HL Deb 02 December 1996 vol 576 cc528-44

7.4 p.m.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 31st October, be annulled (S.I. 1996/2753).

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am praying against these regulations against a background of a disastrous Budget for housing. Given the changes in procedure, we no longer have a social security uprating statement. It is perhaps worth mentioning that as a result of the Budget the Housing Corporation budget has been slashed from £1.8 billion three years ago to £1 billion this year and to only £650 million next year; so the number of new socially rented houses will fall. Also in the Budget we see the other side of the pincer movement: in the private sector after next autumn the capacity of single people to find alternative accommodation will be severely damaged by the fact that they will be eligible for housing benefit only for a bed-sit.

I want to spend just a moment on that because it has implications for the workings of the Housing Act and therefore for the regulation that we shall be discussing in a moment. The Budget has stated that widows who after next autumn need housing benefit for the first time, carers who have lost their parents and need housing benefit after next October, for the first time, divorced men who have lost their jobs and need housing benefit after next October, for the first time, if they are in privately rented self-contained one or two-bedroomed flats, will now find that housing benefit does not cover them and they will lose their homes as well.

I hope that the Minister can identify with this problem: that vulnerable, middle-aged women recently bereaved, may have to leave a home of 30 years in the private rented sector and move into something which is sometimes squalid, often dangerous and always insecure—that is to say, bed-sit accommodation—sharing a kitchen and bathroom down a corridor with men who may be alcoholic or have a record. I was approached on just such a question on Sunday morning in Norwich. Fortunately, the man was living in a council flat and therefore the situation will not arise.

Therefore, in housing terms, in the Budget the Government have created the very worst sort of welfare dependency in which a man, who, if he loses his job, will have to lose his home as well. If he or she loses the partner, he will lose the home as well. It is the worst aspect of an entire Budget producing real misery for a quarter of a million people a year.

To the dire effects of the Budget—such as losing your partner, losing your home, losing your parents, losing your job if you are single and under 60—are now added the ugly detail implied in the regulations of the Housing Act 1996. These regulations fill in, by secondary legislation, key provisions in that Act.

Your Lordships will recall that the Housing Act laid down that only people who are on the waiting list may be allocated local authority housing and, as sudden homelessness often occurs before the family has reached the top of the list, how the local authority shall discharge its duty towards them. Broadly, Statutory Instrument No. 2753 relates to Part VI of the Act and determines the structure of the waiting list required for access to local authority housing. Statutory Instrument No. 2754 covers those who are ineligible for assistance under homelessness provisions.

Within the context of the Budget, I repeat: why am I bringing these regulations to the attention of your Lordships' House by praying against them? It is because, as convention will have it, we shall not be moving to a vote. Therefore, why am I seeking to air these issues?

The first is the problem of timescale. With a Bill that was only completed late last summer and with a code of guidance, on which this Act is heavily dependent, not being published until barely four weeks ago, local authorities were supposed to reorganise their entire waiting list structures by January. The protest of local government and the threat of judicial review sensibly made the DoE think again and implementation is now under the still tight timetable of April 1997.

I ask the Minister to think again and to see whether it is possible to extend that timetable to July 1997. For local authorities the work involved is huge and the Government's delay in issuing consultation papers, the draft and the final guidance, has meant a heavy bureaucratic workload in terms of the paper involved, which will have to be condensed into a very narrow timetable indeed. It is important that local government gets it right and avoids unnecessary appeals against improper decisions. Even an April timetable does not permit full and proper scrutiny.

The second area of concern is that considerable issues remain unresolved, especially the problem of referrals from social services and other agencies, the procedures on rights of review, the issues of affordability of accommodation, and the fact that so far there has been no guidance at all on the groups which are to be excluded from assistance under Parts VI and VII of the Act. Can we at least have an assurance from the Minister that the problem that we identified in Committee, involving that ugly phrase "the silting up" of half-way houses and hostels, which means that people cannot move on, which means in turn that others cannot move into those places, will be speedily addressed by the Government in the near future? On 19th June 1996, the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, accepted the principle of what we were trying to do but said that he would use not primary legislation, but regulatory powers, to that effect. Where are those regulatory powers? When can we expect them?

