training for staff and managers on domestic abuse will help them to provide a more sensitive response and to identify, with applicants, housing options that are safe and appropriate to their needs. In addition, the Government already provide funding to the National Homelessness Advisory Service to provide training on homelessness. This includes training specifically on domestic abuse.

We have provided funding to the National Practitioner Support Service to provide domestic abuse awareness training for front-line housing staff in local authorities in 2016, resulting in the training of 232 front-line housing staff across nine English regions. I recognise the point made, inter alia, by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, about the need for consistency in ensuring that we have a national approach. I will ensure that that is fed in to the consultation.

In addition, a number of local authorities used funding from our 2016-18 £20 million fund for specialist accommodation-based support and service reform to meet the priorities for domestic abuse services to provide training programmes for their front-line staff. Much of the training is collaborative.

I do not believe that it is necessary to issue formal guidance to local authorities to support them to implement the Bill, but, as I have said, I accept the point about the need for consistency in training and will want to see that reflected in the guidance. It would not be helpful for local housing authorities to have different pieces of guidance on domestic abuse; we need to bring them together, as we are doing in this case.

With the undertaking to ensure that the Women’s Aid document is considered in relation to the guidance—I will also ensure that our debate in Committee is available as a further document in relation to the guidance— I respectfully ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment. Although very good points have been made in relation to it, I remind noble Lords that this legislation has a laser-like focus on specific issues. Nevertheless, the department finds input on this very valuable and I will ensure that it is carried forward in relation to development of the code.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and made helpful points to amplify the case that I put forward. I am grateful also to the Minister for engaging with the points made, as is his wont. I do not think that anyone is saying that there should be two separate sets of guidance—obviously, it makes sense to put them together—but what we are saying is that the existing guidance does not go far enough. It would need to go further anyway, but this Bill has helped point to that fact.

I am pleased that the Minister will look at what Women’s Aid has submitted. It would be helpful if at some stage officials could sit down with members of Women’s Aid to talk through some of the issues, because you can get a lot more out of face-to-face conversations than from something simply in writing. Perhaps the Minister might like to respond on that.

Given that later this year—no one quite knows when—we will see not just a domestic violence Bill but policy around it, thought might be given to how central government monitors the effectiveness of the current domestic violence legislation in relation to housing to make sure that the evidence requirements and the training are going well. At present, there seems to be a big gap between the theory of what local authorities are supposed to be doing and the practice. All of us want to see that gap narrowed. We should not have to rely on Women’s Aid, which has very few resources and probably fewer in future, to do that kind of monitoring. Although the Minister cannot obviously give a commitment, he might at least say that that would be considered.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I am certainly very happy to meet with Women’s Aid, as I have in the past, and other organisations such as Refuge, Imkaan and so on. It is an open agenda, and this could well be on the agenda. Officials would as a matter of course be at the meeting as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I thank the Minister. I hope that he will also think about or take back the question about monitoring—I do not expect an answer from him now. Given those assurances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, this simple amendment tackles the issue of what happens when someone becomes liable for the underoccupancy deduction, colloquially known as the bedroom tax, either as a result of the perpetrator having been removed from the household or the victim being allocated a new property which has technically too many bedrooms and qualifies for the underoccupancy deduction. The bedroom tax has been estimated to affect more than 400,000 households. We know that it does not apply to women in a refuge and, following the Court of Appeal decision, that it does not apply when someone has had a panic room installed. However, a problem frequently arises when a new local authority seeks to place a woman, and potentially her children, in new housing.

I agree with Women’s Aid, which considers that a victim rehoused with a secure tenancy because she has escaped or is escaping domestic abuse should not be impacted by the underoccupation deduction if it is set to apply as a result of her no longer living with the perpetrator. Women’s Aid has also received evidence from its member services that the bedroom tax is resulting in challenges in securing move-on accommodation. One refuge that secured move-on accommodation for a survivor, under time pressure from local authority specifications that state that refuges can house women only for four months and so have limited time to source appropriate move-on accommodation, received a note saying she would lose £50 a week because of the underoccupation deduction. Such significant financial losses have a severe impact on the ability of women to secure permanent housing after fleeing abuse and may result in many women choosing financial security over safety.

