Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steve Yemm]

That is exactly what I am saying. I wish to address the issues that are being endured by social housing tenants at the hands of those who are consistently perpetrating domestic antisocial behaviour in their neighbourhoods, and a “three strikes and you’re out” approach would take many, many years of them suffering this type of abuse. I will outline why I think such an approach would be lacking in its effectiveness of outcome and deterrence.

First, my experience is that there are issues with the evidence threshold. Councils in my area and many others are asking victims of antisocial behaviour in social housing to bear the burden of proof by taking their own recordings and notes and submitting them. Many constituents who attend my surgeries have gone through all the stress and anxiety of doing that on numerous occasions, having put their mental wellbeing and often their personal security at risk, only to then be told that the evidence does not meet the threshold required to instigate an intervention.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I agree very much with the hon. Member’s points, and I wonder if he is a member of the right party on that basis. Is he not dismayed that the Secretary of State has ditched our plans to remove social housing for people who are consistently guilty of antisocial behaviour?

[Steve Yemm]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. My dismay is at what I hear from my constituents, many of whom have suffered for many years trying to prove a single instance of antisocial behaviour. Indeed, they are often then notified that the advised method of evidence collection—often recordings on a mobile phone app—does not satisfy the evidential requirements to take action. After many years of threats to their own security and a great deal of effort, they find that the action is dropped and has to be started again. This is not an isolated incident in my constituency. Many, many women—and it is almost always women—have come to me in tears at my surgeries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this important debate, because all of us have experienced distressing constituency cases, which are a real problem for our communities. I agree with his description of the issue: it can cause mayhem and misery throughout our local communities.

I also agree that social housing should be a privilege, not a right, and that those houses should be kept in good order. When canvassing in our patch, we have all gone to areas with social housing and seen overgrown gardens with litter and furniture in them. That cannot be right for the people in those houses, and particularly the children, but also for the neighbours. It is simply not right.

It is good to see that we seem to be in violent agreement on both sides of the Chamber on the three-strikes policy, which I will talk about in a second. That seems to be a maximum, not a minimum. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) argued for a two-strikes policy, and the hon. Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) argued for a one-strike policy. I am encouraged by that, because it is fair to say that everyone in the debate so far—I am interested to hear what the Minister will say—has said that we need to do more.

[Richard Tice]

Competition is a good thing. It may be that the Minister wants “no strikes and you’re out”.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That might be a bit tricky—people do deserve to live in a house as long as they demonstrate good behaviour.

My predecessor as shadow Secretary of State—now the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch)—has said:

“Those who break the law, make neighbours’ lives a misery, or treat the UK as a hotel they’re just passing through, should not be given subsidised housing…The public wants to know that only decent and hardworking people who have contributed to this country are given social housing.”

I agree with that point.

The Minister is a very decent chap, and I am really interested to listen to what he will say, but let us contrast those comments with what the current Secretary of State, the Deputy Prime Minister, has said. She has confirmed Labour’s plans to ditch proposals from the Conservative Government to take away social housing from criminals, including those with a history of antisocial behaviour. The Deputy Prime Minister also binned the Conservatives’ commitment to prioritise social housing for those with local and British connections. I am very disappointed by that approach, and we need to revisit it. I very much hope the Minister will do that, based on what has been said in this debate. That is all despite the Prime Minister pledging a new clampdown on criminal and violent disorder.

I would like to pick up on what my friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), said in his remarks. I totally agree with many of the points he made, but particularly on right to buy. I grew up back in the‘70s in a little town in North Yorkshire with large council estates. I used to deliver milk there as a young man, and those council estates were not in the best order. Some of the behaviours were not the best, and nor was the condition of some of the houses, because people did not look after them. One of the benefits of right to buy, as well as giving individuals the benefit of right to buy, was that the individuals who bought those homes also improved them significantly. With double glazing, extensions and smart gardens, the quality of those estates increased dramatically. It is therefore a real concern that the Government have decided to cut back and water down that policy and to make it more difficult for people renting social houses to buy them. That cannot be right, particularly when the Deputy Prime Minister herself—this is her policy—has benefited from those very opportunities. It is rank hypocrisy, and it cannot be right.

