§ Andy King (Rugby and Kenilworth)I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to abolish the penalty of committal to prison in default of payment of community charge, council tax and other local taxes; and for related purposes.The opportunity to abolish imprisonment for council tax default is provided in the Green Paper "Towards Effective Enforcement" published by the Lord Chancellor last July. It proposes a single piece of bailiff law and a reformed, regulated structure for enforcement. In addition, imprisonment should be abolished for default of fines relating to television licences and parking offences.The High Court has declared unlawful more than 1,000 of the 5,000-plus cases of people jailed by magistrates courts for local tax default in the 12 years since the poll tax was introduced. It is worrying that none of the relevant Departments knew the number of unlawful imprisonments until they were told by the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust that one of its barrister trustees, Ian Wise, had taken 1,000 such cases through the courts.
One thousand is the minimum number of unlawful imprisonments because there is no legal aid for local tax or fine defaulters in the magistrates courts. The connection between people imprisoned for default of a local fine and a group of concerned lawyers was made by chance. It was not until after the Benham case reached the European Court of Human Rights in 1996 that magistrates were required to call the duty solicitor if they were minded to imprison.
Ilkeston justices jailed George and Doris Smedburg, aged 74 and 80 respectively, for 28 days in February 1994. Mr. Smedburg suffered from severe epilepsy and arthritis. Mrs. Smedburg suffered from asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, and was doubly incontinent and wheelchair-bound. The police, to their credit, refused to execute the arrest warrant. The local authority claimed that the Smedburgs had refused to pay £600. The High Court discovered that they in fact owed only £349, and that the couple had been up to date at the time that the committal warrant was issued.
Dorothy Pittaway, 64 years old, was jailed by Oldbury magistrates court for 14 days in 1994. She was in hospital suffering from tuberculosis, and at the time of arrest weighed only six stone. The police surgeon discharged her from prison into council care. The High Court reduced the sentence to one day and subsequently commuted it entirely following the intervention of her Member of Parliament and a campaign by the Daily Mirror.
In 1996, Barnet justices unlawfully jailed Marjorie Ribbans, an elderly woman with a learning disability and suffering from terminal cancer.
Sarah, a 51-year-old single woman living in Lambeth, receives £53.95 a week in income support. She has a learning disability and suffers from chronic anxiety and panic attacks. Research at the London school of hygiene and tropical medicine suggests that her income should be £84.76 a week if she is to have enough for healthy living. Her doctor in Lambeth writes:
I am quite clear that were the Bailiffs to proceed with the seizure of her goods, the effect would be catastrophic for her and would seriously compromise her health".89 There is a council tax debt of £468. The bailiffs, who are based in Northampton, blindly threatened Sarah with computer-generated letters. For example, on 9 May 2001, they wrote:We have arranged for our bailiff to call at your home this weekend to seize your goods and transport them to auction rooms for sale".Two days later, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust became involved and Lambeth council withdrew. However, the computer kept running and sent further letters threatening the sale of Sarah's furniture.News of such imprisonments spreads throughout deprived communities because council enforcement officers and bailiffs threaten vulnerable people, many of whom then borrow from door-to-door lenders—including such household names as Provident finance—at extortionate interest rates, ranging from 100 to 300 per cent. APR.
A seismic fault in current procedures is the absence of any statutory means inquiry by local authorities before they start enforcement. The Inland Revenue knows the means of the income tax payer before it starts its processes, and magistrates enforce fines through means inquiries, but when local authorities are required to attempt distress before they issue a committal warrant, they are often blind to the means of the council tax defaulter.
The committal hearing at the magistrates court is the only part of the enforcement process at which the means of a debtor must be taken into account. Owing to the absence of means inquiries by local authorities before they begin enforcement, bailiffs are sent to collect money from vulnerable people who have little or nothing, and things are made worse by bailiffs adding their costs to the debt. Such debts could and must be dealt with more fairly and efficiently through reductions from wages or benefits according to means.
England and Wales remain the only countries in Europe to continue to jail people for local tax default; Scotland abolished imprisonment for debt in 1987. It is high time that England and Wales did the same. I ask the House to consign the Dickensian practice of sending the poor to debtors' prisons to history once and for all.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Andy King, Mr. Bill Olner, Mr. Peter Kilfoyle, Mr. Tony Clarke and Mr. Joe Benton.