HC Deb 31 July 1975 vol 896 cc2350-9

6.36 a.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg (Hampstead)

I, too, am glad to be able to raise an important issue and to find my constituent Minister, the hon. Lady the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill), looking as fresh as a daisy at this ungodly hour.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) has attracted nearly 160 signatures from Members of all parties to a motion drawing attention to the need for some action to deal with the problem of squatting. I wish to make a brief speech, so I shall exclude any reference to what I call "licensed" squatting, by those who have reached agreements with local authorities and who cause no problem.

There is growing public anxiety over this issue, which it is no exaggeration to say is turning to anger. The borough in which both the Minister and I live has been conducting a series of consultation meetings on a new borough plan. At one such meeting, in the area where I live, although officials outlined what was in the plan, the main public concern was over the lack of attention that the local authority was giving to dealing with squatters. At least half the evening was taken up with discussion of a problem that no one had anticipated being raised.

The worry about squatters is not confined to London. Constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemp-town (Mr. Bowden) for example, are desperately worried. They are unwilling to go on holiday because they are not certain whether they can regain possession of their home if they return to find it occupied by squatters.

A case came to my notice last weekend which received a fair amount of publicity in the Paddington area of Westminster. A widow and her three children were about to move into a flat on which the local authority had done considerable work. They had been living in bed and breakfast accommodation—expensive for the ratepayers and undesirable for such a family. On almost the very day they were to move in—the widow had been gathering furniture and so on—the flat was broken into by squatters. They refused to go and that night a fire broke out in the flat. More than £1,000-worth of damage was done. The widow and her three children are still in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. That situation repeatedly occurs in the various parts of Greater London.

At the last meeting of the Greater London Council questions were asked about properties owned by the council, and its experience of squatting. The GLC acquired a series of properties in Hemstal Road, Hampstead, some of which were illegally taken over by squatters. At that meeting information was given that 22 other properties which had been acquired by the GLC under its municipalisation programme at a cost of £449,000 were unlawfully occupied by squatters.

The phenomenon of squatting is not new. It came first to notice in the early 1950s after a substantial number of large blocks of flats, mainly in London, had been derequisitioned. While the flats were being renovated by the owners, they were occupied by squatters. That phase did not last very long, possibly as there was little or no public sympathy for the squatters. Those incidents died down but recommenced at the end of the 1960s with less pleasant manifestations.

As a result the last Conservative Government referred the question of squatting and the law on entering property to the Law Commission, which produced an interim report 13 months ago. That report was issued for consultation and comment. It disappeared into the musty pigeon holes of the Law Commissioners. We are told that the Law Commissioners are working hard and will produce a definitive report. However, it appears to the general public that the Government are waiting like Godot or Mr. Micawber for something to turn up and for the Law Commission to tell the Government what should be done.

My information is that the final report of the Law Commission will not be available until the middle of next year. Knowing the legislative problems, I think that the proposals will not find a place in the legislative programme until at least the 1976-77 Session, which means that they will have no effect in law until 1977 or 1978. People are not prepared to wait that long.

The police are in an impossible position. Aggrieved persons have some rights under civil law, but there is a long wait before cases can be heard in court. It is fair to say that the courts have recently been taking a more practical line by speeding up hearings. Even so, the growing number of cases is putting a heavy burden upon the court officials who execute the court judgments. There is too much time between the judgment and its execution, in which properties are vandalised. Owners are unable to obtain compensation from the evicted squatters. A primary duty of the police is to protect citizens and their property against criminals. It is thus not entirely easy to explain why the police have become so beguiled by other facets of the law concerning possession of premises as to ignore that which is plain. If they see a gang of wrongdoers taking away possession of the contents of a house, they act: if they see the same gang taking over possession of the house itself—in general they look the other way. The Under-Secretary of State will not have seen that quotation before because it appears in the correspondence column of The Times today in a letter from a most eminent jurist, Sir Eric Sachs. I am not ascribing blame to the police. The police are doing their job under impossible circumstances, and no one should seek to blame them.

That quotation leads me to ask the Minister a simple question. Will she tell us whether any instruction or policy guidance has been issued by her Department to the Metropolitan Police on what to do in the case of squatters? There has been much argument whether a directive has been issued. It is important for the Minister to clear that up. If she cannot do so this morning. I hope that she will write to me about it. I appreciate the problems of putting questions at this hour. Many people have been saying that the police are not acting because the Home Secretary has told them not to do so because he has given certain parameters of guidance within which the police must operate. It is necessary for this matter to be cleared up once for all.