[Gideon Amos]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the Government are going to provide for the selling off of council houses, they should invest in replacing them, so that we do not have a massive loss of council housing in this country as we have had over the last few decades?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have increased the amount of affordable housing significantly since 2010; there are more than half a million new affordable homes. I do not think he knows that there is a limit on how much money we have. The more social housing we provide, the more expensive that will be. He set out lots of plans that would be very expensive and would take the tax rates in this country through the roof. If that is what people want to vote for, that is what they should vote for, but that is not what I believe. There are finite resources, and we must use them very carefully.

We set out plans to give preference to local residents and to armed forces veterans, but, crucially, to disqualify those with unspent antisocial behaviour convictions and those guilty of other offences. I do not quite agree with the hon. Member for Ashfield that his calls—presumably, both as a member of our party and while in his current party—fell on deaf ears. People may argue that it was not enough, but much work was done while we were in government.

[Lee Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. He talks about my history of being in a different party. If I were still in the Conservative party, I would be sat on those empty Conservative Benches today showing that I care about this important issue.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I know that the hon. Gentleman would be. He has always stood up for his constituents and, indeed, for mine and for those of every Member of this House. I always admired that, and I know that he will continue to do it.

In the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, we gave more powers to social landlords and to victims. We have all met victims at our surgeries and been to see the situations that they live in, but now they can demand that the agencies ensure that their problems are dealt with more effectively by bringing those agencies together. We also gave social landlords more power to evict offenders—the people who are guilty of this kind of abuse—and we added resources of £160 million.

Legislation is nothing without implementation, and we need the right policing resources, as a number of Members referred to. I must pick up on the point made by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), about policing numbers. I agree that we should have more police on our streets, and we have record numbers today, but he cannot simply walk away from some of the choices made by his party and my party post-2010, when police numbers were cut. Looking back now, that was the wrong thing to do, but he cannot walk away from that. Police numbers dipped and then grew again under subsequent Conservative Governments. They now stand at a 50-year record, which is probably a record in anybody’s lifetime.

I will pick up on the point about the three strikes policy, which formed the basis of the speech by the hon. Member for Ashfield. He thinks that it should be three strikes, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness said that it should be two strikes, and the hon. Member for Mansfield, in a fantastic speech, which was most unexpected—he is welcome to join us on the Conservative Benches any time he wants—said that it should be one strike.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness made the point that benefits are a privilege, not a right, and that people should have to search for a job and behave well, for example, to get those benefits. We introduced the claimant commitment to do exactly that, so we have taken action in this area, which was of course extremely controversial. We have had to stand up time and again in debates to defend our sanctions policy, because we do not think it is right that people can simply leave the labour market and not try to find work. Again, action was taken there.

The hon. Member for Ashfield talked about where people would live if they were kicked out of these houses, which is a controversial point, of course. That made me think about my mum, who was a social worker who rehabilitated offenders. When people came out of jail, she would try to find them a job and a house. Eventually, she convinced landladies to put up those people, who were trying to get the second chance that most of us would like to ensure that people have. She then built a purpose-built hostel for them, but she had a very clear rule: no drink or drugs while they were in the hostel or one of the bedrooms provided by the landladies. The Probation Service said, “You can’t do this because these people have very difficult lives.” The hon. Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) pointed that out, and I agree that these people have very complex lives. Nevertheless, my mum always stuck to the line that if the person did not abide by the rule, they could not be in the landladies’ guest houses or the hostel. It was “one strike and you’re out”—as simple as that. Everybody knew the rule. It was tough love, but it worked. She got many people back on the straight and narrow because she was very straight down the line about it. I am sure that there were no more resources then than there are today. Resources will always be tight, so we have to show tough love to people in that situation and say what the rules will be.

I am keen to hear what the Minister is going to do about this issue. He is a very decent man, but I do not believe that he is going to show the tough love that we need. I fear that he—well, not him personally, but his Government—will be too weak, and I think that in 2030, when possibly his ministerial career has ended and a new Minister has taken his place, he will look back in anger at the fact that he did not do more.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

I gently remind the Minister to leave a couple of minutes for Lee Anderson to wind up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

I could talk all day about Clement Attlee. His policies and politics were rooted in organising in the east end of London. We often forget this, but—well, the hon. Gentleman is no stranger to internal Labour party dynamics. Clement Attlee was a man of exceptional privilege, but he chose to go to the places where life was hardest. He looked at the living conditions of individuals in the east end of London and non-judgmentally sought to change them. He understood that some people had substance abuse issues—they manifested perhaps a little differently compared with today, but it is the same principle—and others had mental health or physical health issues. There was domestic abuse. We are talking about the 1930s, but it is not so different nearly 100 years on. He sought to change those things, but he never sought to divide people into worthy and unworthy people. He would never write people off.