Thirdly, I turn to the detail of the regulations. I refer first to the first regulation and to Part VI which deals with the waiting list. As noble Lords will recall, the Housing Act 1996 stated that the only route to the allocation of a local authority house was through the single waiting list. Our first concern is for those who have immigration status—in other words, who are subject to immigration control or who fail the habitual residence test and who, under the regulations, are ineligible for the waiting list. This entire area is now a minefield of misery—and these regulations will make it far worse.

Just as the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 excluded most asylum seekers from social security benefits, so the Housing Act, in parallel, excluded them from the housing list and therefore from local authority housing irrespective of their housing need. As I am sure that the Minister will acknowledge in all candour, there has been chaos since Section 9 of the Asylum and Immigration Act came into force in mid-August. Some local authorities turned people out on the streets without notice. Others were unclear about what to do. Still others went to the courts—and the charities and the Churches were left to pick up the strain. Now we find that the judges have deemed that Act illegal and have said that local authorities have a continuing duty not only to families under the Children Act, but to single people and couples under the National Assistance Act, which was passed in 1948 by the Labour Government who were elected in 1945 determined never again to tolerate the indecency of people starving on our streets. But then, coming out of the Second World War, with two-thirds of all our overseas investments sold to fund the war effort, we must have been a rich country and could afford to be generous; now, after 17 years of this Tory Government, we are so poor that apparently we cannot afford that.

Even more ambiguous is the exclusion from housing of those who fail the habitual residence test. That test already applies to those seeking income support or housing benefit. Under the regulations, it is now being applied to eligibility for local authority housing waiting lists. However, there is no statutory definition of the habitual residence test. I speak from personal knowledge when I say that it is a subjective test—a member of my family was subjected to the test—which is determined by such criteria as where you keep a suitcase of clothes and what societies and organisations you belong to. It was a test meant to stop benefit tourists—I think that the Secretary of State had "layabouts from Spain" in mind—instead all our experience of the test shows that it has been applied to Commonwealth families living in Britain with family ties abroad, who find that after visits to their overseas relatives they incur considerable difficulty in re-establishing their right to social security.

Applying the same test of habitual residence to the right of access to the council housing waiting list, and therefore to rented social housing, may severely damage the eligibility of a young Pakistani family or a West Indian nurse to join the waiting list although they normally work, and are resident, in the United Kingdom. Local authorities, which have spent many months over the past decade patiently training their staff in anti-racist procedures and non-racist bureaucracy, will now have to ask the same staff to interrogate people on the habitual residence test which disproportionately weighs heavily on ethnic minority communities.

Our second bundle of concerns about the regulations relates to the issue of non-statutory succession. At the moment local authorities can respond flexibly and compassionately where, for example, the only statutory succession (that from a husband to a wife on death) has already taken place. If the couple are joint tenants, their daughter may be protected. If the mother dies first and the husband is left in the house, the tenancy may pass to the daughter. However, if the husband dies first and he is the sole tenant, the middle-aged daughter, who may have lived with her parents for many years as their carer and without whom they may have been in expensive local authority care, has no right of statutory succession although she may have known no other home. In practice, at the moment local authorities would grant her the tenancy.

The same applies to same-sex partners. A same-sex couple may live together for many years. One partner may nurse the other who is dying of AIDS, but on his death, after 20 years together, the surviving partner may find that he has no right of statutory succession. Again, the local authorities that I know would respond compassionately. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, responded compassionately in reply to a Written Question from the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, on 14th April 1993, when he said that the Government were proposing to issue guidance to local authorities that they should grant joint secure tenancies to same-sex couples and that discrimination on grounds of ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation or disability was not acceptable and was not a decent and civilised response.

The test of a stable relationship was to be 12 months, as with heterosexual couples. I understand that that guidance was never issued. Many existing tenancies may still be held by one partner only, but under the Act and these regulations local authorities will now be required to do the opposite of what was suggested in the advice given by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and evict the same-sex partner, sending him on to the waiting list where, as a single person, he may have to wait 10 years ever to have a home of his own again.

Under the Act and these regulations, local authorities lose their flexibility to make such one-off allocations in circumstances where, for example, carers and same-sex partners are not entitled to statutory succession. We on the Opposition Benches tried to build the same flexibility of judgment into the Act but that was rejected by the Government. Only if local authorities are satisfied that such people have priority need can they now be granted the tenancy; otherwise, under the regulations, they become homeless.

