Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

The Government are committed to protecting debtors from aggressive bailiff action. We are clear that intimidating behaviour and the oppressive and underhand tactics practised by some bailiffs are completely unacceptable. Implementing the provisions in the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 will ensure that we focus on the root causes of bailiff complaints. In the light of this explanation, I ask the House to accept Commons Amendments 5, 6 and 31, and I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, will consider not moving her amendment.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, Amendment 6A relates to an amendment passed in this House to provide for an ombudsman service as a basic minimum of protection for victims of abuse by bailiff services. The lack of an independent regulatory system for bailiffs affects hundreds of thousands of our most vulnerable citizens, and we know that the recent and ongoing welfare benefits legislation will swell the numbers of such victims in the coming years. The purpose of bringing back this amendment to the House is to provide an opportunity for the Minister to explain the action taken since our debate. In December, the amendment had strong support from the Conservative Benches. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, chair of the Enforcement Law Reform Group, said that he did not know one bailiff who would not support the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, spoke eloquently about the importance of your Lordships’ House approving such a reform, but the Minister at the time could give no assurances.

Full ombudsman services are provided in health, housing, local government, financial services, legal services, telecommunications, prisons and other sectors, but we know that members of the public are probably more vulnerable to abuse of power by bailiffs than by almost any other cadre of workers. After all, bailiffs cone into our homes to seize our property. Little could be more offensive than that. Yet, in response to our amendment, the Government in the other place have rejected even this most minimal of protections for people who will inevitably include many mentally and physically disabled people who cannot fend for themselves.

I thank the Minister and his officials for a meeting last week when they explained many of the actions taken since our debate in December. I am grateful to the Minister for giving an assurance to this House—I think he gave this assurance—that every individual who is subject to abuse by a bailiff will have access to one or other ombudsman. It is a splintered system, not a complete system, but, if they can find their way through it, every victim will have access to the Local Government Ombudsman, the Parliamentary Ombudsman or the Legal Ombudsman. I hope the Minister will confirm that he said that. I should be grateful if he could make very clear that the Local Government Ombudsman will be able to deal with complaints about private bailiffs as well as in-house bailiffs. As the Minister made clear, the one area that is left out of this is companies. I have concerns about small businesses—perhaps one or two-person businesses—that may get into terrible debt trouble and have very unpleasant experiences. They will have no access to an ombudsman.

In his opening remarks, the Minister referred to training. I do not think he mentioned this, but I should be grateful if he could confirm that there will be a specific module on identifying vulnerability and vulnerable people. I should also be grateful if he could clarify that the training will not only include how to identify a vulnerable person but will be very clear about what the bailiff should do having identified a vulnerable person. It is no good identifying them if the bailiff proceeds to act inappropriately.

In December, I probed a lot about the length, breadth and depth of the training, and I am delighted to hear that there will be training of in the region of three months, including this rather important module. However, I should like to pursue the matter a little further. The Government’s response to the consultation referred to mandatory training. I should like an assurance from the Minister that there will be a set standard that a bailiff is required to meet. I am familiar with training in certain areas where the company simply has to tick a box to say that the bailiff has attended training. I am even familiar with security officers who will quite happily get someone else to complete the training for them and somehow or other the box gets ticked. We need an assurance that there will be a standard that bailiffs are required to meet. Will there be any independent verification of meeting those standards?

Finally, will the Minister say something about the work on information for victims that he mentioned at our meeting? We have a splintered and confusing system of ombudsmen for victims in different scenarios. It would be helpful to have on record the work going on with the CAB service, the web and so on to try to make sure that people know that they have access to an independent ombudsman. As the Minister said, the Government will reform the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 to prevent the use of force against the person. Again, I should be grateful if the Minister could—perhaps he cannot—give some timeframe for that legislation.

In summary, the Government will introduce a certification process with no independent regulation of bailiffs and a rather incomplete and splintered form of ombudsman service. However, we can expect the quality of enforcement services to improve somewhat from a very low base. Of course, one cannot generalise, but we know that some very unpleasant things happen out there. There will be a staged process, to which the Minister referred, of implementation review. I hope the Minister can confirm that the results of those reviews will be made public and, at that stage, perhaps the Government will finally accept the crying need for independent regulation of bailiffs. I await the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Meacher]

I thank the Minister for his response and say that my amendment to the Motion is not moved.

Amendment 6A not moved.