There is an important conversation at the nub of this debate: what is too much? Where is the line? What is tough love? What is an effective way of changing things? The hon. Gentleman talked about not caring where those who are evicted go. I do care, and I will address that point in a little while. There is a balance.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The Minister touched on the point about people being unworthy. Can I make the point that my mum would have made? It was not the person who was unworthy as an individual; it was just that they were unworthy of living in a social house, or in her hostel. We have to have tough love to create an incentive for people to behave properly.

[Alex Norris]

I totally accept that point. The challenge will be, as the hon. Gentleman will know from his leadership in his business career and his senior status in the previous Government, that every individual reacts differently to different circumstances. Like many colleagues, I like sport. No one needs to shout at me about the mistakes I have made. I know the mistakes. I carry them and think about them all the time. I need an arm around my shoulder. Other people need shouting at. It is about finding the model to make a change, if change is the thing we want, which I think it is for most of us. But people like me, who advocate change and perhaps take a longer lens on it than Conservative Members, cannot lose sight of the fact that in that moment, the people living next door are living in misery. That is why we have to have a line and I will talk about where that might fall.

The shadow Secretary of State should not be surprised by the quality of the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm); if he hears him speak on other issues, he will see that the quality is there. With both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Ashfield here, I had to check whether this was 2024 or 2014—had we got the old band back together? There is a lot of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire here. We have all known each other for a very long time. I associate myself with the comments that my hon. Friend made about Nottinghamshire police and how important it is that we have good policing and we give the police the tools and resources to do that well in our community.

The thing that I took from both my hon. Friend’s contribution and that of the hon. Member for Ashfield is just how frustrating the process is. Having sat for 13 years on the local authority and in this place, I know about sitting there yet again saying, “Well, have you done any diary sheets?”, the burden of proof constantly being on those who are doing the decent thing, and the seemingly ever-higher mountain to climb to get some degree of justice. Again, that is something I will return to shortly.

I was pleased, as always, to hear the contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). As he said, in Northern Ireland policing is a reserved matter, but the issues are similar. I suspect that people in Bulwell, in my constituency, and Newtownards, in his, are not that different. They want decent treatment, and the vast majority of people in both his community and mine are decent people who do the right thing. That is why it is all the more frustrating when individuals do not. I particularly took his point about reputation; people sometimes talk my community down, and that angers me, because my community is chock full of brilliant people who, whether by being great parents, by being great friends, or by contributing and volunteering, make the world a better place every day. That is why it angers me that a small number of people choose to cause a big amount of disruption.

The hon. Member mentioned legislation. Some colleagues have said that we need legislation; others have said we do not. I will set out the case for why we do. Given that the Renters’ Rights Bill is back next Tuesday for its Report stage, this is a good moment—an amendment window—for colleagues to bring forward ideas, and there are also the stages in the other place. Clearly there is a broad interest in this issue, and there could be a lot of very good contributions.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) set out, the rebirth of social housing is at the core of what this Government intend to do. We think that having a social house can be a foundation on which people build their lives. That makes it all the more important that we have appropriate checks and balances for those who do not behave properly in social housing. I will address his point about policing shortly, because without police, it does not matter what laws or rules we have; we simply will not be able to enforce them.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness talked about the broken windows theory, which is interesting and important, but I might challenge it slightly. It is not as simple as saying, “We don’t want any broken windows round here.” It is saying that when we have broken windows, we fix them: if there is one broken window, a second window is more likely to be broken, because people think, “Hey, you break windows round here.” It is about having the resourcing to do that.

The hon. Member also talked about a visible police presence, which is very important to this new Government. There is a trade-off here—as he says, these things need to be paid for. Balancing that is the challenge for the Government of the day, and it will be the challenge for Opposition parties.

