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

My Lords, somewhat unusually, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, a remark of Flanders and Swann in the early 1960s—those magnificent satirists, alas, no more—sprang to mind. I remember that, ““O tempora, O mores!”” was translated as, ““O Times, O Daily Mail!”” on the London stage. Be that as it may, in the unavoidable absence of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach—he has, after all, been following this saga throughout—I am very pleased to be able to speak in support of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, on the regulations, which supplement the Government’s continuing insistence that it makes sense to have a series of pilot schemes allowing the partial or, at worst, complete withdrawal of housing benefit for anti-social behaviour. That we should condemn such behaviour and, as a legislature, draw up laws to minimise it should, as the noble Lord just said, go without argument. We have that right and I agree with the Government that that is our duty. But with rights and duties go responsibility, and responsibility means that we must draw up laws that are appropriate to the problem that they seek to address. The problem undoubtedly exists. Anti-social behaviour is a curse of society. Not only does it ““ruin lives””, as the Minister said in July, but it can make already sick people more ill, as happened to my son-in-law—but more of that anon. It is arguable, however, that anti-social behaviour creates an environment in which serious crime can take hold, as the Minister also claimed at the time. Whether his estimate of a £3.4 billion cost to the taxpayer is right, I cannot say, but I have no doubt that its knock-on effects cost us all a thundering lot of money. The 2006-07 British Crime Survey showed us that the problem is getting worse. The proportion of people perceiving high levels of anti-social behaviour in their local area has risen by 1 per cent in the past year to 18 per cent. However, the regulations, and the original order that they hang on, address only part of the problem, as between them they apply only to people who have already been ejected from one house or flat for anti-social behaviour and are in danger of being removed again for the same reason. They thus apply to a rather limited number of people. I note that among the myriad of modern Home Office legislation, a new power was introduced on 2 October last year allowing the police to apply for intervention orders to try to deal with the anti-social behaviour of drug users. That may be one reason why the householder was ejected the first time round. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, touched on the fact that when we originally debated Clause 31 of the Welfare Reform Bill, as it was then, in early March, I interjected that the sanction of withdrawal of housing benefit was referred to in the housing Green Paper of 2000. That Green Paper was at best lukewarm about this idea, commenting that it would be difficult to use the sanction on a claimant guilty of anti-social behaviour without it impacting adversely on innocent members of the household. The scheme was soon vetoed by the then Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Prescott, but, as we all know, it raised its head again in the Welfare Reform Bill earlier this year. The Bill originally proposed that local housing authorities would be allowed to use it anywhere in the country. During the passage of the Bill, the Government and opposition parties received adverse representations from the charities concerned and some of the local authorities which were to operate the scheme. What surprised me was that DWP Ministers started saying that they hoped that the sanctions would never be used. That is almost a direct quote from the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton. He will remember that on that basis, I argued that we should not have it at all. However, in the spirit of compromise that I hope I often exhibit, I was happy to allow a pilot scheme to go ahead as long as it had a limited life and, if the pilots were successful, there would be further primary legislation to roll out such a scheme across the country. That is the position we find ourselves in today. The original order, which this one supplements, was debated in July this year and provided for pilots to be set up in eight local authority areas: Blackburn and Darwen; Blackpool; Manchester; Newham; Wirral; Dover; New Forest; and South Gloucestershire. My first question to the Minister is whether they are still all on board or have any of them exhibited the cold feet anticipated when my noble friend Lord Taylor debated the primary order with the Minister in July? I observe that only the first five have family intervention projects in place. Should they find that, because of that, they do not need the sanctions, how will that help the evaluation of the pilots? The original order was rushed out fairly quickly after the Bill received Royal Assent; we were told in the Explanatory Memorandum that this supplementary order would be necessary to make these pilot schemes work. What has happened to the care and attention to detail that the DWP’s predecessor departments exhibited 20 years ago, when we would have had slower, but more complete, details in a single order? That order would only have needed to be supplemented in the light of experience—experience which the Minister will be forced to agree we cannot have because the pilots only start on the 1st of next month. Does he agree with my anticipation of at least one further supplementary order some time next year, when that experience will have started to be gained? Almost a year ago, the Government’s respect tsar, Louise Casey, announced that 40 areas in England and Wales are to be offered additional funding to become respect zones. In return, these areas are expected to use their full powers to combat anti-social behaviour. Full powers must include the powers in these two orders—at least, I assume they do; perhaps the Minister can tell me. Are all the eight pilot areas in the respect zones? If not, why not? Or is it another case of one department not knowing what another is up to? To change the subject, these pilots ought to come to a grinding halt on 31 October 2009, the two years agreed in the compromise. Why, then, does paragraph 7.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum say: "““The intention is to pilot the scheme for 2 years in eight local authorities””?" So far, so good. It continues: "““These regulations only apply to the pilot areas””." Again, so far, so good. It goes on to say: "““The enabling power is time-limited and will come to an end on 31 December 2010. For a scheme to be in place after this date primary legislation would be required””." Does this mean that the pilots will not actually start until well into next year? What exactly does it mean? Then there will be an evaluation and we will be able to see whether my scepticism is borne out in reality. But the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is right that at the start of these two years it is the guidance, which should by now have been sent to local authorities trialling this scheme, that is all-important. I am remiss in not having asked before, but I would appreciate a copy—the noble Lord has clearly had one. Either I have not been at my desk recently or I have not been sent one automatically. That is not a complaint. This is one of the many occasions on which one should ask for that information from the department.