Similarly, a third category of people is involved. A relationship may break down because of domestic violence. If the spouse who is violent—presumably the male—holds the tenancy and is then served an injunction to leave the home because of his violence, he may then serve a notice to quit on the partner remaining at home and the tenancy must then end. At the moment, a local authority will normally exercise its judgment and transfer the tenancy to the spouse if it deems that the right thing to do because, say, the couple have been living there together for 15 years or more. That cannot happen in the future. In the future, the spouse would have to be evicted; she would have to go on the waiting list and she would be eligible for rehousing only if the local authority gave her priority over others on the waiting list. So, lose your parents, lose your home—just as with housing benefit; lose your partner, lose your home—just as with housing benefit under the Budget. Did the Minister really have that in mind? Why on earth cannot such difficult and delicate decisions be left to those who know the details of the case—the local authorities? Why cannot local authorities be allowed to make their judgment accordingly, without reference to the waiting list?

Local authorities are not likely to waste such accommodation when there are so many pressures on their waiting lists unless they believe that such tenants have a moral right to remain there. Why do we have to churn such people bureaucratically and callously through the system? Why must we assume that the man in Whitehall, the government Minister, knows better than the local councillors and officers?

The Housing Act 1996 was unnecessary. It was introduced because central government had stopped local authorities from building council housing. As a result, waiting lists have grown. As a result, people are waiting longer, and, as a result, the Government decided to finger the homeless for collaring an unfair proportion of the artificially reduced supply of council housing.

In these regulations, in the context of the Budget and its effect on housing benefit, we are witnessing some of the unpleasant aspects and indecencies of the Government's attitude to homelessness and housing need. We are already seeing the effect that this has in fracturing our society. I beg to move.

Moved, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Regulations, laid before the House on 31st October, be annulled (S.I. 1996/2753).—(Baroness Hollis of Heigham.)

7.20 p.m.

Baroness Hamwee

My Lords, many of your Lordships who bluntly opposed much of the Housing Act will be grateful to the noble Baroness for continuing the argument. She is quite right not to let it drop. She introduced her Motion in part in the context of the Budget. I hope that if her eloquence fails to persuade the Minister—as I fear it may—she will use it to persuade her honourable friends in another place to vote against the Budget.

I wondered what we were doing dealing with regulations which, on their face, said that they would come into force on 20th January of next year while the substantive provisions would come into effect on 1st April. As the noble Baroness has said, underlying them is the rumpus caused by the Government's announcement of the timetable. There has been a threat of an application for judicial review from two London boroughs of very different political hue. I hope that the Minister will not simply answer the point about extending the timetable, which I support—it is essential that the Government give local authorities an opportunity to deal with the new regulations and procedures in a calm and coherent fashion—but will deal also with how the regulations will relate to the law that is in effect from 20th January until 1st April. I fail to see how the new regulations will interrelate to the law that will apply during that period.

I also wonder what is and what is not in the regulations. Many of your Lordships had high hopes about the regulations. The noble Baroness has referred to comments made by the Government during the course of the Bill about the use of regulation-making powers. We were told that regulations would deal with matters that could not be put on the face of the Bill because of the detailed technical work that would be required. However, many of the regulations read as though they deal with oversights not contained in the Bill when originally drafted; for example, I refer to the points about Scotland and Northern Ireland.

There have been many calls for consultation on the code of guidance on the regulations and many commitments were made during the course of the Bill on matters that would appear in guidance. There appears to have been very limited consultation. The code was not published until the end of October. The noble Baroness has referred to the pressures on housing authorities. I do not know whether the Government understand the procedures that housing authorities will have to follow. Each authority will have to consult resident social landlords and secure tenants and then deal with its computer software. I doubt that I am the only Member of your Lordships' House to have encountered problems in installing new computer software. The authority will have to prepare new procedures, train its staff and collect information from those who are currently on the waiting list and reassess their priority. As a matter of good manners, if nothing more, it will have to tell those people what its assessment is.

These matters cannot be done overnight. Information still remains to be issued: regulations on referral from social services and other agencies, procedures on new rights of review, and so on. There is no guidance on groups to be excluded from assistance under Parts VI and VII and on those areas for which regulations are awaited. Is it not important to deal with various regulations in one batch? Are we not running headlong into even greater difficulties if we deal with matters in little parcels, failing by perhaps a genuine oversight to see how they interrelate? I cannot support this as a sensible way of trying to deal with important matters that are fundamental to people's welfare and their very lives.

