Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, Clause 91 introduces a new discretionary ground for possession for offences connected with a riot. The existing grounds for possession for anti-social behaviour are discretionary and require that the anti-social behaviour must have occurred in the locality of the property. This means that thuggish behaviour committed against neighbours or in the immediate vicinity of a tenant’s home may currently be a basis for eviction.

However, similar offences likely to have a devastating effect on whole communities such as looting, or other riot-related criminal activity, committed by tenants further from their homes would not usually be taken into account. I do not think that that is right. It is important that people who wreck other people’s communities through riot-related offences should face the same consequences that they would if they carried out such behaviour in their own neighbourhoods.

It is not just the Government who are of this view. Following the 2011 riots, the e-petition entitled “Convicted London rioters should lose all benefits” received over a quarter of a million signatures, the second greatest number of signatories for any e-petition that has been submitted to the Government to date. That is strong evidence that the public want tough action to deal with rioters.

This clause seeks to make sure that that is the case by adding a new ground for possession into the Housing Acts 1985 and 1988 in respect of secure tenants and assured tenants respectively. Under the new ground, landlords will be able to apply for possession of a tenant’s property in England where the tenant or a person living in the tenant’s property has been convicted of an offence committed at the scene of a riot which took place anywhere in the UK.

Following concerns raised in Committee and by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, we gave a commitment to consider the amendments tabled at that stage by my noble friends, Lady Hamwee and Lord Greaves, which proposed that the new ground would apply only where the tenant and not a member of the household has been convicted of a “serious offence”, rather than any offence, as currently drafted.

Recognising the concerns that have been expressed, government Amendments 80A to 80F provide further reassurance that the new ground will apply only to the more serious cases of riotous behaviour. Amendments 80A, 80C, 80D and 80F provide that landlords would be able to seek possession under the provisions of Clause 91 only where the tenant or an adult member of their household has been convicted of an offence at the scene of a riot.

We have retained the application of the ground to the convictions of adult members of the household as we do not believe that adult perpetrators of serious anti-social behaviour or criminal activity should be able to escape consequences for their home simply on the basis that the tenancy is not in their name.

In addition, to address concerns relating to the possibility of minor offences triggering possession under this ground, Amendments 80B and 80D would restrict the application of the new ground to “indictable offences” instead of any offence committed at the scene of a riot as currently drafted. This means that convictions for less serious offences such as common assault and obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty will not trigger possession under this ground. However, I emphasise our commitment to ensuring that we send a strong signal: if you get involved in a riot, whether it is near your home or not, there may be consequences for your tenancy.

With regard to the concerns raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights that the ground amounts to a double punishment and may disproportionately affect children, it is important to note that the new ground is discretionary and that the court can grant possession only where it considers it reasonable to do so. This means that the court can take into account the circumstances of the tenant and other family members, including children, when deciding whether to grant possession. I should add that available evidence also indicates that landlords resort to eviction only as a last resort. In addition, these government amendments would provide additional safeguards in the Bill to ensure that whole families are not evicted under the new ground for the actions of a child during a riot. I would reassure the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan— I am pleased to see that she is in her place—and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who have tabled Amendment 80G to remove Clause 91 from the Bill, that we expect the impact of the provision and the number of evictions, including those of families, to be very small over time. That is especially as I hope that we will not see any future occurrences of the disgraceful looting and rioting across England that we saw in the summer of 2011.

I hope that the House will agree that these government amendments respond positively to the concerns that have been expressed about this provision and that your Lordships will support the retention of Clause 91 in its amended form. I beg to move.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, Clause 91 as originally drafted added a new ground for possession under Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1985 and Part 2 of Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988 so that, as the Minister has said, a landlord might apply for possession where someone living in the property has been convicted of an offence committed at the scene of a riot which had taken place anywhere in the United Kingdom. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, has consistently stated that this clause should be deleted from the Bill. In the first instance the committee stated that it was unnecessary and disproportionate. It was also concerned about the potentially serious implications of this clause for family members and considered that it may disproportionately affect both women and children. The committee said that it amounted to a punishment rather than a genuine means of preventing harm to others.

I wish to set out absolutely the aggravated nature of riot offences. Living in Northern Ireland, I have long experience of the fear and the horror of riots. People who commit criminal offences must be pursued under the criminal law. To allow an offence committed anywhere in the UK, even if the conviction were to be on indictment only, to be grounds for eviction where there is a tenancy, is certainly to impose a second punishment on a limited group of people who do not own their own home and who have committed no offence, since the other members of the household have committed no offence. I should like to thank the Minister for meeting with me in December to discuss this issue, and for giving me the opportunity to articulate again the difficulties with this clause.