[Alex Norris]

I totally agree with that, and I have that conversation with my constituents. I was the shadow Policing Minister before the election, and I saw the Policing Minister and Home Secretary at the time, both of whom I hold in high regard, tearing their hair out over this question. As the hon. Gentleman says, we have employed more police officers than ever before; we have cut them and then we have added them back. Why are people not happier? The reality is that the funding mechanism squeezed out civilian staff, so that we now have 10,000 fewer police officers in frontline roles. There have never been more police officers—6,000 in this case—sat behind desks, doing things that they were not trained for and that their skills are wasted on. We have to change that, and getting 13,000 more police and police community support officers is part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I take the Minister back to the broken windows point. Broken window policing was not just about fixing the windows. He is right to say that that was part of it, because people not caring creates the opportunity for more crime, but it was also about arresting people for low-level crimes and antisocial behaviour. That is an effective and important part of that policy.

[Alex Norris]

I totally agree with that. To continue the New York example, I think of Red Hook and the courts there: the idea was that they would not just nick people for low-level crimes, but get them through court very quickly and ensure that there were sanctions, as a proper deterrent. Sadly, we are very long way from that. One of my biggest challenges with constituents is that they fear there is no point in staying in the game with the courts system, because they are already getting hearing dates for 2026. That is a real challenge at the root of justice in this country.

The issue starts with social housing providers. We would always want any issues to be nipped in the bud. If someone has done something that they should not have—had a loud party or left a bicycle in the way—then the necessary interaction should be quite an easy one, and there should be a resolution and no recurrence. That reduces antisocial behaviour. We want to see providers do that and they ought to do that.

Similarly, it is right that, when preventive measures fail, landlords can move decisively and quickly to tackle tenants who persistently abuse their tenancies. There are a range of powers already on the statute book, including eviction, but again, as we know from colleagues, that process does not feel like it always works. We have had conversations with social landlords. Of course, we would emphasise that they can apply to a court to remove tenants who carry out antisocial behaviour, but the process can be very difficult. I will talk shortly about how that might be made better.

It starts at allocation. There is a little bit of conversation about who gets access to social housing. Local authorities, including my own, can and do deprioritise tenants who have a history of bad behaviour. The majority—we believe it is about 75%—of local authorities undertake antisocial behaviour or other criminal behaviour-type tests ahead of allocating a social home. I suspect that colleagues may be interested in checking with their local authority whether they are in the three quarters or the quarter, because that is the front door to ensuring that those who have behaved badly in the past do not get access and the opportunity to do it again.

When it comes to eviction, there are powers at the moment—the Housing Act 1985 and the Housing Act 1988—but it is difficult. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness suggested that there should perhaps not be more legislation, but our plan is for more legislation in this space. Through the Renters Rights’ Bill, we will enable housing association landlords to make a claim to a court for repossession immediately in the most serious cases, rather than having to provide a notice period, with all the harm that can happen in those cases.

We will also amend the matters that judges must consider when deciding whether to award possession under the discretionary ground. This is very important—to give judges particular regard to whether tenants have engaged with efforts to resolve their behaviour and the impact on other tenants. Often, as we know from our casework, they simply do not answer letters or let the housing patch manager in. That will be a factor in the future, which is very welcome.

On the point about not being interested where people go, I am interested in that—not least because, as the crow flies, Kirkby to Bulwell is about eight or nine miles. One way or the other, either people being booted out of houses in my constituency end up in that of the hon. Member for Ashfield, or vice versa. That is why we should take an interest. If we can help people to resolve mental health issues, we should do that. If we can help people to address substance abuse issues, we should do that. We cannot pretend that, if we evict them from their housing, they suddenly will not be a problem elsewhere. I do not think that is the case, which is why we must take an interest and want to reduce reoffending and improve and promote rehabilitation.

My particular issue with the three strikes point is the rigidity. I would be very clear with my local authority that, if someone set their neighbour’s car on fire or attacked them, or was the organiser and perpetrator of a drugs network from their social house, one strike should be plenty. I would also say that, in a case where perhaps a lone parent is doing the best they can do, and they have a child who is clearly struggling and showing bad behaviours, I would try to solve that problem before thinking that shifting them out of their house would help rather than hinder.

The three strikes system is not flexible enough, and I fear it is at risk of being weaponised. We will have situations where we see both neighbours in the constituency surgery. If there is a hard and fast rule, and someone knows they only have to get three complaints found against their neighbour and they are out, it might promote that type of activity.