Will the Minister please reflect on this situation, which is likely to affect only a very small number of households? Even if it could be allowed for a transition period, it could save further misery, and potentially further risk, for victims who have already suffered enough.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support the amendment and would have put my name to it had I known about it. The noble Baroness has made a very strong case. I will not go into a riff about the bedroom tax and keep noble Lords here for the rest of the night—my noble friend Lady Sherlock and I could do a duet on it. The point is that we could undermine the very good intentions of legislation such as this if women are afraid that they are going to be hit by the bedroom tax if either the perpetrator leaves or they leave. This points to the importance of looking at this across departments and doing something about it. Even if something cannot be done now, can it be taken back and put into the pot of thinking about domestic violence strategy?

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Burt’s amendment. She has made a very strong case and it is an extremely important issue on which guidance, at the very least, will be needed. I think there is a preferable option, which is to put it on the face of the Bill. Whichever approach the Government adopt, I understand there have been suggestions that the Government accept the aim of this policy. I very much hope that they will, but can the Minister confirm that the Government understand the importance, for a limited number of individuals—that is what it will turn out to be—of the Government taking action on this point? It is very important for them.

Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [HL]

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, before I speak to the amendments in my name, and with the permission of the House, I will say a few words about a number of issues which arose during debates in Committee, and which I undertook to speak to again on Report.

During the debate, I said that I would like to come back on Report and say something in relation to housing associations. I appreciate that noble Lords desire to see parity for tenants of local authorities and housing associations, but it is important to be clear that the organisations are very different. They are subject to different drivers and challenges. Local authorities are public sector organisations, and in future they will generally be required by law to give fixed-term tenancies. Housing associations, on the other hand, are private, not-for-profit bodies and will continue to have the freedom to offer lifetime tenancies where they think them appropriate. The vast majority of housing associations are charities whose charitable objectives require the organisation to put tenants at the heart of everything that they do. Their purpose is to provide and manage homes for people in housing need.

Many associations take their responsibilities for people fleeing domestic violence very seriously. For example, two leading housing associations, Peabody and Gentoo, have set up the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance together with Standing Together Against Domestic Violence, a UK charity bringing communities together to end domestic abuse. Their mission is to improve the housing sector’s response to domestic abuse through the introduction and adoption of an established set of standards and an accreditation process.

Housing associations play a critical role in delivering the homes that we need. They can help provide a home for people fleeing domestic abuse only if they have the homes to put them in. This means ensuring they remain in the private sector able to borrow funding free of public sector spending guidelines. Unnecessary control risks reversing the ONS classification of housing associations as private sector organisations.

On the issue of doctors’ fees, which I know the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will also return to later, the noble Lord raised the issue of letters of evidence of domestic abuse. In my response I said that as data subjects, which we all are under the Data Protection Act, individuals can lawfully ask to be provided with their medical records without charge, thus obviating the need for a letter altogether. As I said at the time, I had not had very long to look at the issue and would like to take the opportunity to clarify the statement.

It is true that, as a data subject, an individual can ask to be provided with a copy of their medical records. From 25 May this year, when the General Data Protection Regulation becomes directly applicable, a data subject—that is, an individual—cannot be charged a fee except where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, or where requests are made for further copies of the same information, in which case the fee must be reasonable and based on the administrative cost of providing the information. Therefore, the law as it will stand when this Bill comes into force will allow a victim to make a request for their records and not to be charged. However, the law on data protection as it stands at present allows an administrative charge to be made. Currently, the Subject Access Code of Practice states that a GP may charge a maximum fee of up to £10 if the information is held electronically, or up to £50 if it is held either wholly or partly in non-electronic form.

I thank the House for letting me put the record straight on this point. I think many of us feel that it is a very germane issue. I am sure that many GPs do not charge for this service—I should imagine that very few do. However, as a result of the exchange that we had and the general feeling that was evident, after looking at the issue I raised the matter with the Department of Health and Social Care in relation to a review of the doctors’ contract, because this issue is part of the doctors’ contract and I can understand that it would not want to look at this on its own. Successive Governments have looked at doctors’ contracts and obviously grouped issues together, but I know that the department will look at this. I have raised it with the department. The House will want to know that the process of looking at representations about the doctors’ contract commences in April this year, as I understand it, so the department will be able to take that issue on board very shortly.