I see these regulations as another example of the centralising hand of government, restricting the ability of housing authorities to allocate on a one-off basis. The noble Baroness has referred to a number of examples. I need not take up the time of the House by repeating them. I very much support what she has said. I have been given assurances in the course of the Bill about the areas to be covered by guidance. I then find a recent circular which outlaws one-off allocations, and the situation is further exacerbated by the fact that housing benefit for all single people under 60 is to be paid on the basis of shared accommodation only, irrespective of their needs and circumstances. Therefore, this is not something with which I wish to be associated.

Your Lordships will be aware of the damning comments of Mr. Justice Collins in October. He ruled that authorities had a duty to provide shelter, warmth and food to asylum seekers who had no other support. That received well deserved and widespread publicity. The noble Baroness has referred to the massive confusion and hardship since February when the Government removed benefits from almost all asylum seekers. We thought then that the voluntary organisations and Churches would be the ones to pick up the pieces. Now we see that the very limited resources of social services departments are being diverted.

The Association of London Government reports that the cost of dealing with this exercise in London will soon reach £40 million. The estimate of the cost in the next financial year is of the order of £190 million if the Government lose their appeal in January. If the Government succeed on the other side of the balance sheet, over 1,000 people, including victims of torture, will be left homeless. Leaving aside the moral issues—I feel very strongly about them—these problems and costs are caused by a government who are always telling local authorities to organise themselves more efficiently. Frankly, they do not set a good example. I believe that the demands for transparency alone show that this is the wrong approach.

In preparing for this evening I have been concerned to read evidence provided by some local authorities that as a result of all this—although I accept that it is not solely as a result of this; the new provisions must provide a catalyst—refugee communities are being targeted for abuse. I witnessed a minuscule example of this quite recently. At a meeting in my local borough to discuss the budget for next year the implications of the new procedures and their possible costs to the borough were explained. That provoked the reaction in one or two people—which I am happy to say was sat upon pretty hard by others who attended the meeting—"Why should we have to pay for this?". That was a very nasty reaction, but it provides a tiny example.

The noble Baroness has dealt comprehensively and movingly with the effect of these regulations. I support the Motion.

7.28 p.m.

Lord Dubs

My Lords, I should like to deal briefly with the effects of these regulations on one group—namely, asylum seekers. It is fairly clear that in recent months since the passage of the asylum Bill and the Housing Bill into law the Government's policies in regard to asylum seekers have been thrown increasingly off course. I do not want to repeat the debates held in the summer when the main legislation was passing through the House. However, it is fair to say that no other country in Western Europe treats asylum seekers in the way that we do and in which they will be treated as a result of the regulations. No country in Europe allows asylum seekers, or a significant proportion of asylum seekers, to become destitute on the streets of its cities. It is clear to everyone that, were it not for the Herculean efforts of many local voluntary groups, the Churches and the Refugee Council, which have provided night shelters and other support, then many asylum seekers would be sleeping, and would have to sleep, on our streets.

I notice that the regulations are to come into effect on 20th January. I am trying to understand how that relates to the recent High Court judgment, and, in particular, to the fact that the Government, as I understand it, will be appealing against that decision on 13th or 14th January, just one week before the regulations come into effect.

I wonder whether the Minister can indicate what will happen if the Government lose their appeal in the High Court. If the Government lose, will it mean that all responsibility will stay with local authorities—I know that the Government offered them a little bit more money a couple of weeks ago—under National Assistance Act powers? Or is there to be some other method of approach? Or perhaps the Government believe that the regulations are not covered by the recent High Court decision and therefore that they are different from social security provision, income support, and the like. It would be useful to know that.

I understand that local authorities are finding it difficult to cope. I recently had a meeting with some local authority staff at a London town hall. They worked in housing and social services. They explained to me the difficulties they were having in dealing with a confused situation as a result of the recent changes, High Court decisions and so on. Although I understand that some guidance has gone out from the Government, it is not clear to local authority staff exactly what is expected of them. The details are complicated, and they are having to improvise as they go along because they lack full guidance.

