Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (Amendment) Order 2012

Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Doocey

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I support this order and I am very pleased that cycling is included. On more than one occasion, I have seen people cycling in the park in a very irresponsible manner, which can have devastating effects. However, I should like to mention parks and dogs. I love both and am in the wonderful position of living in an area where I can use Bushy Park and Richmond Park.

It never ceases to amaze me how people who are completely and utterly responsible about their dogs and would not dream of not cleaning up after them in the street will take a very different view in a park. They also take different views between different parks. Bushy Park is a wild park which does not have manicured lawns in most places. It always surprises me that totally responsible people will say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter here because the deer are all over the park and what is the difference?”. But children play in parks and I am particularly concerned about the spreading of the parasitic disease toxocariasis. I know someone who suffered as a result of this disease, but its effects are not widely known.

I believe that everyone should be able to use our parks. We are very lucky to have such wonderful Royal Parks and open spaces. But enjoyment for children, animals and adults should not be ruined by the very small minority of people who just cannot be bothered to clean up after their animals. It is not the fault of the animals. It is the fault of the owners. Therefore, these orders are particularly welcome and I am very pleased that this behaviour will be subject to PNDs in the future.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, it is a privilege to be involved in such a momentous change to the country’s criminal law. I support entirely the Government’s objectives, particularly the observations made by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. She has referred to a matter which is of considerable risk to health and clearly cannot be tolerated. The Explanatory Notes refer to the fact that the impact of the order will be reviewed in 12 months. I assure the Minister that the Opposition will not press for such a review, unless Cabinet Ministers are seen to be depositing papers otherwise than in the litter bins in the Royal Parks, which would make a welcome change. It is hardly necessary to go to those bureaucratic lengths for such modest matters as these.

However, I wonder whether at some point the Government propose to review the general issue of fixed penalty notices outside the Royal Parks. There may well be other matters concerning the Royal Parks that might be raised. But there might be other issues that would be worth discussing with, for example, the Local Government Association, the national parks authorities and organisations of that kind to see whether there needs to be general updating of the system. As the Minister has made clear, this is a cost-effective way in which to deal with relatively low-level matters that nevertheless cause offence and inconvenience, and occasionally create risks to public health and safety. Having said that, we certainly support the order.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Doocey

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the London Assembly and the Metropolitan Police Authority.

This amendment seeks to deal with the nature and extent of overcrowding and to highlight why the present law is inadequate and needs reform. Overcrowding is an invisible problem compared with homelessness and rough sleeping. Consequently, it tends to be viewed as less of a priority. But overcrowding has a serious impact on children, especially their health and educational attainment, and it disproportionately affects larger households.

Overcrowding is a major problem in London. In 2008 London had more than 200,000 overcrowded households, almost 7 per cent of London’s homes. That was an increase of one-third over the previous decade. About half of these overcrowded households are in the social rented sector; overcrowding is worse in that sector than in any other form of tenure. London has over 40 per cent of England’s overcrowded households in the social rented sector, and nearly 400,000 London children live in overcrowded conditions. The overcrowding rate for black and minority ethnic households in London is about four times that for white British households.

There is no doubt that overcrowding is largely a consequence of housing supply shortage. Therefore this amendment is not a complete solution to overcrowding. For that, we need to build many more homes and, in particular, larger family homes. But this amendment is intended to deal with the abuse of the existing housing stock.

Breaching legal overcrowding standards is a criminal offence, but the official definition of overcrowding has survived unchanged since 1935 and is seriously outdated. Relatively few households are legally overcrowded even though some people have to sleep in living rooms and kitchens. There is little incentive for local authorities to tackle the problem if the law is not actually being broken. This amendment meets the need to provide an updated definition of statutory overcrowding based on the bedroom standard. This would realign the law with the actual problem and would therefore provide local authorities with an incentive to reduce overcrowding. Once there is a serious legal incentive in place for local authorities to tackle overcrowding, it may force them to reorder their priorities when it comes to housing allocation policies.

Overcrowding is a very serious issue. So if the Government are not minded to accept this amendment, perhaps my noble friend the Minister could outline what the Government propose to do to update the official definition of overcrowding, which has not changed for the last 75 years.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, even in your Lordships’ House there are not many of us who were around when these standards were laid down in 1935, as the noble Baroness has pointed out. Housing conditions in general have improved since those days, but she is quite right to draw attention to serious issues around overcrowding. They are not confined to London, although her figures show these issues are extremely problematic in the capital. She is also right to draw attention to the particular problems faced by some BME communities, many of whom have large families and find it difficult to secure accommodation which is adequate to house them.

I have every sympathy with the amendment. I note that the measurements are given in “old money”, when perhaps these days we should be looking at metric equivalents, but that is a trivial point. I am however somewhat at a loss as to how to respond to the Government’s response to the amendment. It seems to be based, to put it crudely, upon facile optimism about the effects of the measures that are being taken around the duties to deal with homelessness and, in particular, the use of flexible tenancies as a means by which, apparently by magic, accommodation of the appropriate size in the appropriate location will become available. The Minister for Housing assured us at a meeting a couple of days ago that he does not expect flexible tenancies to go much less than 10 years in duration, as opposed to the two years that was thought to be the benchmark. In his view—I hope he is correct—that will in fact constitute only a handful of cases. Given that, I cannot see how this measure is going to free up significant accommodation in general, let alone for this particular category.

It seems to us in the Opposition that the noble Baroness has touched on a key issue and the Government’s response thus far has not addressed it to any significant extent. Identifying the issue and improving the standards by which the question of overcrowding is to be judged does not in itself transform the situation, of course, but it would certainly allow housing authorities and the Government to have a better view of the reality of the situation.

I hope that the noble Baroness will not mind me quoting the example she gave in a conversation with me, of a recent case of a child sleeping in a bath which was deemed by the housing department to be acceptable because the child was in “a room”. It is extraordinary for this situation to be acceptable to a housing department in 2011. It could hardly have been acceptable in 1935. But statutorily it is acceptable, and she has other examples of that kind. This is extremely worrying and I am sure the Government would be horrified if there were found to be a significant number of such cases.

Strengthening the framework will allow a proper measurement to be taken of the degree to which this is an issue that needs to be addressed, and with a greater urgency than is likely to occur simply as a result of the other changes that the Government have made. I hope that the Minister will talk further with the noble Baroness to see how this can be improved and, beyond that, agree that this is an issue that should be pursued outside the context of this Bill as the Government look into housing policy generally.