During both Second Reading and Committee, we discussed co-operation between England and the devolved Administrations where victims of domestic abuse need to move from one country to another within the United Kingdom. I said that I intended to raise this at the next meeting of the devolved Administrations round table, which is to be held in Cardiff on 19 April. I can tell the House that I have written to my opposite numbers in the devolved Administrations to ask that this issue is put on the agenda for the April meeting in Cardiff. In particular, I have let them know that I would like to explore whether we could develop a joint concordat or memorandum of understanding between the four countries of the United Kingdom on our approach to social housing and cases of domestic abuse. I will be very happy to report back on that issue after the meeting on 19 April.

The next issue that I undertook to look at during Report was in relation to training. During Committee, noble Lords discussed training of local authority officials who will be responsible for the exercise of the duties contained in the Bill. I accepted the points raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, regarding the need for consistency in training to ensure that victims of abuse get the support they need from front-line staff, which I shared with officials responsible for the homelessness code of guidance consultation. I also set out the numerous ways in which the Government are supporting local authorities to train their front-line staff to ensure consistency, including the funding we provided to the National Practitioner Support Service for domestic abuse awareness training in 2016, which resulted in the training of 232 front-line housing staff across nine English regions and the production of an online toolkit, and to the National Homelessness Advice Service—the NHAS—to provide training, which included courses covering domestic abuse and homelessness. This NHAS training is being updated to reflect the Homelessness Reduction Act, and we will ensure that the revised material draws attention to the strengthened guidance on domestic abuse contained in the new code of guidance.

I add that we have since published the updated statutory homeless guidance on 22 February. In case noble Lords are unaware of that, I will circulate it to noble Lords who participated in the debate and will place a copy in the Library. This will come into force at the same time as the Homelessness Reduction Act comes into force, on 3 April this year, so within a month. The guidance provides extensive advice to help local authorities handle cases that involve domestic abuse, including having appropriate policies and training in place to identify and respond to domestic abuse.

Amendments 1 to 4 are in my name and in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee; I am grateful for the support. The Bill provides that local authority landlords must grant a lifetime tenancy if they decide to rehouse an existing lifetime tenant who needs to move because of domestic abuse or who has fled to escape domestic abuse. It delivers on the commitment made during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 to ensure that, where lifetime tenants move to escape domestic abuse, they will retain their security of tenure in their new social home. Where victims are still in their property and apply to move, they will also be covered by the Bill. However, we recognise that, where a victim has fled the property, she—it will generally be she, although it need not be—will be more vulnerable, first, because there may be situations in which she may be considered to have lost her security of tenure and, secondly, because she may have lost her lifetime tenancy altogether before she is rehoused.

To give examples of this, in the first case, where the victim has a sole tenancy the local authority may consider that the tenancy is no longer secure on the basis that, having fled, she no longer occupies the property as her sole and principal home and has no intention to return. In the second case, where the victim has a joint tenancy, the joint tenant who remains in the property may have brought the joint tenancy to an end, for example, because he—it will usually be he, although it need not be—can no longer cover the rent. This is likely to be most problematic for victims who spend a lengthy period elsewhere—for example, in a refuge or temporary accommodation—before they are rehoused, or where victims move to another local authority area.

As currently drafted, the Bill would not apply in these situations. That struck me as wrong. As I said previously, the Government’s aim in bringing forward the Bill is to remove an impediment that could prevent a victim leaving their abusive situation. However, it is not right that someone who takes the difficult decision to flee their home should by so doing risk losing the protection afforded by the Bill.

Amendment 1 will address this issue by extending the Bill to those who were previously lifetime tenants, as well as those who currently are lifetime tenants. Amendment 2 removes the requirement for the tenant to have applied to move, which is no longer necessary, consequent to Amendment 1, which recognises that the tenant may have left the previous tenancy some time ago.

Amendments 3 and 4 align the existing provisions in the Bill, which relate to victims moving to a new home, with the new provisions in Amendments 5, 7 and 8, which the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has tabled, and which relate to victims who remain in their home. This will ensure a consistent approach across the piece.