Lord Harris, who speaks for the Home Office in another place, was completely unable to tell noble Lords what the police were able to do if called by the owner of a property who found his home occupied when he returned from a brief period away. The noble Lord repeatedly said "This is hypothetical". It may be hypothetical to those who sit in Ministry offices, but it is not hypothetical to people who find their properties taken over illegally and who, if they try to re-enter by force, are regarded as breaking the law. This is sheer lunacy of the sort that brings the House and the law into disrespect. I am sure that the Minister will want to put the matter right. I hope that she will not give virtually the same answer as her noble Friend gave on 23rd July in another place. With the greatest respect to her, it was of no use to anyone. I happen to have a high opinion of the Minister and I do not think that she will repeat that non-answer.

Equally, the House and the public do not want to be told too much about the problems which beset this issue. They want to be given some hope that the law is available to protect the ownership of property, both private and public. I stress that not just private property is being attacked by these vandals but public property as well. Hundreds of thousands of pounds are being wasted in doing-up properties, and people are kept on the waiting list for far longer than they should be, because of the inhuman attitude of squatters who have no interest in housing queues and the needs of other people.

I exclude those who go through organisations to get permission from local authorities.

The public and the House want a statement from the Minister that the law will be enforced by the police and the courts. If it is not possible to enforce it because the law is uncertain—much of it dates back more than 500 years to a time when conditions were very different—it is right that the Minister should say "Yes, the law is deficient; yes, the Government will change it and yes, the Government will do so, not when the Law Commission has finally reported but at a much earlier date.

6.50 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summer-skill)

The subject to which the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) has drawn attention is one aspect, and an important one, of a serious social problem about which there has recently been increasing concern. As the hon. Gentleman's constituent, I have some knowledge of the local situation. As he said, it is a problem which is affecting both private and local authority property.

Squatting is a problem with many facets, which touches on the ministerial responsibilties of several of my right hon. Friends, and also, as nearly every social problem seems in some way to do, it affects the work of the police. In replying to this debate, I speak from the standpoint of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's responsibilities in regard to the police and the general maintenance of law and order. I can assure the House, however, that he and other Ministers—including my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor—are well aware of the wider ramifications of the squatting problem and the strength of public concern.

The action which the police should take when incidents of squatting are brought to their attention is a matter for which, as with all other matters of police operations, responsibility rests with the chief officer of the force concerned. The Home Office has no power to give orders to the Commissioner in matters of this kind, but the police are doing all they can and should do to deal with squatting. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Commissioner recognises the public concern about this matter.

Within the Metropolitan police district responsibility is vested in the Commissioner. On such matters my right hon. Friend has no power to give the Commissioner or any other chief officer directions on the action to be taken by his force. It is a matter to be decided by the chief officer, first, in the light of the relevant provisions of the law—and on a matter such as squatting obviously the state of the law and its effect in a particular case is a highly relevant consideration. Secondly—and this again applies throughout the whole range of police activity—the chief officer is bound also to take into account other considerations, such as the extent of the resources at his disposal and the many other calls which are properly made upon them.

Although my right hon. Friend has no power to give orders to the Commissioner on a matter of this kind, the Commissioner recognises the public concern which has been aroused over whether the police are doing all they can and should to deal with squatting so far as it affects observance of the law and the ordinary citizen's sense of the security of his own home. The Commissioner has naturally been in touch with my right hon. Friend, and is understandably anxious that the position of his force and the police generally in this matter should be better understood. I am glad to have this opportunity to promote that understand- ing within the House and, I hope, among the public at large.

The main criticism of the police made recently in the Press and other public comment—and by the hon. Gentleman to some extent, although he said that he was criticising not the police but the situation in which they found themselves—has been that they are reluctant to assist a property owner whose premises have been occupied by squatters and who wants help in turning them out. The first point that we must bear in mind in considering the validity of that criticism is that the true extent in law of the right of self-help, as it is called, is far from certain. A great deal has been made in public discussion of what Lord Denning said in the case of McPhail v. Persons Unknown in 1973, to the effect that the existence of a general right of self-help, whatever dangers its exercise might entail, was undoubted as a matter of law. I am not qualified to question or dispute the authority of that ruling.