A further point is that, if the Government have to rely upon the National Assistance Act and local authorities to deal with people who will be left adrift of any other support, it is inevitably more costly for local authorities to have to provide support for asylum seekers under that legislation than it would be if they were covered by a proper system as was the case before the regulations and the main legislation. Local authorities have to deal with everyone on a one-off basis. They have to make particular decisions for an individual asylum seeker or family, particularly those with children. From the information I have, it is clear that that is a more costly process than the method which existed before the Government embarked upon these measures.

I do not believe that it will save money: it will save the central government money, because if they go on like this they are just passing the responsibility from the Exchequer to local councils. That will impose an extra burden on the council tax. That is not a satisfactory position. I wish that the Government would withdraw the regulations and wait to see what the High Court decision is before they go further down that path.

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers)

My Lords, this kind of debate is always a sensitive matter. I understand when your Lordships feel that the Government are not doing all that they could or should to deal with homelessness, asylum seekers, or people who require housing.

Any government which takes on those responsibilities and makes changes is inevitably construed as being uncaring, unhelpful, and not having regard to the people who are most affected. Whenever one makes the changes some people are likely to be affected beneficially and some people will not be so affected. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is concerned about these things, but she went, if I may say so, just a little bit over the top when she said that after 17 years of Tory government we are so poor that we are prepared to see people starving on our streets. That is not the case. It does not help her case to put it as dramatically as that. When she went on to say that the Government finger the homeless as a result of government inadequacies, that is just not true or fair. I hope to be able to explain to her what it is that we are trying to do.

The noble Baroness asked why the regulations have been brought in as quickly as they have been. Well, the Housing Act received Royal Assent on 24th July this year. Local authorities were informed on 31st July that the commencement date for Parts VI and VII would be in January 1997, and that guidance would be issued well in advance of that date. The code of guidance was sent to all local authorities on 31st October. Many local authorities did not start serious planning on how they were going to implement Parts VI and VII until the autumn. Obviously it would not have been in the interests of applicants for a house were authorities to operate ill-prepared allocation schemes or to make allocations which were outside the law. We have therefore deferred the bringing in of Part VI until 1st April 1997 in order to give local authorities more time to prepare their allocation schemes and to adjust their computer systems. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that if one has computers, good though they are, at some juncture they run one into trouble, and very often when one starts using them.

To give authorities more time to prepare the schemes, we have delayed the bringing in of Part VI until 1st April 1997. However it is reasonable that Part VII should commence on 20th January, as planned, because the homelessness provisions build on existing legislation. The commencement order for Parts VI and VII was made on 26th November this year, and guidance was issued to all local authorities last week. The Government hope to make all the major sets of regulations under the Act before the Christmas Recess.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said that certain statutory instruments had not yet been made. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made the same point and asked why we could not put out all the regulations together. The regulations we are now considering are the main ones for implementing Parts VI and VII. We needed to make them in October. We hope that all the remaining regulations will be made within the next few weeks. So that should overcome that problem.

This all comes down to what we are trying to do over housing and the allocation of housing. It is a fundamental change in practice but not in intent. There is a change in practice, but there is no change in intent because we are committed to a fundamental principle; that is, that a decent home should be within the reach of every family. That is best achieved by having a choice of the numbers and types of houses which are provided. We want to have a healthy and deregulated private rented sector, and we want to encourage affordable home ownership.

In order to complement what is a flourishing private housing sector, we want to see a strong social rented sector—one which has good quality homes at a reasonable and affordable rent for those who are in genuine need. The reforms in the Housing Act 1996 mean that a new approach is possible to the way in which the demand for social housing is met.

The noble Baroness said that housing allocations had been slashed in the Budget, but the Chancellor announced in his Budget that public investment in the Housing Corporation will exceed £2.5 billion over the next three years. That is sufficient capital resources to enable an average of about 58,000 to 60,000 new and additional social houses to be built per year over the decade 1991-92 to 2000-01. That is in line with our estimates of social housing need. The £2,500 million-worth of public investment is expected to bring with it £1,800 million-worth of private finance. It is right that public investment should be what is necessary to enable housing associations to provide social housing at sub-market and affordable rents with an increased private-sector investment.

We continue to address the needs of the most vulnerable in society both by helping the homeless and by promoting a fairer scheme of access to social housing. The noble Baroness hoped that we would not end up by silting up the hostels, for example, for rough sleepers. We are conscious of the need to ensure that hostels do not silt up. We expect to cover the scope for the allocation of accommodation for those people outside the housing register in regulations which we will make soon.

