Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, during the passage of this Bill we have learnt that there is no need for this clause because squatting in people’s homes is already criminal. We have learnt that there was a big need for guidance and we would not be where we are today unless there had been an abject failure of successive Governments to issue any guidance on the use of Section 7 of the Criminal Law Act 1977. If enforcement of those more reasonable measures in that Act had been properly understood, duplicating the legislation in this much harsher way would not have seemed necessary; nor is there a demand for it.

I thank my noble friend the Minister for our two meetings. She also wrote to me after the Report stage to say that the Government consultation was evidence of demand, so I looked again at the results of the consultation. In fact, out of the 2,217 people who responded, 96 per cent did not want to see any action taken to criminalise squatting, and even more surprisingly, only 10 people, 0.5 per cent of all the respondents, wrote in to say that they had been the victims of squatting. I do not feel that either need or demand has been demonstrated.

We have also learnt that this is going to cost a good deal. In a Bill that is all about cost cutting, even the Government’s own impact assessment suggests that the cost of this measure will be between £5 million and £10 million, which is a pretty wide estimate. However, those figures are probably optimistic. If the clause is enforced, it will cost the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office many tens of millions in enforcement, court time, rehabilitation, curfew monitoring and so on, and that is before we get to the costs of rehousing.

I am still against this clause in every way but, on the basis that the Government are determined to push it through, I must look at mitigating in any way I can the injustices being perpetrated against the homeless, and that is the purpose of the amendments I have tabled. My noble friend Lady Hamwee will go into greater detail on the definition of “residential”, which we feel is still inadequate. I will address my comments to the commencement of the clause. What will happen to those individuals who will be affected when the law is changed? I need to know about the practicalities of how individual homeless people who are currently squatting will get to know about the change in the law, or will they simply be criminalised overnight? Could there be a system of warning them and offering help to find alternatives? Are local authorities actually prepared to do that?

With nothing set out in the Bill, how will the Government ensure that appropriate help is offered? Evidence given to us by the charity Crisis, which has researched this issue, shows that when squatters who want to leave a squat present themselves to their local authority for help with housing, they are given a home-finder pack that at best contains a list of landlords, but since they have no money, the pack is of little help. They may be given a list of hostels, but some 2,000 hostel beds have been lost in the past year, so the hostels are likely to be full. Can my noble friend tell me what should happen then? There is nothing in the Bill to suggest even consultation with local authorities, let alone powers to make them act. Can squatters be deemed to be intentionally homeless, because then local authorities have no obligation at all to house them? They would automatically be denied help. Will the Government invite representatives of Crisis, a charity which does so much for the homeless, to work with officials on potential transitional measures? They might be able to offer some practical suggestions for measures that could be put in place to support homeless people who are squatting.

Finally, I should like to ask my noble friend about empty dwelling management orders. The number of empty homes is staggering, at over 720,000 across the UK. In London alone, there are some 74,500 empty homes. Some of them are owned by local authorities and housing associations, which is a bit of an irony since those bodies are meant to be in the business of housing people. However, by far the greatest number of empty homes are in private hands. If the Government think it is criminal to squat, they should also think it is criminal to leave properties empty, denying them to society year after year. What are the Government doing to ensure that the scandal of all those empty homes comes to an end?

I challenge the fact that this clause is still needed, but it is before us. These modest amendments try to make the position clearer and a little more just. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I preface my remarks with the comment, “Better late than never”. I add my tributes to those made earlier to Lord Newton of Braintree. Back in the 1980s when I worked with the Child Poverty Action Group, I knew him to be a fair and open-minded Minister. On the day of my introduction to this House, he welcomed me from the Benches opposite in a very warm and generous way. Like so many other Members of your Lordships’ House, I thought of him as my noble friend. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, once again, for her perseverance in ensuring that we debate this important issue at not exactly a reasonable hour but at least a slightly less unreasonable hour than the last time. I am pleased to add my name in support of the amendment. As I made clear on Report, Clause 145 is wrong in principle. It is unfair because it treats what is a homelessness and welfare issue as a criminal justice issue, and it is unnecessary because residential home owners are already protected in law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, at Report, I explained the role of the new squatting offence in giving greater protection to owners and occupiers of residential property who encounter squatters living in their properties. Various noble Lords have asked whether that is needed. Interestingly, only yesterday I received a letter from the deputy leader of the London Borough of Redbridge. He states:

“In one recent case in Ilford, a house owned by someone who had died became a squat during the eighteen months it was taking for lawyers to resolve her estate. In a second case a homeowner was no longer able to manage their own affairs and had been taken into care. In neither case was there an ‘owner’ able … to address the problem”.

The noble Lord is quite right to say that there is protection for a level of squatting, but, as I explained at Report and put in a letter, so I will not go into it again, the provision covers a number of additional areas where it is difficult to deal with squatters.

I know that many noble Lords, especially my noble friend Lady Miller, are concerned about the impact that a new offence might have on vulnerable people who squat. I thank my noble friend for meeting me last week, and my noble friend and my noble friend Lady Hamwee for meeting my honourable friend Crispin Blunt, my noble friend Lord McNally and me earlier today. Then and at the earlier meeting, my noble friend Lady Miller expressed concern about the possibility of a rise in demand for local authority homelessness services when the new offence comes into force.

We have already given assurances on the Floor of the House that we will work closely with the Department for Communities and Local Government to liaise with local authorities and the enforcement agencies prior to commencement to ensure that they are aware of the new offence. That is extremely important. We take very seriously mitigating any problems and we share my noble friend’s concern about the welfare of vulnerable people. However, allowing squatting to continue, sometimes in dangerous and unhealthy premises, cannot be the answer. Instead, we intend to continue to work with other departments, local authorities and homelessness services to ensure that vulnerable people are given the help and support they need to find alternative forms of accommodation.

Of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, emphasised, a number of those in that situation are suffering from mental or other problems. We have an obligation to them, as vulnerable members of society, to be properly housed. In squats, they have no protection. That cannot be right. The Government have already demonstrated our commitment to preventing homelessness by maintaining investment, with £400 million available over the next four years. We recognise the issues that single homeless people, in particular, face, and we are prioritising improvements in the help that they receive. The ministerial working group on homelessness has for the first time pledged that no one should spend more than one night out on our streets, supported by the new £20 million homelessness transition fund. The working group will publish its second report on preventing homelessness more broadly later in the spring.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

Will the Minister answer my question? Will the transition fund be ring-fenced?

[Baroness Northover]

Most of the money that goes to local authorities is not ring-fenced. The emphasis is on devolving to local authorities the responsibility for the people in the area. Given the lateness of the hour, I am very happy to write to the noble Baroness more specifically on that point if I have not got it right. I do not think that the money would be ring-fenced but, if I am wrong about that, I shall correct it in a minute or write to her. Nevertheless, that money has been identified to provide funding to address homelessness.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

If this money is not ring-fenced, how can the Minister know that it will be spent on single homeless people?