Bail Hostels (Hansard, 12 April 2000)

§ Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald)
May I make it clear that I raise this issue in my capacity as the Member for Maidstone and The Weald and not in my capacity as a shadow Home Office Minister? It is necessary to say that, because some of the points that I shall make will touch on Home Office matters.
I thank the Minister of State, Home Office for being present, but he has drawn the short straw. Perhaps the Secretary of State for Social Security should have answered this debate. For rather obvious reasons, my speech will be a third of the length that I originally intended, and I hope that the Minister will not interpret that as a discourtesy.
I raise the subject because there is a bail hostel in my constituency. It suffers much from the fact that different rules appear to be applied by the Home Office and the Department of Social Security. I first become interested in the issue through a case that I raised with the Home Secretary in which a foreign national had been charged with a crime and remanded not in custody, but on bail. Unfortunately, the foreign national had no means of support and could not work because she had been tagged. That effectively restricted her during the hours that she was most likely to have been able to work. Residence at the bail hostel rather than anywhere else in the community, such as with friends, was a condition of her bail, but she could not obtain support while there.
The Home Secretary told me that the person concerned could not be evicted from the hostel for failure to pay rent but only for a breach of her bail conditions. However, in the same paragraph, he added that the bail hostel was entitled to make the payment of rent one of those conditions. If she did not pay it, she would be in breach of her conditions. She was therefore trapped by a very theoretical protection that did not, in fact, exist. Because she could not satisfy the habitual residence test, she could not obtain social security.
When I raised the case, I was approached by Kent probation and told about other anomalies that apply to bail hostels. For example, a disabled British resident with multiple sclerosis and in a wheelchair was refused disability living allowance on the ground that he was in custody and that the Department of Social Security regarded bail hostels as custody. However, according to the Home Secretary, bail hostels are not custody; they are alternatives to custody. Once again, there is an absence of joined-up government, and I do not say that to sneer, because many of the rules grew up under successive Governments and over a long time. They now contradict each other and urgently need sorting out.
The other issue that arose was rehousing from bail hostels. The Minister will be aware that one of the biggest factors in the prevention of reoffending is the ability to house people in stable accommodation. However, local authorities are unwilling to rehouse people from bail hostels and to count those evicted from such hostels as homeless within their territory particularly if they originated from elsewhere before they committed the crime.
479 I have several questions for the Minister. What are overseas embassies doing about foreign nationals who come here, break our laws and then turn to us for support that we do not give? We are, more or less, obliged to return such people to custody and that costs vastly more than remanding them on bail. Surely foreign embassies should take some responsibility for their nationals who are in that position. What are the costs of custody as opposed to keeping someone in a bail hostel? Is it not worth sorting the problem out for that aspect alone? Would it be possible to bill other Governments for any extra expenses incurred?
What is the position of British nationals in other European Union countries who encounter the same problem? Does it arise? If so, what is our attitude? If a foreign national—or anybody else—who is committed to a bail hostel has also been tagged, can the restrictions take some account of that and allow some hours for that person to find work?

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng)
I thank the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) for raising important issues and I commend her on her fortitude in persevering with the debate while obviously suffering from laryngitis.
The right hon. Lady has written to my right hon. Friend about anxieties raised by a member of staff at Fleming house, which is an approved hostel in her constituency. The staff were worried about two residents who were foreign nationals. I understand that, because the residents did not fulfil the habitual residence test as set out in Department of Social Security rules, they did not receive any financial support from the Benefits Agency. That meant that the two residents were unable to pay the usual maintenance charge that all residents in approved probation and bail hostels should pay.
I want to stress at the outset that, as the right hon. Lady acknowledged, the bulk of her anxieties belong in the bailiwick and come under the remit of the Department of Social Security. I shall draw the matters that she has raised to that Department's attention, and ensure that she receives a written response.
There has been a recent change, about which the right hon. Lady may not yet know. From 3 April this year, housing benefit is no longer payable for approved probation and bail hostel charges. The Home Office has taken over responsibility for paying the element of the charge that would previously have qualified for housing benefit. That will join up at least some of her points.
If the cases of the right hon. Lady's two constituents had arisen after 3 April, they would have been tackled differently. Housing benefit would have been irrelevant because the Home Office now funds the hostels directly on the basis of a grant that is calculated on their occupancy rates. That has contributed greatly to solving the dilemma that several hostels faced.
There was always a concern that foreign nationals in the hostels would, through no fault of their own, be at risk of breaching the conditions of their residence and taken back to court. There was also a perceived disincentive to hostels to take on such foreign nationals, even though public protection and the best interests of the administration of justice demanded it. The change that occurred on 3 April has removed that supposed disincentive.
480 We are committed to the role of approved probation and bail hostels. They operate under the Approved Bail and Probation Hostel Rules 1995. As the right hon. Lady acknowledged, the problems originate in the actions of successive Governments. Nevertheless, they need to be tackled, and we intend to do that.
Placement in an approved hostel is intended to provide enhanced residential supervision in the community through a supportive and structured environment. The work of approved probation and bail hostels is often not sufficiently appreciated by the wider public or, indeed, by some in the profession itself.

