Equality Bill

My Lords, Amendment 125C would set out in the Bill a provision that ensured that the duty of the courts in England and Wales to grant possession to a landlord in certain cases under the Housing Act 1988 was not hampered by the disability provisions of the Bill. I appreciate that the amendment has been tabled to explore the avenues explained by the noble Lord. The noble Lord appears to have concerns that the disability provisions which we debated earlier in Committee might prevent landlords taking action under the auspices of the Housing Act. Noble Lords will recall that similar issues have arisen in the past, such as when a disabled tenant was evicted by Lewisham Council because of a breach of his tenancy agreement. This Committee is not considering landlord and tenant legislation, I am relieved to say, which can be complex. I am sure noble Lords will forgive me if I do not delve too deeply into details of the Act referenced in the amendment. However, as the noble Lord was asking me about the consultation process, I recalled that when in 2008 I was involved in the discussions on building this Bill and the Malcolm case was concurrent, the DWP conducted a public consultation late in that year. I cannot give the noble Lord chapter and verse on who took part in that consultation in terms of landlord organisations, but I undertake to find out and let him know. However, I know that the consultation took place and informed how we proceeded with the Bill. I appreciate that this amendment is meant to clarify the relationship between the disability provisions of this Bill and housing legislation, and that that relationship has caused some confusion in the courts. However, the difficulty in those cases was that the scope of the landlord to justify his treatment of the tenant under the DDA was very limited. One of the changes the Bill has made to the disability provisions is to provide a defence of objective justification to discrimination arising from disability and to include disability within the scope of the indirect discrimination provisions, which are also subject to an objective justification defence. The courts now have much greater discretion to consider the facts of each case and to decide whether the landlord’s treatment of the tenant is justified, which might cover some of the points raised by the noble Lord and his concerns about what is reasonable for a landlord to consider. We believe that this allows for greater fairness than a blanket prohibition on disability considerations being taken into account in some possession proceedings. I hope with that, and my undertaking to write to the noble Lord if I have not covered all the points he raised, he will withdraw his amendment.