Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 9th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to be moving the Second Reading today. Domestic abuse is a devastating issue which has serious impacts on the victim, the victim’s family and, indeed, society as a whole. According to the crime survey, each year an estimated 1.9 million people in England and Wales suffer some form of domestic abuse. Not only does domestic abuse often place the victim in immediate physical danger; its emotional effect can create damaging, long-term impacts on the victims and their families, and place huge costs on society and the public purse. This short, targeted Bill is an important part of the Government’s wider aim of supporting victims of domestic abuse to leave their abusive situation, and ensuring that they and their families are provided with the stability and security they need and deserve.

The Bill will ensure that if victims of domestic abuse who have a lifetime social tenancy need to flee their current home to escape abuse and are granted a new tenancy, they are able to retain their lifetime tenancy in their new social home. The Bill achieves this by requiring local authorities to offer a further lifetime tenancy to existing lifetime tenants where the tenant needs to move or has recently moved to escape domestic abuse, and the local authority is satisfied that granting the new tenancy will reduce the risk of further abuse. This will apply not only to situations where the tenant themselves is a victim of domestic abuse but also where a member of their household, such as a child, has suffered domestic abuse.

The Bill applies to all local authorities in England and protects all lifetime social tenants in these circumstances, whether they have a secure local authority tenancy or an assured tenancy with a private registered provider of social housing. It will apply not only to situations where the tenant is a victim of domestic abuse but also where a member of the household, such as a child, has suffered domestic abuse.

The definition of domestic abuse in the Bill has been drawn widely, so it will apply not just to those who have suffered physical violence but also to victims of psychological, sexual, financial and emotional abuse, as provided by Clause 1(2).

The Bill delivers on a commitment that the Government made to this House during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. We gave a commitment that when local authorities moved to fixed-term tenancies in the future we would ensure that the regulations which specify when local authorities may grant a further lifetime tenancy would make this mandatory for victims of domestic abuse. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, raised this issue—I am pleased to see her in her place—and I acknowledge her part in ensuring that we have come through with this legislation. It has been a pleasure dealing with the noble Baroness in that regard.

Primary legislation is necessary to deliver on this commitment. To be clear, the Bill does not create a new requirement for local authorities to rehouse lifetime tenants who are victims of domestic abuse, but it ensures that where a lifetime tenant is rehoused in these circumstances they do not lose their security of tenure. This is about removing an impediment that could prevent victims from leaving their abusive situation.

The Government are absolutely committed to supporting victims of domestic abuse—it is a high priority for the Prime Minister. That is why we have secured £40 million of dedicated funding in the spending review and invested £33.5 million since 2014 to support victims of domestic abuse. However, we want to go further and are carrying out a fundamental review of the commissioning and funding of domestic abuse services, which will conclude in the summer of this year. I look forward to updating noble Lords on the review’s progress.

The most recent lettings data show that from April 2015 to March 2016 about 1.6% of all social lettings were to existing tenants who moved to another social home to escape domestic abuse. While the numbers are relatively small, this is still more than 5,000 lives affected by domestic abuse and it is important that they are provided with the support they need to leave their abusive situation. The measures in the Bill will do precisely this and ensure that we do not create a barrier—

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

What happens in the case of the abuser? In such circumstances, are the rights of the abuser—who may well end up being a single person—in no way affected by this legislation?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the aim of this legislation is certainly not to do anything in relation to the abusing party; it is to protect the abused party. It is about the protection of the victim rather than doing anything in relation to the perpetrator.

The measures in the Bill will provide that protection and ensure that we do not create a barrier to victims of domestic abuse who are considering leaving their abusive situation by protecting the security of tenure of those who move to a new social home.

We recognise that there will be other circumstances in which it might be appropriate for local authorities to continue to offer lifetime tenancies at their discretion. We will set out those circumstances in regulations that we are currently developing. These regulations are affirmative and noble Lords will have the opportunity to debate them when they are laid.

I repeat that this is a targeted and short Bill. It was a hard-won opportunity for a specific situation. I look forward to hearing noble Lords’ comments and views on the Bill, and I beg to move.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I speak briefly in the gap to congratulate the Minister on bringing forward this measure in the form of primary legislation, in response to a brilliant campaign run by my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett. I also want to comment on the speech given by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull. Her contribution was very interesting because it raised a number of issues and suggested some rather innovative ways of dealing with particular problems.

