Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill

Toby Perkins Excerpts

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

[Melanie Onn]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, and I agree: sufficient support should be available across the whole country. Very often, individuals will present with unique circumstances, and legislation cannot provide for each and every eventuality, but making sure that the appropriate training is in place across the country will go some way towards assisting those individuals.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I agree entirely with what my hon. Friend is saying about the postcode lottery. When I raised that on Second Reading, the Minister said that I was complaining about an issue that did not exist, but it has become clear from subsequent meetings with Women’s Aid that different local authorities are applying very different interpretations of the rights in terms of housing allocations and local connections, so I support her efforts to ensure more consistency across the piece.

[Melanie Onn]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and concur with his remarks. Other issues raised by hon. Members have prompted assurances during the Bill’s progress, and I take the Minister at her word and hope the Government live up to her words.

New clause 1 would ensure that cross-border travel does not negatively affect the rights in the Bill. People who flee domestic abuse end up in all parts of the country, but an unevenness in legislation means that domestic abuse victims in the devolved nations are subject to different rights and protections. The new clause seeks to protect the rights of domestic abuse victims countrywide and ensure that travelling from one council area in one country to another in another country does not impede the rights of a domestic abuse victim.

Domestic abuse victims often have little time to plan when fleeing an abusive partner and are unlikely to think that a move to their nearest large town or city might change their circumstances as a victim of domestic abuse, yet that is the reality in places such as Chester and Wrexham. It should be unequivocal that the rights in the Bill travel with the victims. In Committee, the Minister informed me that this matter would be brought up at the devolved Administration roundtable last month in the hope of agreeing a memorandum of understanding between the Administrations.

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[Toby Perkins]

I welcome the reassurance that the Minister has just given us, but the fact is that different local authorities understand the current legislation and their responsibilities to people fleeing domestic violence in different ways, so what possible harm would it do to include amendment 1 so that there would be no cause for any misunderstanding in future?

[Mrs Wheeler]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to entice me down a road that I will not go down. This is parliamentary legislative drafting, and there should be no reason whatsoever for local authorities to misunderstand the situation, which will obviously also be made clear in guidance. However, I thank him for giving me the opportunity to say it again. We will be issuing guidance to assist local authorities to implement the fixed-term tenancy provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016. To manage concerns, we can certainly look to ensure that it explains the provisions in this Bill as well, including making it absolutely clear that it applies where the victim is seeking to be re-housed in a different local authority district from the one in which her existing tenancy is situated.

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[Mrs Wheeler]

Again, I stress that this Bill is England-only, but there are such opportunities. There is a local housing rate and then there are discretionary housing payments that can be made above that.

I come to amendment 3, the final amendment. I fully understand the motivation behind this amendment, which would extend the Bill to housing association landlords—this was the point made by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), I believe. However, as I said in Committee, we have some fundamental concerns about this amendment. First and foremost, local authorities and housing associations are very different entities. Housing associations are private, not-for-profit organisations which make a significant contribution to affordable housing supply. I am sure Members will agree that we all want to see more affordable homes built. It is therefore vital that housing associations remain in the private sector, so that they can borrow funding free of public sector spending guidelines, to build the affordable housing we so greatly need. For that reason, we must avoid imposing any unnecessary control that might risk reversing—

[Toby Perkins]

I am listening carefully to what the Minister is saying. It very much stands at odds with the Conservative party policy announced in the run-up to the general election, when it was going to impose right to buy on housing associations. How is it that the Conservative party is so happy to remove thousands of houses from the social rental sector when it comes to right to buy, but when it comes to legislation to protect domestic violence victims, suddenly the Conservatives feel that the private sector should not be touched?

[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.

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[Toby Perkins]

I would like to start where the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) finished. I agree entirely about the importance of this Bill, which the Minister herself described as being so important. It behoves all of us to consider why somebody who has been through the appalling domestic violence that many of our constituents have experienced would then be willing potentially to stay in that relationship if their security of housing tenure was in danger of being lost. What does it say to all other housing tenants that something so crucial should be glibly given away by Government in their case? The fact that this Bill is so important makes a really vital point about the need for secure tenancy much more broadly.

The hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) said that this was a Tory party manifesto commitment. I did not realise there were any Tory party manifesto commitments still standing, so if it was indeed that, I welcome it. I do not remember the part of the general election campaign where the Tories told us that they were going to take away secure tenancies for all other council housing tenants, so I do not entirely understand how they committed to ensure for domestic violence victims something that they had not told everyone else they were going to take away from them.

I support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn). On amendment 1, recognising local connections within the Bill is incredibly important. There is real inconsistency not just in the way that different local authorities view their responsibilities towards domestic violence victims but in the provision of refuges. I was shocked to hear from Women’s Aid that Devon County Council not only has no provision for refuges but gives no money towards refuges that Women’s Aid provides. In Chesterfield, we are so well served by the refuges provided by the Elm Foundation that we often provide for domestic violence victims who are coming from other areas. Many of the people who are going to use these services will not be local people. It therefore behoves all local authorities everywhere to make provision on behalf of domestic violence victims.

Where there is that inconsistency of provision, the areas with the greatest provision of refuges end up taking more people on to their council house waiting list and then providing that housing, and so those who are best at providing refuges also see the greatest pressure on their housing services. That is a real disincentive to local authorities in making this provision.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point, but he will have heard the Minister say that she will be undertaking the first ever audit of local authority provision. Does he not wonder, as I do, why that has not happened before?

[Toby Perkins]

I welcome the audit, but the question is what happens afterwards. I would like this to be a statutory service with a responsibility on local authorities to provide it. Will there be any move by the Government towards that? Having the information is one thing, but the next thing is what the Government do with it.

On amendment 2, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) made an incredibly powerful point about the bedroom tax, describing the circumstances where domestic violence victims might lose their children and then find that they are moving into a small flat and are told by the family courts that they do not have appropriate accommodation to get their children back. I was not at all convinced by what the Minister said about why the amendment was not relevant. I urge my hon. Friend to press it to a vote, because we cannot talk about straining every sinew and still have a barrier of that kind in the way of domestic violence victims.

There is a broader need for us to recognise the threat to refuges that exists not only because of local authority funding cuts but because of proposed changes to housing benefit. We must look at the impact that that could have on refuge provision. I urge the Government, if they are serious about supporting domestic violence victims, to make every possible representation to the Department for Work and Pensions with regard to implementing those housing benefit changes. I support the Government on this important Bill. However, I urge Members to support all the amendments, particularly amendment 2, because they will add further powers to the Bill.

[Sir Robert Syms]

This is an important Bill. I think that we all heard the passion with which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) spoke about this subject, which really underlined how important it is.

I have sat in this Parliament for a long time, and it has always struck me that short Bills, specifically to the point, are far more powerful in supporting people’s rights than the Bills that we sometimes see, with clause after clause. We know how complex housing issues are, and that is why guidance is the key. We put the right into primary legislation, and then we have the guidance to deal with the problems. Victims of domestic violence are often in a chaotic situation because of the nature of what is happening in the home. The best way of dealing with that is through guidance.

The Department consults very widely on guidance. A vast raft of housing charities and women’s rights charities can give their views, and then we have a Committee upstairs. I must admit that having Committees upstairs that simply note what has been discussed always seems slightly odd, but the consultation gives Members an opportunity to raise a lot of points. Indeed, if the Opposition want to pray against something, it sometimes comes to the Floor of the House for a vote. There are mechanisms for ensuring that the guidance is comprehensive and right and it was probably written by the same experts in the Department who were trying to deal with this difficult and complex problem under the Labour Government.

I have seen the passion that many Members have expressed on this subject, and I understand that because this is about people’s lives, but I also listened very carefully to the Minister. She talked about training; that is good. She talked about audit; that is good. She talked about various money pots; that is good. She talked about pilots, which means that the Department is open-minded about how we should go about solving some of these very important problems. Providing that the pilots and the audit are done properly, we can get a better service to those who face the real and great tragedy of domestic violence and the consequences that has for them, their children and the family.

I think that the Government are on the right track. I understand the passion that people feel about this. However, it is not about what is in the Bill; it is about what is in the guidance. There is a big debate to be had on that, but today we need to get on with supporting the Bill and getting it on to the statute book. I therefore support the Minister in resisting the amendments. Let us consult on the guidance, listen to what the experts want us to do, and have a listening Government who will try to ensure that we have a fit-for-purpose policy that will deal with people who are facing great misery at home because of this problem.