The old arrangements are unfair to those people who are in genuine need but who use their own initiative to find some kind of home for themselves and their families. I refer to those people who spend months or even years sitting on waiting lists simply because they have found some accommodation for themselves. However, those who have done nothing for themselves but have gone straight to the local authority for assistance will have been classified as statutory homeless and so have gone straight to the top of the queue. In many ways that is not fair.

In a few areas, more than 90 per cent. of long-term family housing goes to those who are described as "statutory homeless". Other families who may not be statutory homeless but who may nevertheless have similar long-term housing needs are not subject to the same treatment under the old system. Under the new Act we have introduced new arrangements for the way in which housing is allocated and that will help to ensure that fair treatment is available to everyone.

From 1st April next year, the priority for being accommodated and for long-term housing will go to those who have the greatest need for it, regardless of whether they have been assisted via the homelessness route. The new provisions draw the distinction between those who are homeless as a result of a short-term crisis which, with the right help, they can get through and those who have a genuine long-term need for long-term housing in the social rented sector. Local authorities will be obliged to house for a minimum of two years those to whom they owe a duty under the homelessness legislation. In order to do that, local authorities may use their own housing stock on a temporary basis, or they may use housing offered by other social landlords or housing which exists in the private rented sector. There is no reason to suppose that that will result in frequent moves for those people concerned.

The aim of the two-year duty is to provide a period of stability during which households can have a chance to sort out their own difficulties. Research shows that the average time for securing the tenancy of a council property is 12 months. Therefore, the chances are that during the two-year period the majority of people who have been housed as a result of being technically homeless will have found, or will have been found, a permanent home. One must remember that often people are homeless as a result of an immediate and short-term happening; for instance, a husband or a wife goes off, illness strikes, somebody dies, they no longer have a job and cannot keep up their payments or they have become financially embarrassed. Often those are the reasons for homelessness and that is why the homeless must be found accommodation. But that does not mean that they necessarily have to have long-term accommodation. Our experience shows that within about 12 months the majority of homelessness cases have been resolved. If no permanent home has been found within two years, and if the circumstances of the household have not changed, the authority will have a fresh duty to secure accommodation under the homelessness provisions.

The difference between the new system which the regulations helped to introduce and the old system is that everyone, whether he or she is technically homeless or has a long-term housing need, will be allocated long-term housing on the basis of the same criteria. The homeless will be properly and immediately catered for but no one will be able to gain a short cut into long-term tenancies at the expense of others who may be in equal or possibly greater need.

The Government believe that advice and assistance can help many households to keep their existing homes or to find suitable alternative accommodation. Local authorities will have new duties to ensure that this advice and assistance is provided to all residents who request it. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, was concerned that the authorities will have less discretion in allocating housing. I do not believe that that is so. The language of the 1996 Act requires authorities to give "reasonable preference" to certain groups, which is no different from the language of the 1985 Act. Authorities will still retain considerable discretion.

The noble Baroness was also concerned that provision should be made to ensure that people of the same sex, or carers who are residing with tenants, should be given the right to succeed to tenancies as those accorded to a member of a tenant's family. She asked why a government Minister knows better than a local authority. Of course government Ministers do not know better than local authorities. Local authorities have a duty to carry out their responsibilities, which they know best, under a framework which Parliament provides to ensure the best available housing for the people in their locality. The code of guidance was issued by the department in October and it restates Circular 7/96. It encourages authorities to create joint tenancies and to grant tenancies to people who reside with tenants who have no succession rights. Therefore, the position remains the same. Such allocations are at the discretion of the local authority and it can continue to allocate its houses sympathetically in those cases.

The noble Baroness was also concerned about the housing benefit measures in the Budget. There is a need to constrain housing benefit expenditure and to ensure that social security benefits do not provide incentives to people to set up an independent home unnecessarily. The purpose of the housing benefit is to assist people to meet the cost of adequate accommodation, which this policy continues to ensure.

The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was concerned what would happen if the Government lost their appeal as regards the National Assistance Act. These regulations would not be affected. They restate the provisions on asylum seekers which were made in August under the housing provisions in the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996. I know that the noble Lord is concerned about asylum seekers but, as he said, we do not want to go over the details again. As he will remember from the debates, the fact is that a very large proportion of people who say that they are asylum seekers are found, when taken to have their case proved, not to be genuine asylum seekers. He will know as well as any noble Lord that the whole purpose of what we are trying to do under asylum seeking is to grant asylum to genuine asylum seekers but not to grant the benefits of asylum seeking to those who are not genuine asylum candidates.

