Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I shall move on to that; I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. Under section 7 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, it is already an offence for any person on a residential premises not to leave"on being required to do so by or on behalf of…a displaced residential occupier…or…protected intending occupier””." According to the response to the consultation, the Metropolitan police said that"““the law was broadly in the right place and that the existing array of offences allowed them to tackle the worst cases of squatting (e.g. where squatters cause the rightful homeowner to be displaced).””" The Law Society and the Criminal Bar Association confirmed the same view. The Law Society stated:"““The consultation paper acknowledges that there are no reliable data on the nature and extent of squatting. In the absence of any such evidence, we have no reason to believe that the existing law does not deal adequately with squatting.””" It went on to describe the operation of section 7 and confirmed that no evidence had been produced to demonstrate that it did not work adequately when properly used. Those concerns were confirmed by the Criminal Bar Association. The Law Society reported that section 7"““is not often used, as squatting happens infrequently, but where it is our members””—" that is, the lawyers concerned—"““report that it is extremely effective.””" These are the responses to the Government's own consultation. Everyone in the House has to support evidence-based policy making. From all the evidence and information to hand, including from the Government's own consultation and impact assessment, we must conclude that there is no evidence of a problem on any significant scale, that there is conjecture that it exists and that in the judgment of practitioners—not just the advocates, but the law enforcers—the existing law is sufficient.