Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I am most grateful to all your Lordships who have taken part in this debate. The Minister did not answer the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, as to what he envisaged to be significant and persistent disorder or persistent serious nuisance. In other words, how high is the bar? That is extremely important, because if the bar is set too low so that these orders are regularly made, would there be 720 crack house orders, for example? How many orders are there likely to be for anti-social behaviour? Excessive use could be counterproductive, because local authorities will have to deal with ever increasing numbers of displaced people who must be accommodated in some sort of temporary accommodation. Indeed, the temporary and uncertain existence that they are then to enjoy is more likely to exacerbate anti-social behaviour than the opposite. Will the Minister consider how high the bar is being placed? The Minister also referred to private ownership, which gives rise to another matter which I should have addressed when I first addressed your Lordships. It is almost unknown for owner-occupiers to be evicted from their own property. The tradition is that a person’s home is his castle, particularly if he owns it. I warn the Government that there is a danger that the protection for a person’s home and property being violated in this way will give rise to issues under the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions under Article 1 of the first protocol to the Human Rights Act. This is an important area. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, for asking what is so difficult about putting the proposed amendments into subsection (4) in new Part 11B in Schedule 30. As he rightly says, guidance is not enough. The magistrates’ court, which will look at these provisions on an application being made to them, will look at paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), so why could it not look at paragraphs (d), (e) and (f), which we propose, instead of having to pick up the guidance papers and start reading a completely different document? It cannot make it more complex just to ask the magistrates before they make the order to make sure that it is not disproportionate and will not cause unnecessary hardship; to make sure that attempts have been made previously to address this nuisance; and to require those who are applying for the order to satisfy the magistrates’ court that appropriate arrangements have been made for the elderly, the vulnerable and the children who may be affected by the order. There is nothing complex about that. These are just areas which put a duty on the person applying for the order to make sure that all these arrangements are in place for him to tell the court and to make it a duty for the magistrates to consider those areas as well as the other areas referred to. I give the Minister the opportunity to tell us where the bar is set before I decide what to do with the amendment.