PRELIMINARY DUTIES OF HOUSING AUTHORITIES IN CASES OF SUSPECTED HOMELESSNESS, ETC. (Hansard, 27 July 1977)

§ Mr. Stephen Ross
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it may be convenient to take Lords Amendments Nos. 15 and 41.

§ Mr. Ross
The amendment deletes all references to a homeless person being able with advice and … assistance … to secure that accommodation becomes or does cease to be available for his occupation". Thus the much-criticised means test provision is deleted. I think that that will be welcomed on both sides of the House.

§ Mr. Stephen Ross
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it may be convenient to take Lords Amendments Nos. 13, 18 to 21, 49 and 52.

§ Mr. Tony Durant (Reading, North)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance. Is it normal for the House to take amendments and new clauses together? Do we not normally take new clauses first and amendments subsequently?

Mr. Deputy Speaker
These are Lords amendments, and this is a suggestion as to how it is convenient to take them. If there is a more convenient way of doing it, we can do it that way.

§ Mr. Ross
The amendments give full effect to the sentiments expressed at earlier stages concerning those who move between areas. I think that the hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) will welcome some of the amendments as they give effect to some of the points that he was making in Committee. I believe that the form now brought forward protects the interests of those who move for legitimate reasons and find themselves homeless, without opening the door to those who seek to work the system.

§ Mr. Michael Morris
Has the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) been in consulation with the local authority associations? Is this vast change in a form that they would like as opposed to the change that was made after Second Reading and which now appears in the Bill?

§ Mr. Ross
I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance, which I am certain will be echoed by the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi), who has had considerable consultations with the Association of District Councils. I draw the attention of hon. Members to the fact that we are dealing with the difficulties of Service personnel. I recall that in Committee the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) made a speech on this very point. The amendment meets many calls. I think it is the first time that it has been written into a clause that Service personnel, who may be demobbed in a military town such as Aldershot and who have home connections elsewhere, will be able to look to original home connections in order to be housed if they happen to be homeless. It is a very important addition to the Bill.

§ Mr. Sainsbury
Perhaps the hon Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) 871 will indicate more precisely how this batch of amendments varies the provisions that existed when the Bill left this House. As he appreciates, they are an extensive group of amendments which introduce a large number of new words into the clause. Those of us who have not had the benefit of departmental briefing, however inadequate, do not know the extent and nature of the changes which have been introduced. Apart from the change that the hon. Gentleman has referred to in Amendment No. 52 dealing with service in the Armed Forces, I ask him to explain what he understands by the use of the phrase that I find in Amendment No. 52, and possibly elsewhere, in New Clause F, subsection (1) (d), Because of any special circumstances. Perhaps he will indicate what he understands as being "special circumstances" in the context of the new clause.

§ Mr. Stephen Ross
The question of "special circumstances" is meant to relate to work. It relates to someone moving into an area to take a job but whose normal place of residence might be elsewhere in the country. Such a person would have "special circumstances" to claim that he was homeless.

§ Mr. Sainsbury
Surely employment is dealt with in New Clause F, subsection (1) (b)—"because he is employed". Presumably, if that is referred to in paragraph (b), the reference in paragraph (d) to "special circumstances" must deal with something else.

§ Mr. Stephen Ross
It refers to moving to employment, not being already employed. One can think of other circumstances—for example, family associations. There may be other circumstances, which do not immediately come to mind. The original intention was to refer to someone who was coming to an area to take a job. That should be covered.
These amendments meet the genuine fears of local authorities. They set out arrangements for settling which of two authorities should be responsible for dealing with a homeless person in priority need who applies for assistance to an authority which is of the opinion that that person has no local connection with the area.
872 The hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) thinks that he is being very clever. In Committee we had many goes at this problem. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman tabled an amendment to deal with what were described as the mobile homeless. We think that this formula adequately meets the situation. It does not bring in a cumbersome appeals procedure. It writes in a procedure whereby the Secretary of State can set out the conditions for local authorities. I hope that the amendment will be accepted.

§ Mr. Hugh Rossi (Hornsey)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) for the way in which he has responded to criticisms that were made in Committee. We feared that the Bill as originally drawn would have the consequence of certain magnet authorities becoming responsible for an undue preponderance of the homelessness problem. In Committee we sought to try to deal with the matter in our own way and we then had a second attempt on Report.
I point out to my lion. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) that we sought to deal with the matter in Clause 4, subsections (5) to (13) inclusive. That was the best attempt that we could make, as I acknowledged at the time, with the assistance of the Department and the parliamentary draftsman. It appeared on closer examination that not all the i's were dotted or all the t's crossed. There were certain loopholes that might have caused problems for both local authorities and homeless persons.
This group of amendments seeks to delete subsections (5) to (13) and to rewrite them entirely. My hon. Friend will find that those are now set out in New Clause A. That new clause proceeds to set out the revised procedures for dealing with a homeless family that goes to a particular authority and says "We are homeless" but the authority discovers that the family recently came from another part of the country.
The next amendment—"Meaning of local connection"—defines the circumstances in which the authority that is being asked to rehouse the family can establish whether the family has a closer connection with another authority.