§ Miss Widdecombe
indicatedassent.

§ Mr. Boateng
I am glad that the right hon. Lady agrees, and that Members on both sides of the House are able to signify our appreciation of hostels' work.
Hostels are also intended to be a base from which residents can take full advantage of the community facilities for work, education, training, treatment and recreation. The right hon. Lady raised an important point about her example of a foreign national who, because she was tagged, was unable to work while living in a hostel and therefore had difficulty in making a contribution to the costs.
I have considered the matter, with the benefit of advice from the Department of Social Security, and I am told that existing jobseeker's allowance rules are sufficiently flexible to allow the vast majority of prisoners released under home detention curfew to meet labour market conditions. The conditions of being available for and actively seeking work, which are attached to the benefit, are considered on a case by case basis. European Union nationals are also in a more privileged position to gain access to work and to some benefits.
The right hon. Lady asked me about the position of our nationals in EU jurisdictions, and I shall take advice on that and write to her. We know that, where we have reciprocal arrangements with the country of origin of foreign nationals, it is possible for them to be repatriated during their period of home detention curfew and they can then be supervised in their own country for that part of their sentence, which they would otherwise have served in hostel accommodation on licence.

§ Miss Widdecombe
Although what the Minister said about people who have a tagging sentence is valuable, my point was more about people who are pre-trial and have to keep to their bail hostel during certain hours.

§ Mr. Boateng
That certainly is more problematic, because the hours during which those people may be required to remain in the hostel can make it difficult for them to find employment or to continue with their usual work. It is certainly worth our while, as a society, seeking to ensure not only that our arrangements enable sentencers to be aware of the implications of their conditions for an individual's employability and capacity to take up benefit from a hostel place, but that the conditions are sufficiently flexible to enable the individual to take up employment. I shall certainly look into the matter raised by the right hon. Lady.
481 The right hon. Lady also asked me about the attitude of embassies and high commissions. My experience, which is probably similar to hers, is that attitudes vary from country to country, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and sometimes even from official to official within a particular mission over time. Some seem more understanding and more helpful than others.
My immediate answer to the right hon. Lady's question, then, is that the attitude varies, but in the main, overseas missions take a similar view to ours. If people offend overseas, their first port of call for financial assistance ought not to be their consulate. They should use their own resources. For good and understandable reasons, although consular officials overseas endeavour to be as helpful as they can, they try to do so with a close eye on the public purse, and on the need for people to bear responsibility for their own acts.
Nevertheless, it is important that foreign nationals in that position should be able to receive authoritative advice from the probation service or through-care prison officers about the likely attitude of their consular mission. I shall pursue the matter with the probation and through-care 482 authorities in the Prison Service and explore the possibilities of our doing more in that area, and write to the right hon. Lady.
We want to ensure that the relatively small number of foreign nationals in bail hostels and approved probation hostels should not be disadvantaged by the fact that they are foreign nationals, and that the hostels should not bear an unreasonable burden as a result of the fact that there are foreign nationals among the people for whom they are responsible. We believe that with regard to housing benefit, foreign nationals resident in such hostels will no longer experience a financial shortfall to the extent that was possible before 3 April.
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for enabling me to clarify, as far as I can tonight, the questions that she raised. It has been a short but useful debate, and I will ensure that the Department of Social Security responds directly to her by letter on the detailed points that more properly fall to that Department. I thank her for bringing the matter before the House, and wish her a speedy recovery.