Housing Benefit (Loss of Benefit) (Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2007

rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Housing Benefit (Loss of Benefit) (Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2007. The noble Lord said: Anti-social behaviour ruins lives. It does not just make life unpleasant but prevents the renewal of disadvantaged areas and creates an environment where more serious crime can take hold. It is also very expensive. It is estimated to cost the British taxpayer £3.4 billion a year. One of the commitments in the respect action plan, launched in January 2006, was to consider how to encourage those involved in persistent anti-social behaviour to engage with intensive family support. As part of the plan, we developed the policy of a housing benefit sanction for people who have been evicted for anti-social behaviour and then refuse to take up offers of help. This proposal is different from sanction proposals previously considered but not taken forward. It is a post-eviction sanction, designed to encourage people to access support to tackle their problem behaviour, as opposed to a pre-eviction proposal intended to deter but not tackle the causes of the anti-social behaviour. The aim is to provide a very strong incentive to encourage these households to undertake rehabilitation when they have refused other offers of help. This measure was thoroughly debated during the course of the Welfare Reform Act 2007, so I know that there are concerns about its impact on the vulnerable. However, the measure is about helping vulnerable people and about getting people in crisis to accept the support offered to them. Because they have already been evicted, the chances of it happening again are high unless they change their behaviour. As I told noble Lords during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill, this policy will be considered a success if no sanction is imposed. It will mean that people have accepted the help that they need. We know that intensive rehabilitation can achieve positive and significant changes in behaviour, resulting in long-standing difficulties and entrenched anti-social behaviour being stopped. The evaluation of the Dundee families’ project showed an 84 per cent success rate with the most difficult families, using a variety of key indicators, including prevention of issuing anti-social behaviour orders and preventing children being taken into care. A Sheffield Hallam University evaluation of six family support projects found that the projects were strong on their primary objective of reducing incidents and complaints about anti-social behaviour. An 85 per cent reduction in anti-social behaviour was recorded. This study used key indicators, including the reduction in the level of complaints and improved school attendance over two years. Evaluations show success rates of over 80 per cent. It means that behaviour improves and communities get respite from the behaviour that is plaguing them, and it also delivers other positive outcomes. An 84 per cent improvement in school attendance was recorded across the six projects covered in the Sheffield Hallam evaluation. Parents often report feeling better able to control, supervise and parent their children. Given the strong evidence that such rehabilitation works, it is justifiable that a sanction of benefit should be linked to the refusal of such help and support. The fate of those who have a sanction imposed is within their own hands. Benefit will be reinstated if they choose to take up the rehabilitation services offered to them. These regulations underpin the possible sanction of housing benefit and set the rate for the reduction. It is right that they are subject to the affirmative procedure. The regulations would allow the pilots to run for two years, starting from 1 November 2007. Under the primary legislation, the conditions that must be satisfied for a sanction to be applied are that the former occupier has been evicted on grounds of anti-social behaviour; they have secured alternative accommodation and a new claim to housing benefit has been made; they have been issued with a warning notice requiring them to take specified action to avoid a sanction; and they have failed, without good cause, to comply with the warning notice. Regulation 3 sets out that that must all take place within a pilot area—not necessarily the same pilot area—and within the pilot period. Under regulation 4, if those conditions are satisfied, housing benefit will be gradually reduced in three phases, the intention being that the increasing deduction acts as a rolling incentive to take up support. Because we want this to be a strong incentive, it is a severe sanction, taking away up to 100 per cent of benefit. However, if the person falls into the category of ““person of hardship””, the maximum reduction is 30 per cent. Hardship is defined in regulation 5. As well as those listed as automatically qualifying for hardship, local authorities have discretion to award hardship in any case where they have taken account of all the circumstances of the household and are satisfied that it will suffer hardship. The proposed regulations would amend the Social Security (Loss of Benefits) Regulations 2001 so that, where another sanction was being applied to the household’s housing benefit for benefit offences, the rate of deduction that would apply would be the greater of the two rates. The schedule to the two regulations lists the local authorities where the pilots will take place, and only claimants in those local authorities will be subject to the sanction of reduced housing benefit. The local authorities piloting the scheme are volunteers who believe it is a tool that will be useful to them. Further detail on the sanction scheme will be provided in negative-resolution regulations—the Housing Benefit (Loss of Benefit) Pilot Scheme Supplementary Regulations 2007. Those regulations contain details of appeal rights and of what will be considered good cause not to comply with a warning notice. They will provide the rules about discretionary housing payments and provide the arrangements for sharing of information between the courts, the DWP and local authorities. Detailed guidance will be provided for housing benefit administrators, the courts and local authorities. It is being drafted in conjunction with the piloting local authorities and with relevant stakeholders. In my view the provisions of the Housing Benefit (Loss of Benefit) (Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2007 are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. I beg to move. Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Housing Benefit (Loss of Benefit) (Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2007. 21st report from the Statutory Instruments Committee.—(Lord McKenzie of Luton.)