§ Mr. Sainsbury
The meaning of "local connection" is important. Will 873 my hon. Friend refer me to the amendment which provides a definition?

§ Mr. Rossi
My hon. Friend will see in Lords Amendment No. 52 a definition of "local connection". Once that has been established, the authority against which the claim has been made, called the notifying authority, can inform another authority, called the notified authority, that there is probably a local connection. That being done, the rest of the amendment—it is not numbered, but it is the amendment to page 6, line 33—goes on to deal with the relationships between the notifying and notified authorities. It does so in reasonably clear language and provides for arrangements to be made by local authorities between themselves to govern the situation where there might be areas of doubt as to whether a family belongs more to one authority than to another. Where the authorities come to an agreement, generally the Secretary of State, after appropriate consultations, can lay an order setting out what the arrangements shall be. Such an order is subject to approval by both Houses of Parliament.
Perhaps the best possible attempt has now been made to try to deal with the principle that the House enunciated both in Committee and on Report.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)
Order. The hon. Member said that his amendments were not numbered. That will create difficulties. He will see on the third page of the amendments that the amendment in question is numbered as Lords Amendment No. 20. Perhaps the staple has been fastened through the number. He will see that the amendment is numbered.

§ Mr. Rossi
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker; the staple has been fixed through the number.

§ Mr. Sainsbury
My hon. Friend has given the House a much clearer explanation of the meaning and consequence of these amendments than we were able to obtain from the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross). We are grateful for my hon. Friend's expertise in these matters. Will he answer the question that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight was unable to answer? What does he understand by the phrase "special circumstances" in Lords Amendment No. 52?

§ Mr. Stephen Ross
Perhaps I may intervene here, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to explain that "special circumstances" is written in to allow local authorities the discretion of accepting people if they wish to do so.

§ Mr. Rossi
I am glad that I have been able to satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) in some part. I am grateful to the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) for dealing with the points raised on Report by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) concerning the problem of Service men. There are areas where men leave Service camps and the question arises of which authority has responsibilty for rehousing. That has now been adequately dealt with.
I wish to raise with the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight a question about Lords Amendment No. 20, where subsection (1)(a)(i) reads: nor any person who might reasonably be expected to reside with him. The same phrase occurs in Lords Amendment No. 50. The problem is this. When we dealt with a similar concept in Clause 1, the Bill as originally drafted used that wording in dealing with the categories of people who had to be rehoused as homeless persons. In Clause 1, a "homeless person" is said to include a person with no accommodation and any other person who might reasonably be expected to reside with him. We decided to alter the wording in Clause 1 and to use a different phrase. We now refer to … a member of his family or in circumstances in which the housing authority considers it reasonable for that person to reside with him". It occurs to me that we might be in some difficulty if we use two different phrases to describe the same category of person.
3.15 a.m.
Clearly, the intention of Lords Amendment No. 20 is to enable the authority to rehouse the applicant together with the category of person who has to be housed with the applicant within the definition of Clause 1, but we are using different wording.
When the courts are required to construe Acts of Parliament, they assume that Parliament's intention was to convey a different meaning if different words 875 are used in two parts of an Act. Confusion could be caused at a later date if this matter had to be litigated. We have reintroduced—perhaps inadvertently through Lords amendments—words that we decided to change at an earlier stage. It is probably too late to amend the Lords amendments, but a difficulty could arise and it is not a happy situation.

§ Mr. Stephen Ross
I do not wish to cross swords with the hon. Member on a legal matter. The new amendment reads: A housing authority are not subject to a duty under section 4(4A) above— (a) if they are of the opinion". Does not that cover the point?

§ Mr. Rossi
I am not sure that it does It certainly leaves the local authority a wider discretion than it has in Clause 1 about member of a family, because that clause states: in which the housing authority considers it reasonable for that person to reside with him". That involves a subjective judgment. I am not sure that the same argument applies to Lords Amendment No. 50, which states: For the purposes of this Act accommodation is only available for a person's occupation if it is available for occupation both by him and by any other person who might reasonably be expected to reside with him. There is no question there of the opinion of the authority being called in, and the subjective test does not exist. Therefore, if my remarks were not entirely appropriate to Lords Amendment No. 20, they are fully appropriate to Lords Amendment No. 50.
I must put down a marker to warn that we have perhaps run into a little difficulty with the wording, probably because of the rush with which these matters have been brought upon us.