Amendment 3 makes clear that the domestic abuse must have been perpetrated by another person. This is included to prevent a perpetrator seeking to profit from the provisions in the Bill by asking for a new tenancy on the basis that someone in their household was abused by them. It is necessary to provide a link between the abuse and the granting of the new tenancy to avoid local authorities having to grant a lifetime tenancy with regard to historic domestic abuse that has no relevance to the current housing circumstances.

Amendment 4 brings the wording of the existing provision in line with that of the new provision to be introduced by Amendments 5, 7 and 8. This will ensure consistency across the Bill while retaining the necessary link between the new tenancy and the abuse. We think that this will make it easier for those who have to interpret the legislation—local authorities, victims of domestic abuse and their advisers. I hope that noble Lords will welcome these changes. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to be able to support these amendments. I shall speak briefly to Amendment 4 but will say a bit more about it when we come to the next group of amendments. The key issue here is to remove the notion of risk. Talking to Women’s Aid, it is clear that, in practice, having to prove risk creates unnecessary hurdles, and I can do no better than quote what it says in the briefing that it has provided for us:

“Women’s Aid has reported widely on the issues with a ‘risk-based’ approach to domestic abuse; static risk assessments fail to capture the changing risk and harm in these cases, and a risk based approach fails to provide appropriate support or meet the needs of victims assessed as ‘low’ or ‘medium’ risk”.


It makes the point that it places an even greater premium on good specialised training to be able to adequately assess risk in these circumstances. Therefore, I am delighted that the Minister was willing to make that change. As well as creating equivalence with the next amendment, I think that it improves the Bill overall.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my name is added to these amendments. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and thank the Minister for all the work that they have done.

I have just written a short piece on scrutiny and have written mostly about the need to engage with stakeholders and practitioners—people who know what they are talking about. Although I take great delight in asking whether “and” should be “or” and so on, that is not really the purpose of scrutiny. However, this seems to be a very good example of those who have experience of real situations working together to anticipate where there might be problems if the legislation is not changed, as it has been. Therefore, I congratulate them and feel rather privileged to have been able to tack my name on to these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

5: Clause 1, page 1, line 15, at end insert—
“(2AA) A local housing authority that grants a secure tenancy of a dwelling-house in England must grant an old-style secure tenancy if—(a) the tenancy is offered to a person who was a joint tenant of that dwelling-house under an old-style secure tenancy, and(b) the authority is satisfied that—(i) the person or a member of the person's household is or has been a victim of domestic abuse carried out by another person, and(ii) the new tenancy is granted for reasons connected with that abuse.”

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 5, I will speak also to Amendments 7 and 8, in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Their support underlines the fact that this is a genuinely cross-party amendment made possible by the willingness of the Minister to take on board the one substantive concern that we and the Liberal Democrat Benches have about the Bill: namely, that it did not afford protection to survivors of domestic violence who remain in their home and who are granted a new tenancy in place of an existing joint tenancy. It was extremely helpful that the Bill team was willing to engage with the lawyers advising me—Andrew Arden QC and Justin Bates; I am very grateful for their assistance—in reaching a form of wording for the amendment that was mutually satisfactory.

For the record, I want to note that the amendment I tabled in Committee was not technically deficient in the way that the Minister described. However, it did, as he pointed out, maintain an unintended link to removing the risk of further abuse. Happily, in doing so, it led me to question why that link was there at all because, as noted in relation to Amendment 4, there are problems with it. Women’s Aid then advised me that the inclusion of a reference to such a risk relies on housing officers being trained to recognise the potential ongoing risk a perpetrator may pose, which, as I said, can cause problems. I will return to the question of training in a moment, and I am grateful to the Minister for updating us on his thinking on it.

At this point, I too pay tribute to Women’s Aid, not just for the support it has provided on this Bill but for the vital work it does helping survivors of domestic abuse. It was good to hear the tribute from the Minister, and I am sure that Women’s Aid will very much appreciate it.

I will repeat briefly the case for the amendment. We tend to talk about women fleeing domestic violence, because that is the most common scenario: the woman escapes a harmful and dangerous situation and tries to find a place of safety, often in a refuge and often in another local authority area. But there are cases where the perpetrator is removed by the local authority or the police. Indeed, it would appear to be government policy to encourage this where it is safe for the woman to remain in the home and she does not want to leave it. This is partly to avoid the upheaval involved in moving home, for the women themselves and for their children, and, even under the old legislation, partly a desire not to lose the security of an existing secure tenancy. But the policy to encourage the removal of the perpetrator where safe to do so is also motivated by a desire to prevent him—we have noted at an early stage that it is usually “him”—from benefiting from the abuse by driving his partner from the home, as spelled out in the recent consultation document, Improving Access to Social Housing for Victims of Domestic Abuse.