I note the amendments that the Government have now tabled and the fact that they make in effect two changes. The clause will apply only where an adult member of the household—someone living in the house—has been convicted of an indictable offence. That is to be welcomed because it limits the effect of the clause. It relieves from the threat of eviction the families of young people who may have fallen into bad company, but who have been dealt with for their criminality under the criminal law. However, that still leaves tenants and their householders subject to a possible double punishment for a crime committed either by a tenant or someone else who lives in the rented property, and no such double punishment can be applied to a private householder. The family of such a household will be put through the stress, fear and expense of fighting an eviction application. It will go on for months, and while they may well win at the end of the day, there will still have been serious disruption and expense and, above all, distress to the family. Can the Minister tell me whether there is a time limit on the use of a conviction as a ground for eviction? If a person was convicted in 2013, could that conviction be used in 2014? If he was convicted 2011 as a result of the London riots, could it be used in 2014?

Clause 91 would create the curious circumstance in which someone convicted of a riot offence in Edinburgh, Glasgow or even Belfast could be evicted in England and Wales but a person convicted in England and Wales could not be evicted in Scotland or Northern Ireland. The Government have offered no justification for this measure, nor is there any necessity for it, even in its amended form. In the Minister’s letter to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the explanation for the Government’s amendments is that, in light of the Lords Committee stage debate, they concluded that it would be appropriate to place further safeguards on the face of the legislation. However, the Minister repeats the Government’s position that “this provision is intended to deter the sort of deplorable ‘riot tourism’ that we witnessed in summer 2011”. The Joint Committee on Human Rights states:

“In our view it is the job of the criminal law, not the civil law, to deter riot-related offences and to administer sanctions when such offences are committed. Nor do we consider the existence of judicial discretion to be a satisfactory answer to our concern about the disproportionate impact of eviction on other members of the household who have not engaged in such behaviour. We maintain our recommendation that clause 91 be deleted from the Bill”.

The justification for the current position under the Housing Act is that those convicted of rioting in their locality pose a threat to their local community and that, in order to protect that community, the person must be removed from it. This justification cannot cover the proposed extension of the ground for eviction—there is no link between the crime and the local area. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, stated in Committee,

“the provision to order possession of a property when the offence has absolutely nothing to do with protecting neighbours, for example, from anti-social behaviour, is a step too far. It is politically motivated and is not driven by the needs of justice. Therefore, it should be no part of this Bill”.—[Official Report, 2/12/13; col. 62.]

The Government have sought to justify their proposals by stating that the threat of eviction is intended to deter those considering engaging in riot-related behaviour —but that is the purpose of the criminal law.

In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who is soon to take his place on the Front Bench, stated that he could not endorse the clause. He did not qualify that in any way:

“The courts have sufficient powers to deal firmly with offenders caught up in a riot … The criminal justice system—some would say ‘for once’—in general responded very well to what occurred”.

He also said:

“Those who committed offences during the riot on that occasion were dealt with speedily and firmly”.

He stated that he did not think it was “necessary or appropriate” to legislate in this manner,

“given all the other powers that exist elsewhere in the Bill”,

and concluded that,

“this clause is a step too far”. —[Official Report, 2/12/13; col. 60.]

In 2011, Wandsworth Council threatened to evict a Liberty client, Maite de la Calva, and her younger daughter, if her son was convicted of a crime committed during the riots in 2011. Her son had been arrested and charged during the disorder. He had moved out of his mother’s property earlier in the year, but she was still served with a notice by Wandsworth Council seeking possession, which stated that she was likely to have breached her tenancy agreement. The authority vowed to apply for a possession order evicting her and her daughter if her son was convicted. This was despite her contribution to the local area over the past three years: she was described as a credit to her housing estate by neighbours and spent her spare time volunteering with a youth charity and working with domestic violence victims. She had committed no crime herself and would not have faced that threat had she lived in a mortgaged house. Liberty represented her in challenging Wandsworth Council’s attempt to punish her and her daughter for her son’s conviction. Eventually the council was persuaded to back down, but not before considerable anxiety and suffering had been inflicted. If the eviction powers set out in the Bill are enacted, even as modified by the present government amendments, there will be many more cases just like this one and it is unlikely that the outcome in all of them will be as positive.

Removing a person and their family from social housing is unlikely to lead to less, rather than more, crime and anti-social behaviour. Dispossession will shift the problem elsewhere, creating new and greater problems for the individuals concerned and their families. Private housing may be unavailable and private sector rents are rising, partly as a consequence of the welfare reform measures. Temporary accommodation does not deal with the issue: it splits up families; it disrupts education and social cohesion; and the end result may well be that alternative accommodation becomes unaffordable for many families, leading to increased homelessness and destitution.

I ask the Minister to consider again the fact that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has consistently said that this clause is neither necessary nor proportionate; that it is not about protecting a local area; that it discriminates against those in public housing; and above all that it will create significant distress to people who have committed no crime.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness O'Loan]

80G: Clause 91, leave out Clause 91

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, I had expected to have the right to respond to the Minister on the previous amendment. I do not think that the relevant measure has been shown to be necessary, proportionate or in the interests of innocent victims. I beg to move. I wish to test the opinion of the House.