David Nuttall
Main Page: David Nuttall (Conservative - Bury North)Department Debates - View all David Nuttall's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(13 years, 4 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I very much agree with him. I will go on to make some specific points about “The Squatters Handbook” shortly.
I said that squatters know the law well but the absolute opposite is true when it comes to the public in general, who would be shocked if they knew just how powerless they are to take on squatters. Many members of the public do not find that out until it is too late. Section 6 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 makes it an offence to use violence, or threats of violence, to gain access to premises when
“there is someone present on those premises…who is opposed to the entry”.
That section is what is usually referred to as squatters’ rights, but I do not believe that it exists to assist squatting. It is in place to prevent unscrupulous landlords from using violence or intimidation to evict legitimate tenants. Squatters, therefore, have such rights only by accident.
A local resident asked me a question in my local paper, The Argus:
“If squatting is a practice that is socially unacceptable, how is leaving a property empty for more than a year any more acceptable?”
My answer is simple—it is not acceptable at all. I have contacted my local council on a number of occasions about the issue of empty buildings belonging to exploitative developers. We should be careful, though, not to embrace squatting on the principle that “our enemy’s enemy is a friend”. We must get tough on bad landlords—and soon—but buildings can be temporarily empty for all sorts of reasons and many of those reasons are entirely acceptable.
One reason why a house remains empty is the death of the occupier. Such a house can very often lie dormant for months, sometimes years, while the family and the executors sort out probate, and it can be very worrying and distressing if squatters move in during that time.