However, I want to talk about the unintended consequences and ask whether Ministers have really thought through how these can be dealt with. Let us take a particular circumstance: Mr and Mrs Jones are married with five children and live in a house in London. Mrs Jones goes to the local authority because she is able to substantiate her case that she is being abused. All the processes have been gone through. The local authority is satisfied that she is an abused person and therefore, with her five children, she will be rehoused. So a large local authority-owned—publicly owned—property is in the hands of the abuser. Following the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, I wonder whether it is possible to qualify the tenancy of the abuser; otherwise, as far as I can see, he can remain, perhaps even indefinitely, in a large house in London, while it might be costing the local authority as much as £1,000 a week to house another family, perhaps with a number of children. I wonder whether it is possible to qualify that tenancy, although of course that in itself raises the question of whether the abuser’s human rights would be breached. I just add that to the complication of dealing with this issue. If one were able to qualify the tenancy, it might concentrate the mind of the abuser to know that his housing situation could be compromised if he were to proceed with the abuse within the marital relationship. I just put that forward as a possibility.

Also, is it not possible that in these circumstances the abuser could move an alternative tenant into the property? He knows that in certain circumstances his abused partner can claim and obtain alternative accommodation, so he could move into the home—that is, the home of the abuser—another family where he may well be having a relationship with the woman involved. Those are situations that may well arise in the real world when this legislation is implemented, but it all goes back to whether we can qualify the tenancy of the abuser, and that is the issue that I hope we can deal with at some stage during the course of the Bill.

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[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. As I said, this is something local authorities are doing already. They have to make decisions about identification of domestic abuse at present without this legislation. I am saying that the legislation is not altering the position. I will happily cover that in the letter, if I may.

There was a question regarding training for local authorities. Training goes on at the moment. The new code of guidance on homelessness will advise local authorities about the need to have appropriate policies and training in place. We provide funding to the National Homelessness Advice Service to provide training, which is taken up by many—probably most—local authorities. For example, we provided funding to the National Practitioner Support Service for domestic abuse awareness training for front-line housing staff in 2016. That trained 232 front-line housing staff across nine English regions. In addition, a number of local authorities used funding from our £20 million fund for specialist accommodation-based support and service reform to meet the priorities for domestic abuse services to provide training programmes. So training is going on at the moment. Again, I will expand on that in the letter that I will ensure goes to noble Lords.

Broader questions were raised, many of which I can understand and empathise with. The noble Lord, Lord Porter, said that I would have been disappointed if he did not raise the issue of supply. I am not sure that “disappointed” is the mot juste, but he is right that I would have been surprised. Clearly, there is an issue of supply, so perhaps I would have been disappointed; we cannot be complacent about the supply of housing across the piece, and we need to look at that.

Other noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Farmer, Lady Manzoor and Lady Hodgson, raised broader questions about the need to ensure that this agenda is carried forward however hard pressed the legislative programme is. I certainly agree with that and give the undertaking that the Government will do so, because it is absolutely at the forefront of our thinking.

The noble Baroness, Lady Burt, raised some pertinent questions, some of which were picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is right that there is power in present legislation for perpetrators of domestic abuse to be forced out of the premises in question. I will endeavour to find out how that is being used, because, as noble Lords indicated, there is clearly a question about how effective it is. I will see what statistics we have and ensure that whatever evidence we have comes round before Committee stage. It is a valid point: we are tending here, understandably, to focus on the victim, but we want not to advantage the perpetrator of the domestic abuse. Often—perhaps not as often as one would like—there will be criminal proceedings and the perpetrator will end up in prison, but there is not any guarantee of that. As we know, some domestic abuse is more insidious; it is not always direct, physical violence, so I accept that there are issues of evidence and proof. I will see what I can find on that, because it is important to look at this issue further.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I understand that, under the Small Tenements Recovery Act 1838, it was possible for a local authority to go to a court and evict without having to produce the justification. The position as I understand it from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is that there would have to be a proceeding and the court would then have to decide whether it was satisfied that the abuse was sufficient to warrant. I am asking this question because I am not altogether convinced that local authorities, realising that they may have to go into proceedings to argue the scale of the abuse, will be prepared to do it. They may say, “It’s better from our point of view simply to leave the abuser in place without taking any action”. That is why it is important that the Minister follows this up in some detail.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a powerful case that I accept. As I have said, I want to see how much this provision is taken up, how effective it has been over the years and the number of cases where perhaps it might have been used but has not.

I shall try to pick up some other points that were raised. Any that I have not covered I will ensure are covered in the write-around. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, raised a question about the consultation that has just closed on residence tests. I will ensure that that is taken up. It has just closed, he is absolutely right. We anticipate that the residence requirement—or the non-residence requirement—will be carried forward to ensure that victims of domestic abuse are placed in the position he indicated and that I agree with him that they should be in.

The most important thing I can do, in closing, is to give an undertaking in relation to the very pertinent point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about the termination of joint tenancies. I will follow that up. Some of the other specific points that were raised were a little off-piste—legal aid and so on—but if the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, wants a fuller response I will make sure that it comes to him, but that will not be in the context of this Bill.

I thank noble Lords very much for their support, which will make it much easier to carry this legislation through and then to tackle the domestic abuse situation on a broader front. In closing I once again thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, whose rigour and charming determination has ensured that we are where we are today.