Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, I of course welcome the amendment. It is, as the Minister said, substantially the same as the amendment in my name on which we voted on Report. I readily agree the inclusion of private housing in the same context as social housing, which has been on the statute book for a while.

I extend a vote of thanks at this juncture, first, to those who voted in support of my amendment on Report. I am very grateful to them for helping to preserve and protect fundamental rights under the law. I thank the Public Bill Office staff, who were, as they always are, unfailingly helpful to me in the progress of the amendment through to Report. I thank the staff of the Christian Institute, who gave me invaluable administrative help in the run-up to the vote on Report. Finally, I thank the Minister for his unfailing courtesy and help in what were not always the easiest of discussions to make progress on in this part of the Bill. Those of us who have had the pleasure of working with him before will know that that is his default mode, and I am very grateful to him.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, sweetness and light is clearly breaking out after a slightly more difficult passage of the Bill at earlier stages. We should all be pleased that the outcome of this has been to strike a compromise between the very real concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Dear, my noble friend Lady Mallalieu and others expressed about the original provision. That had to be balanced, as it was in debate, by the real concern about problems faced by many tenants in both the public and the private sector, and I think that the Government have sought to strike an acceptable balance. To strike the slightest of sour notes, I think it was clear that that balance had to be struck from our debate in Committee, a very full and detailed debate. Perhaps, had the Government come forward with precisely this formulation at an earlier stage, they would have avoided a defeat. I also wish that a similar attempt to try to meet the genuine concerns of noble Lords in respect of other provisions in the Bill might have borne fruit before we got to this stage.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the amendment he has moved today, for his letter and for the helpful way in which he approached taking on board the will of your Lordships’ House. His amendment still allows for nuisance and annoyance to be taken into the housing setting and residential areas. I am grateful for his acknowledgement that it was the Opposition who raised time and again during the passage of the Bill the fact that so much of it is not tenure-neutral. We felt that those who rented their accommodation rather than owned it were getting a bit of a raw deal. In the amendment, the Government have sought to address that problem, so that those suffering from anti-social behaviour in the form of nuisance and annoyance, whether the people who are causing the problem live in public rented accommodation, private rented accommodation or are owner-occupiers, can ensure that that problem is tackled. I am grateful for the Minister’s acknowledgement of that because we have raised it several times during consideration of the Bill. I also welcome the conversion of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to this as I know that she was not happy with the amendment and voted against it on Report. The Minister can take great pride and credit in having such widespread support around the House.

I have just one question, which is on the title of the provision still being an IPNA, or an injunction to prevent nuisance and annoyance, under Part 1 of the Bill. I wonder whether, if I can pronounce this correctly, that should now be an IPASB rather than an IPNA. On the content, that aside, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dear, and my noble friend Lady Mallalieu for tabling that amendment in the first place.