Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay and Lord Bach

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, on raising yet again this completely unnecessary clause towards the end of this long Bill. It is well described as unjust, unnecessary and, indeed, unaffordable. I shall come to those in a moment. We all know that homelessness is on the rise. Since we last debated the issue in Committee, figures show that in London the rise in the number of those who are sleeping on the streets is higher than it was 12 months ago and 24 months ago. That surely must be of concern to us. Of course we must make a distinction between those who are lifestyle squatters and those who are forced into squatting. Some 40 per cent of homeless people live in squats because they prefer that to living on the street. This is about housing, as the noble Baroness said in moving the amendment. It should be treated as a housing issue, not a criminal justice issue.

The reason it does not have to be treated as a criminal justice issue is because it is quite clear that the current law is comprehensive and effective. According to the Law Society:

“The proposals in this consultation are based on misunderstandings by the media of the scale of the problem and a misunderstanding of the current law”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned the Criminal Law Act 1977 and its powers to deal with this menace when it really is a menace. I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Northover: what is the need for a new criminal offence as far as this is concerned?

One of the justifiable criticisms of the last Government is that they too easily brought in new criminal offences—

[Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay]

They did.

[Lord Bach]

I am very glad to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott. But one of the principles of this Government, as I understood, was that it would not bring in this kind of new criminal legislation unless it was really necessary to do so. What, apart from a hostile media, makes it necessary for the Government to bring in this piece of new criminal legislation?

As far as unaffordability is concerned—and this is a matter I would like the noble Baroness to deal with—a methodology and use of government data endorsed, as I understand it, by a range of academics and legal practitioners has been used to calculate that this clause could cost £790 million to the taxpayer over the next five years. This is far in excess of the £350 million that the whole Bill is supposed to save, although some of us think that is a completely false figure, particularly as far as Part 1 is concerned.

The Government’s impact assessment estimates the costs as £25 million over five years. No attempt, it seems, has been made to account for the costs of rehousing and rehabilitating those who currently squat, and estimates of the costs to the criminal justice system are far too low. The organisation ALTER, which is Action for Land Taxation and Economic Reform, says:

“This change is contrary to the interests of UK taxpayers. It would provide a valuable state funded benefit to wealthy tax avoiders”.

One of the vice-presidents of ALTER is the present Deputy Prime Minister.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for her Amendment 157A, and if she were to ask to vote on it, even at this late hour, we would be happy to support it. We like it particularly because she has kindly taken notice of what was said in debate in Committee last time, and the six months is now 12 months, which seems to me, personally, to be a better timescale for the building being empty. However if, as may happen, she does not press this amendment to a vote, I hope she does not drop this issue. In fact, I am sure she will not, and will do her very best to make sure that it comes back before the Bill moves on and this ridiculous, silly clause becomes the law, and we start to criminalise the vulnerable and homeless, who should not be criminalised.