Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill

Bim Afolami Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

Clearly, what the hon. Gentleman is discussing is outside the scope of this Bill, but we are talking about a voluntary pilot that is starting in the west midlands and we will see where that takes us.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

On election manifestos, does the Minister not agree that this Bill is fulfilling a Conservative manifesto promise and that that should be welcomed by Members on both sides of the House?

[Mrs Wheeler]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very helpful intervention, with which I can only agree.

As I was saying, for this reason we must avoid imposing any unnecessary control that might risk reversing the Office for National Statistics classification of housing associations as private sector organisations. Housing associations grant assured tenancies under the Housing Act 1988, including assured lifetime tenancies, and will continue to have the flexibility to grant lifetime tenancies as they see fit.

This amendment would bring housing associations back into the public sector regime, which they have not properly been part of since 1989, by requiring housing associations to grant secure tenancies under the Housing Act 1985. That goes beyond the very limited circumstances in which they are still obliged to give a secure tenancy—this is limited to those tenants who already have one predating 1989 and want to move, so this is known and in the books of the commercial housing association. Assured and secure tenancies have different rights. For example, secure tenants have a statutory right to improve their property, and be compensated for those improvements, in certain circumstances. To require housing associations to grant secure tenancies for this group of tenants would mean housing association landlords having to operate two different systems, which would be an unnecessary burden over and above the very limited circumstances in which they still manage pre-1989 tenancies, and would introduce unnecessary additional costs and liabilities. As I have already said, that could risk the re-classification of housing associations.

The amendment is also completely unnecessary: housing associations will continue to have the freedom, which they have now, to offer lifetime tenancies wherever they consider it appropriate. When schedule 7 to the Housing and Planning Act 2016 comes into force, local authorities will generally be required to offer fixed-term tenancies, and will be able to grant lifetime tenancies only in the limited circumstances specified in legislation or regulations. That is why the Bill is so important. The purpose of housing associations is to provide and manage homes for people in housing need. The vast majority are charities, and their charitable objectives require them to put tenants at the heart of everything they do. We expect housing associations to take very seriously their responsibilities for people fleeing domestic violence and abuse.

In previous debates on the Bill, I have mentioned the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance, which was set up by two leading housing associations, Peabody and Gentoo, along with Standing Together Against Domestic Violence, a UK charity that brings communities together to end domestic abuse. The alliance’s stated mission is to improve the housing sector’s response to domestic abuse through the introduction and adoption of an established set of standards and an accreditation process.

I understand that the National Housing Federation, the body that represents housing associations, is actively taking forward work with its membership to tackle domestic abuse, and has recently set up a national domestic abuse group for its membership. The group was set up specifically to raise awareness among housing associations of the steps that they can take to minimise the impact of domestic abuse, as well as of how to spot the signs early and how best to support victims. My officials have been in touch with the NHF, and I am really pleased to say that it has expressed an interest in considering the tenancy issue as part of that work. That is a really positive development, and it adds to the information that I was able to give in Committee. With that in mind, and for the reasons that I have given, I invite Members to withdraw the new clause and amendments. I look forward to more debate.

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I am very grateful to the Minister for her comments and to colleagues on both sides of the House for the contributions they have made. This is a very important Bill. It is a short Bill, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby said at the outset, but it is a hugely significant one, and that is why I wanted to share these comments.

[Bim Afolami]

I am aware that many others wish to speak, so I will be brief. Those who are still left in the Public Gallery have seen today the best of Parliament. This is the complete opposite of yah-boo politics. There has been cross-party discussion about a Bill that generally appears to have cross-party support. We should welcome that and welcome the exchange of ideas and views. That does not always happen in this Chamber, but it has happened today.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) said, this is a short Bill. It is clear and to the point, and it deals with a specific problem. When the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) reads Hansard tomorrow morning, she will see many references to her speech, but let me add one more. The disagreement from Conservative Members with certain points she made was not on the substance of the issue, but on the appropriateness of those points in relation to the Bill. However, I am sure that she, the Minister and others will continue to work on this issue, and I think that Members across all parties appreciate her expertise in this area.

One point in particular is worth making. Labour Members have spoken about the spare room subsidy, which is not really the subject of the Bill, but I want to make the point that it is critical to get more social housing built. For the Bill to be effective, we really need as much social housing as possible to be built. If they take a look at the record, as I have, they will see that roughly 2,900 local authority homes a year were built from 1997 to 2010, while under this Government—about half of that time—over 10,000 local authority homes a year were built from 2010 to 2017. Labour Members must look at their own record on social housing, and realise that a lot of the problems we now face are partly down to the fact that they did not build enough homes when they were in office. I know that the Minister and the Government are working on that.

I finish by agreeing with the Minister and other Conservative Members that I do not believe the new clause and amendments are appropriate in this context, and I shall vote against them for that reason.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 1, which would have a specific impact on local authorities in Scotland, including in my constituency. I would say at the outset, in relation to the thrust of what was said by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), that I agree about the need for more co-operation across the United Kingdom, and I will come on to that shortly. The difficulty, as shown by the fact that I am the only Scottish MP in the Chamber, is that the Bill is not necessarily the right vehicle to do so, because it cuts across some devolved areas, and I want to go into that in a little more detail.

The Government have a strong record on domestic abuse, and the Bill is a further example of that. We have criminalised coercive and bullying behaviour, and we have made sure that we have domestic violence orders. We currently have an open consultation, which provides the potential for more powers and a greater understanding of other types of crimes, such as economic abuse, that are often unseen. That is certainly the experience of many of my constituents, as many people in public authority have seen.

My knowledge of this matter has largely come from my constituents, as well as from some of my own family experience. Many of my constituents have relationships that span the United Kingdom. Men and women who have had such relationships may have some children in England and some in Scotland, so there is a real need for co-ordination and for a UK minimum standard. I have seen at first hand, in refuges and in my constituency office, the bravery of these women as well as the hardship that they have endured. I know how much of an impact there can be on individual lives, and how much need there is for them to move from one local authority to another, which may not be an adjacent one but a local authority far up the country in Scotland or somewhere in England.

Members have talked a lot about the terrible abuse that women have endured, and we know that domestic abuse has a disproportionate impact on women. It is also important to say, however, that 700,000 men were victims of domestic abuse in 2015-16, and that young people are also victims. When we talk about giving people opportunities in secure tenancies in other local authorities around the country, we need to ensure that we capture everyone, because domestic abuse affects many different types of individual at many different ages.

As I have said, and I will keep my remarks brief, a national minimum is desirable. I very much feel that there are times when we are four nations and many regions, but there are also times when we are one country. On this issue, I believe that having a national minimum would be incredibly desirable. I am very keen to work with Opposition Members, certainly as we examine other pieces of legislation in this place, on having UK-wide frameworks, especially in new policy areas, to make sure that there are UK-wide minimums, even if the services are delivered through devolved Administrations, local authorities or other devolved agencies. I am very willing to help in such a way. Unfortunately, however, as the Bill is targeted at England, making an amendment to loop in what is a devolved area in Scotland—it would have an impact in my local authority and others—this is not the best place to do so. I hope to work with Opposition Members in future to try to develop policies on such minimums.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will continue in the spirit of consultation that she always shows in relation to the devolved Administrations, and perhaps she will consider extending her audit of services elsewhere in the United Kingdom—beyond England to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.