Housing Bill (Hansard, 9 June 1988)

§ Mr. Waldegrave
As I was saying, the amendment is an additional weapon in our armoury against bad landlords.
We acknowledge that the number of successful prosecutions under existing crimimal law has been comparatively small. There have been difficulties in getting convictions, and that is why in clause 27 we have introduced a new criminal offence, which involves having to prove not that the landlord intended to evict the tenant but merely that he knew that his actions would cause the tenant to leave or had reasonable cause to believe that they would do so. Government No. 292 extends the new criminal offence to actions by a superior landlord or his agent. It parallels our amendments to clauses 25 and 26 and the Opposition will welcome it.
The Opposition's amendment, amendment No. 202, is too wide because it applies the new offence to any person. We discussed the matter in Committee and we believe that 1094 there is a real risk that if we extend clause 27 as the amendment suggests, third parties whose behaviour is alleged by someone else to be anti-social, but which should certainly not be criminal, may be affected. One can imagine these powerful criminal sanctions applying in the difficult disputes between neighbours that we all hear of in our constituencies from time to time. While such disputes are a problem, they should not be dealt with by the criminal law, especially if it carries heavy sanctions such as two years in gaol.
While I understand what lies behind the Opposition's proposals, I fear that if we accepted their amendment we should find disputes between tenants becoming involved with the criminal law in a way that would not be satisfactory. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) will acknowledge that our widening of the provision is useful and that to go further would not necessarily be safe.

§ Mr. Tony Banks
I thought that I would be called first, Mr. Speaker, because amendment No. 202 is our amendment.

§ Mr. Speaker
I think that it was my mistake; I should have called the hon. Gentleman first. I remind the House that we are also considering Government amendment No. 292.

§ Mr. Banks
I beg to move amendment No. 202. I am a sort of stand-in Whip for the evening. As you know, Mr. Speaker, I was the Whip on the Bill; some litte problems arose but I am now back in a sort of temporary agency capacity. I realise that the hour is fairly late but these are serious matters which we should address. Ministers and hon. Members should not underestimate the seriousness with which we treat the Bill.
Amendment No. 202 relates to clause 27, which creates a new criminal offence of harassment, which applies if the landlord or his agent performs a positive act that interferes with the peace and comfort of the occupier or withholds services that he or she needs and if the landlord knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, that his conduct is likely to cause the occupier to leave. The novelty of the clause is that it does away with the need for the prosecution to prove intent.
After 10 years' experience of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, tenants and their advisers are agreed that the most difficult element of that Act which renders it, in most cases, useless is the need for the prosecution to prove that the landlord intended, by his acts, that the tenant should leave. Our amendment contains a much more sensible approach. When the landlord has reasonable cause to believe that the likely consequence of his action will be that the tenant will leave, he will be guilty of an offence.
In clause 27 there is a strange departure from the form of words used in the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. Instead of the wording in section 1 which states: Any person … shall be guilty of the offence.", the Bill requires the offence to be committed by the landlord or his agent. That is an unnecessary restriction and we cannot accept that our amendment is an unnecessary extension. When we are trying to deal with the rights of tenants, surely the benefit of doubt should always be given to the tenant. Therefore, we hope that the Minister will accept the amendment.
1095 I shall give a quick example from the London borough of Newham.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
I am a little confused about the amendment to which the hon. Gentleman is speaking. Has he accepted my arguments on amendment No. 202? He seems to be speaking to amendment No. 203.

§ Mr. Banks
I am speaking to amendment No. 202.
I shall give an example from Newham, as ever. A house in multiple occuption in the Barking road was being investigated by the local housing office because the tenants were being charged excessive rents. There were five tenants in the house. The local housing office managed to contact four of them. The two joint tenants on the ground floor had their rent collected by a man called David. They had seen another man with him who they believed to be the owner. The sole tenant on the rear ground floor had seen a man he believed to be the owner, Mr. B. The rent was collected by his agent. The tenant did not know his name. The tenant in the first floor rear room knew that the agent was called David but he had never seen the owner. The tenant on the third floor was let the room by Mr. B who called round to the property with his brother David. As the Minister will appreciate, it was all very confusing.
Investigations carried out at the Land Registry under section 129 of the Land Registration Act 1925 were unhelpful. The register gave the name of the owner as a third unknown person and his address as that of the property itself. When the tenants sought to register their rents they started to have problems. They had no evidence that linked the people they knew with the unknown owner.
Tenants do not have the resources to investigate "agency" arrangements and the Minister must know that. If it is possible to prosecute directly the person who committed the acts of harassment, the evil may be stopped. It seems right that people who persecute tenants should be held responsible for those acts, even if they carry them out because they are paid by the landlord. Therefore, I ask the Minister to accept amendment No. 202.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
I am sorry that I misunderstood the early part of the hon. Gentleman's comments.
There is a problem. Let us use the common example of noise in which people are constantly making life a misery by playing loud music or making other noise. As amendment No. 202 is drafted, it would not have to be demonstrated that the person making the noise was acting on behalf of the landlord. If there were disputes between neighbours in a building, we would find that the weight of the criminal prosecution, which we are aiming at people acting as agents for the landlord, could be used on a tenant who was harassing another tenant.
I do not want to say that one tenant harassing another in a personal dispute is not a bad thing. However, there are other ways of trying to deal with that. In my constituency I find that disputes between neighbours are some of the most difficult disputes in which to become involved. But surely we do not want to hit one side of such a dispute with powers designed to deal with a landlord who is using harassment to get the tenant out and obtain possession of his property.
1096 I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's case but the amendment is too wide. We have to be able to demonstrate that the person is acting on behalf of the landlord. Amendment No. 202, as drafted, does not do that.