As the hon. Member has said, in 1972 the Law Commission proceeded to examine the offence of entering and remaining on property. Its consultative working paper was published in June 1974. It is right to remind the House that the Law Commission, in paragraph 21 of the working paper, after referring to Lord Denning's view and stating its effect, went on to say that, nevertheless, on the authorities as they stood, there was still some confusion about the circumstances in which it was lawful for a person to regain possession of his property by force. It is, I am advised, still far from clear that the right of self-help is available in any case other than that of the houseowner deprived of residential occupation of his house by trespassers who have not been there long enough to establish themselves in possession.

The proposals of the Law Commission resulted in a great deal of comment and criticism. The Commission is now revising its proposals and hopes to publish its final conclusions in a report on conspiracy early next year. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government recognise the urgency of this matter and the strength of public concern over it. On the other hand, it is an extremely complicated issue. There are differences not only of lay opinion but of legal opinion. It is important that we get the matter right and do not act so hastily that we get things wrong. Every effort will be made to deal with the matter urgently after the Law Commission's report early next year.

A further point to be borne in mind is that not only have the police no legal duty to assist in the ejection of trespassers where the criminal law has not been infringed but, if they do intervene, they have no special police powers to support them, nor the protection which attends a police officer acting "in the execution of his duty".

In cases where would-be squatters oust a houseowner from the occupation of his home, perhaps while he is away on holiday, the police will normally respond to a request for their assistance in ejecting the trespassers. But in other cases of squatting, particularly in unoccupied property, the existence of a right of self-help is more doubtful. The police, who are in no way above the law, must be careful to take account of the legal uncertainties and limitations I have described. Another point which they have to bear in mind is one to which Mrs. Audrey Harvey drew attention in a letter in The Times on 17th July—namely that it is by no means easy to distinguish people who have or haven't a right to be living in a house". It can obviously be a risky business for the police to act on the word of one party to a dispute, unsupported by a court order. The risk they run is, rightly, that of being sued by the alleged squatters for damages for the unlawful use of force against them.

Sometimes squatting is accompanied, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, by the commission of criminal offences, such as the offence of criminal damage. It is, of course, the duty of the police to investigate such offences. But often it is not possible to prove that such an offence was committed by a particular person, especially as there was usually no independent witness present on the property when the offence was committed.

If a court has made an order granting an owner possession of his property as against squatters, the situation is quite different. In the case mentioned by the hon. Member, of 22 properties acquired by the council which are now in the unlawful possession of squatters, it is a matter for the council to seek a court order, if it deems that to be the appropriate course. If the order takes the form of a High Court writ, the police have a duty to assist in its enforcement. If it is a county court warrant for possession, the police have no specific duty to assist the bailiffs in executing it but retain their ordinary duty to deal with any breach of the peace which may occur.

One of the matters which will need to be considered when the Law Commission's final proposals are available is whether the police should be given a specific duty to assist in the enforcement of county court orders for possession. This would be preferable to the intervention of the police on a wider scale on the side of people having recourse to self-help, with all the dangers attendant on the police appearing to take sides in private disputes.

Much of the recent concern about the rôle of the police has arisen from another letter in The Times on 11th July from a Miss Elizabeth Harper, in which she described how squatters had taken over her house in Kensington and committed criminal offences, and she claimed that the police had been unhelpful. The Commissioner has made inquiries into the incidents and has found the writer's account of the events and of the police reaction to have been seriously misleading. I shall not go into the details now, but some hon. Members have written to my right hon. Friend and we are giving them a full explanation of the case.

As regards the Paddington case mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, we shall look into the matter if he will provide us with full details in writing. We shall look at any other case which hon. Members might like to send us wherever the police may have been concerned or are concerned. All these cases have their individual circumstances and each has to be considered in the light of these.

In conclusion, the action which the police take in London, as elsewhere, is influenced partly by the facts of each case and partly by the uncertainties and admitted limitations of the law. This is not a matter in which my right hon. Friend has authority to override the discretion exercised by chief officers of police. We are always ready to look into particular cases, but I hope that in the light of what I have said the hon. Gentleman will agree that there are good reasons for the general lines on which the police seek to deal with the requests made for their assistance in connection with this most difficult problem.