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Housing and Regeneration Bill

In response to what the Minister said at the beginning of his speech, may I say that it might have been politic if he had briefly apologised to the House for waiting until almost the last minute before tabling 37 pages of amendments? The Bill had an unusually long lapse of time—eight weeks—between Committee and Report. Waiting right until the end before tabling 37 pages of amendments and then writing to members of the Committee an eight-page letter, which I received only today, does not give us enough time to consult the organisations that have an interest in the Bill. When the Minister replies to this group of amendments and new clauses, I hope he will find it within himself to apologise for any discourtesy. I raised this matter at business questions, and the Leader of the House promised to pass on to the Secretary of State my message that the first speech from the Government side should include an apology for this cavalier treatment of the House. I hope that the Minister can do that. We had a harmonious and constructive Public Bill Committee stage, but I am slightly worried that we may not be able to give the same degree of scrutiny to the Government new clauses before us this afternoon as we did to similar proposals in Committee. I have a particular interest in new clause 9, which I tabled. It deals with ground 8 possession action for rent arrears in housing benefit. If the Minister had been looking for an issue on which to do some bridge building, my new clause would have provided the basis for doing so. When I moved what was then new clause 12 in Committee, I received support from the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) and from the hon. Members for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) and for Edmonton (Mr. Love). All who spoke in that Committee debate were concerned about the use of ground 8. In a nutshell, ground 8 means that a court has no discretion whatever and has to give possession if the rent is in arrears for more than two months. The new clause I then proposed sought to exempt social landlords from that obligation and to give the court discretion not to award possession where, for example, the reason for the arrears was the local authority's failure to pay the housing benefit. I thought that I made a powerful case, and, indeed, when the Minister replied in Committee, he opened his remarks by saying:"““How can I possibly refuse the last amendment from the right hon. Gentleman?””––[Official Report, Housing and Regeneration Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 467.]" Yet he went on to do exactly that. It was only when I managed to encourage the appropriate body language from him—as can be seen in column 469, when I asked him to ““have another look”” at the issue on Report—that I decided not to press the matter to a Division. In the meantime, the Minister kindly wrote to me on 19 March about ground 8 possession for rent arrears, but I have to say that I was not wholly reassured by what he said. Rejecting ground 8 amendments, he said:"““However, it is also clear that these concerns are based on a very limited and predominately anecdotal evidence base.””" I have with me some Shelter briefings that list a large number of cases in which ground 8 has led to possession proceedings, so I am not persuaded that the evidence is primarily ““anecdotal”” or that Shelter would take kindly to that description of the briefing it has supplied to me and others. Towards the end of his letter, the Minister appears to concede the case, saying:"““However, concerns appear to remain over the actions of a small minority of RSLs and I am keen to see that these are resolved.””" Well, so am I, and the way to resolve them is to accept new clause 9, which gives the courts discretion not to award possession. Let me remind the Minister that Lord Justice Dyson said of the current position:"““We acknowledge that this conclusion will lead to tenants who are in receipt of housing benefit having no defence to a claim for possession in circumstances where they are not at fault. The statutory scheme is, therefore, potentially draconian in its application.””" The Minister will know that Scotland has already changed its law. Section 12 of the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 amends ground 8 to give courts discretion in rent arrears cases when housing benefit issues are outstanding. The Law Commission recommended in its April 2006 report ““Renting Homes: The Final Report”” that ground 8 should be abolished. The Minister has made other amendments to the law on repossession—I think he has amended ground 1—but he has not amended ground 8. I hope, however, that even at this late stage he will think again and see whether he cannot do in England what has already been done in Scotland and prevent the tenants of social landlords from being evicted when, through no fault of their own, they are in rent arrears because the local authority has not paid their housing benefit on time.