I suspect it is a situation that might become more common, although we are talking very much about a small minority now. But even if it is a small minority, minorities matter. Where it is the perpetrator who leaves the home and there is a joint tenancy, I am advised that it is usual practice for a new sole tenancy to be granted in the name of the survivor. This amendment is crucial to protecting the rights of a survivor granted a sole tenancy in such circumstances, in line with the rights it affords to those who flee the home.

A theme running through our debate hitherto has been that in order to ensure that this very welcome legislation is effective, there needs to be adequate guidance to housing authorities and training for the officers who will be implementing it, as the Minister acknowledged earlier. At the outset he seemed to indicate that this was unnecessary because guidance and training already exist but, as is his wont, he listened and has taken on board the fact that there is considerable room for improvement in both, given the gap that exists between the theory of what is supposed to happen in local authorities and the practice of what actually happens when it comes to meeting the housing needs of domestic abuse survivors in a consistent and effective way. As a consequence, housing authorities’ responses can present barriers to survivors’ access to safety.

I was heartened when the Minister at an earlier stage said he would be taking a close personal interest in the development of the code and would consider the various submissions made by Women’s Aid and others. Officials have now had a constructive meeting with Women’s Aid to discuss this and its helpful note on training needs. Women’s Aid has emphasised to me the importance of consistency, and that requires good guidance and high-quality, comprehensive specialist training. A few examples of good practice, such as those highlighted by the Minister in Committee—welcome as they are—are not enough. Specialist training, it argues, needs to cover, among other things, the nature and impact of domestic abuse and coercive control; the links between domestic abuse and homelessness; identification of those subjected to it; recognition of the insidious effects of victim-blaming beliefs and attitudes; effective and safe practice, including risk assessment, multi-agency working and the importance of treating survivors with dignity and respect, which are crucial to a human rights culture.

On attitudes and appropriate treatment, I have learned from colleagues working in the area of poverty that the involvement of service users in training can be beneficial. A project involving people with experience of poverty in the training of social workers helped social workers understand much better what poverty means and how it can affect the people with whom they work and their behaviour. I was heartened by what the Home Secretary said in her recent Times article on the proposed domestic abuse strategy consultation. She said that,

“survivors and their children are at the heart of this consultation”,

and that,

“we will keep listening to experts and survivors”.

It is good to know that not all Ministers believe we have heard enough from experts.

However, my point is that survivors bring their own expertise to the table—expertise by experience. That expertise is invaluable both to the Government in developing their strategy—I hope that when they are developing their strategy, survivors of domestic abuse will be involved in the consultation—and to those being trained to assess the housing needs of survivors.

In Committee I raised the question of how the Government may monitor the effectiveness of this and other legislation in relation to the housing needs of domestic abuse survivors as part of the wider domestic abuse strategy. Perhaps the Minister can comment on that now.

Finally, I remind noble Lords that at Second Reading colleagues from around the House expressed concern about plans to change the funding base of refuges. In response to the opposition expressed by NGOs to the proposal for devolution of funding to local authorities—ring-fenced but, along with all short-term supported housing services, we do not know how long for—the Government have committed to considering all options. This is welcome, although it is disappointing that there was no mention of this in the Home Secretary’s Times article, which referred to the proposal in terms all too reminiscent of those used to justify the devolution of funds from the national social fund to the new local welfare assistance schemes, many of which are now being closed or drastically cut back. I do not expect the Minister to say anything about this at this stage but I hope he will take the message back to his colleagues both in his Ministry and the Home Office.

I have said more than enough, given the broad agreement on this amendment and the need to back it up with adequate guidance and training. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest in the register as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, and of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. They have done a great deal to secure what seems to be an agreed and agreeable outcome. The process in this Bill so far has been a good example of the House working at its best. I also want to pay tribute to Women’s Aid, in part because of the quality of its briefings and in particular for reminding us of the funding issues which still remain. I hope very much that the Minister will bear in mind the points that have been made by Women’s Aid.

