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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have not only stayed but spoken so passionately that it makes up in quality for what we did not have in numbers. Several other noble Lords who were not able to stay have expressed their sadness about that. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, spoke extremely powerfully. In one way I am glad she was not able to speak in Committee because it gave us the chance to hear some of the arguments lying at the very basis of this issue. It is important to remember, as she outlined, that this is about homeless people. I was disappointed by the Minister's reply when she kept emphasising the occupation of someone else's residence or home. These are not residences or homes, by and large; they are simply empty properties. This is the basis of the misunderstanding and it is what I have tried to get to the bottom of. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for his support and to my noble friend Lady Hamwee who, as always, asked some very incisive questions, some of which I do not feel were fully answered tonight. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, is quite right when he says that I took his advice on extending the six months suggested by Crisis to 12 months, because that puts it beyond doubt that the property is empty. In fact, there are definitions, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, of an empty property, and my amendment is more modest than those. I have not heard anything new from the Minister tonight about the transition measures. She mentioned that local authorities would be approached by those being criminalised, but I wonder whether she is aware—