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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 107ZA and 107ZB, which are grouped with Amendment No. 107. The noble Earl’s amendment deals with some valid worries. Since Committee, the Government have tabled their amendment, which promises some guidance on this issue. Both the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, have served as councillors in their time, and they will be aware of the sorts of pressures that problem families can bring to bear. Our worry on these Benches is that these closure orders are being widened out into orders that can be used in anti-social behaviour situations, not just because of severe drug problems. We feel that in the cases where they are being used for anti-social behaviour reasons, the very minimum safeguard that there should be is to say that the order should not be a disproportionate response to the disorder or nuisance caused. The reason why I come back to the experience of noble Lords as local councillors is that they will probably have shared my experience as a councillor of the extreme difficulty caused by neighbour disputes. However excellent the council and however much it can put mediation services in place, those disputes are probably one of the hardest things to deal with as a councillor. The same issues would apply to registered social landlords; the buck would stop with councillors. The pressure to just get rid of the family, to get rid of the problem, is immense. That is why there need to be more safeguards. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, raised the issue of the children, but we also have to think about the whole family. They may be problem families; they may come back late and be loud and difficult. There again, they may not be incredibly difficult but their neighbours, if they are very quiet, may find them so. Perhaps there is one very noisy family in a cul-de-sac of very quiet families, so they will be seen as very anti-social. That is the reason why we say in Amendment No. 107ZA that appropriate steps must, "““have previously been taken to address the disorder or nuisance without success””." This is a situation where a closure order could become almost the first option that authorities take. As I have said, excellent authorities with all the services in place are unlikely to do that, but the Minister will admit that there are still some very poor authorities. Some are in the categories of poor or failing. We would not want to think that they would abuse this legislation and make a closure order the first step. The reason for our second amendment is that a closure order also needs to have been through the magistrates’ court for it to have a look at whether any appropriate arrangements are in place. We are grateful that, since Committee, the Government have put down their Amendment No. 107A about guidance, but the fact is that although it is a good first attempt—if I might use that slightly school essay phraseology—it needs to be fleshed out a bit. I should be grateful if the Minister could look at expanding the section on guidance at least to include some of the points that we have put in our amendments. This situation is different from where closure orders are used for drug issues; they could start to be used because of pressures in the neighbourhood simply to get rid of the family, which is seen as much the easiest option. I speak from years of experience. I can remember, as a councillor, being driven to looking to purchase houses in isolated situations and all sorts of things. If this measure had been available as an option, there would have been immense pressure to use it instead of solving some of the deep-seated problems of problem families. Where there are not unitary authorities, the problem is doubled because social services are at county level and housing is at district level. I should be immensely grateful if the Minister could think about fleshing out the guidance in the Bill so that we can take a little more comfort from it.