I want to add only one or two points. In Committee I said that training is very important for this to work, and I was glad to hear the Minister refer to it in his opening remarks. To be effective, staff really will have to understand in great detail the processes that they should be following. I cite in particular the example of where a victim moves between local authorities with possibly a significant distance between the two. We need effective systems and networks in place for that to function properly. I have two suggestions to make as to how it might be done.

The first is one that I think I mentioned in our last debate. The training should be sub-regional; in other words, it is very important that the people in different local authorities who deal with these matters should know each other so that they know who to contact if there is an issue, and they should be trained together. Secondly, because the training is sub-regional, it would help if there were named contacts in every local authority who would be seen as the point of expertise not only within the authority concerned but also more generally. They are the people who should be contacted and they would maintain the files, particularly on difficult cases such as those requiring confirmatory evidence and so on.

With those two suggestions, I should like to thank the Minister very much indeed for getting us to this point. It is a positive outcome to our discussions over recent weeks.

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Additionally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, once again and echo what he said about Women’s Aid and other key deliverers of domestic abuse services, such as Refuge and many others that are doing a great job, which Women’s Aid certainly is. I thank him again for his positive contribution and commitment to this area. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her engagement. I know that she did not speak on these issues, but I know that they are close to her heart and I very much value her engagement.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the Minister for his helpful engagement with a number of points that have been raised, including the very useful suggestion on training from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I am pleased that he acknowledged the national dimension of funding; I realise that there is a local dimension as well, but the national is important, particularly when survivors are moving great distances. I am delighted that he will be watching like a hawk how this works, obviously in the context of other provisions, and I welcome his commitment to keeping noble Lords updated on what is happening, which I think we all want.

At Second Reading, I said that this was a first for me in that I more or less unequivocally welcomed a Bill in your Lordships’ House. I am happy that I can now say that I totally unequivocally welcome this Bill with the addition of this amendment. That is thanks to a number of people: to noble Lords across the House who have supported me in pressing for the inclusion of such an amendment—I am thinking particularly of colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches, as well as my noble friend—and the Bill team and lawyers, who were willing to engage with what I call my informal legal advisers. Together, they agreed wording that we are all happy with. I thank once again Women’s Aid, which has been supportive to all of us with its briefings, and, last but very much not least, the Minister, because if he had not been willing to listen and engage I do not think that any of this would have happened. Clearly, officials have to take their lead from the Minister. His openness and willingness to listen to what we have said and to see where changes needed to be made, have made this possible. I am very grateful. It seems odd to say “with” as opposed to “against”, but it has been a pleasure to work with him in this situation.

Amendment 5 agreed.

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Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

7: Clause 1, page 1, line 16, leave out “subsection (2A)” and insert “subsections (2A) and (2AA)”

Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [HL]

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, as someone who has been heavily involved in this Bill, I should like to say a few words of thanks. I thank the Bill team and the members of the noble Lord’s private office, who have been unfailingly helpful throughout the process. I suspect that they will not be too unhappy not to be seeing my emails in their inboxes any more.

I thank noble Lords around the House who have been so supportive, particularly my noble friend Lord Kennedy, but also the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I thank too the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, whose assurances during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act eventually led to this Bill. She probably had a hand in this Bill seeing the light of day. Last but not least, I thank the Minister and, at the risk of torpedoing his ministerial career, emphasise how he has been a model of an open and engaged Minister committed to making this Bill the best that it can be.

I give the final word to Women’s Aid, which has been briefing us so well at every stage of the Bill. Straight after Report, Women’s Aid emailed me to thank noble Lords for the amendments made then, saying that these had really improved the Bill and ensured that this legislation can work effectively for survivors whose housing security is at risk from an abusive relationship. Thank you. I hope that we can maintain as constructive a relationship when it comes to debating the forthcoming domestic abuse Bill.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

Before the noble Lord winds up, I should like to pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett for her hard work and determination in getting this Bill here today. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and others for their work. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth. I always enjoy our exchanges, here and outside the Chamber. He is a very good man who is sincere in what he does and I value our conversations about his work. He played a big role in getting this Bill in. We thank him very much as well.