Under the regulations, we are trying to ensure that a fair method is introduced—that is, a method by which anyone who wants long-term housing should be able to get it by being on the housing list and that the housing list should not be either circumvented or closed up by those people who have had a short-cut route into it. Those who are statutorily homeless will still be catered for and will be catered for properly and adequately.

I hope your Lordships will agree that that is the right thing to do. I have no doubt that, in the course of making such changes, there will be occasions—as, indeed, there always are when changes come about—where the shoe pinches. If that is so, it will be up to all of us to ensure that adjustments are made and that sympathy and understanding are given to those people. I do not believe that there is anything in the regulations that will prevent that from happening. Therefore, I hope that your Lordships will agree to allow the regulations to proceed.

Baroness Hamwee

My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, will he take back to his colleagues in government a thought which I do not believe is mine alone? When the Government are making their Budget and taking financial decisions and they decide that they cannot afford a particular payment—in this case, housing benefit to allow people under the age of 60 to continue in similar accommodation—will they bear in mind that those people who are affected would prefer the Government simply to say, "That is not our priority; we have set our priorities. We do not believe that we can afford this within our priorities"? They would prefer that rather than be told that it is inappropriate for them to continue in the sort of accommodation to which they have become accustomed, which, in many cases, will have been really quite modest.

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, well, that is the noble Baroness's interpretation of it. I do not believe that the Government put all these things into a graduated form of priorities. Obviously, when one is looking across the board at all the work that is done and at all the money that is paid to deserving causes, periodically one has to make cuts. Indeed, everyone knows that and it is very disagreeable when that happens. It is certainly not a question of saying that certain people are so undeserving that the Government consider that they should not be remunerated.

7.53 p.m.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

My Lords, we have had a brief debate on some most important issues. I should very much like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for spelling out very effectively the workload entailed for local authorities by the timing of the regulations and for making the point that by getting our regulations piecemeal—in the way that the Government seem to do—it is very difficult to see what the effect on local government will be, given the fact that so much of the Housing Act 1996 is carried out by its regulations. It would be helpful if they could be brought together so that we could see their interaction. Otherwise, it is rather like having a major piece of legislation and being allowed to deal with one clause per month and not knowing what the other clauses are until you get to the next month. That is what is happening with this Act.

My noble friend Lord Dubs made a point which bears repeating: this country now has the distinction of treating asylum seekers more harshly than any other European country. I hope that that is a record of which the Government feel proud.

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness; indeed, I do not like to do so. However, the noble Baroness will also recognise that this country has the reputation of being one of the most generous countries to which people should apply for asylum.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

No longer, my Lords. The Government have done their best to tarnish a reputation which in the past we all cherished.

A noble Lord: A soft touch.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

I believe that the Minister just said, "A soft touch". I may come back to that when we deal with asylum seekers. That was a rather illuminating intervention by the Minister. It reveals that, far from being concerned about compassion, he is more concerned about exploitation and willing to have 10 people starve rather than have one person inaccurately receive benefits—

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, the noble Baroness cannot get away with that. I said that I did not want to interrupt her, but she must not make accusations in which she knows perfectly well there is no vestige of truth.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

My Lords, in that case, why did the Minister interject from a seated position the words "A soft touch" when I alluded to asylum seekers? If his remarks do not bear that interpretation I shall, of course, withdraw what I said. But surely the context of what he says suggests that that was the case.

I turn now to the detailed points made by the Minister in response to my Motion. The first concerned timing. The noble Earl said that because the Act was passed on 31st July, local government has had plenty of time to deal with it. However, the detail of how this Act must be addressed on the ground by local government is carried in a code of guidance which was issued barely four weeks ago. It would have been foolish for local government to have anticipated that final code of guidance by starting preparations before local authorities had the document. Nonetheless, it means that, although Part VI has been deferred, Part VII will still come into effect in January, which is barely three months after the Government issued their code of guidance.

The Minister blithely said that they hoped to make all the necessary arrangements from the Government's point of view before the Christmas Recess so that local authorities will be able to bring them into play on 20th January. Knowing the workload involved, I believe that the Government are putting a quite unreasonable and unnecessary burden on local government. If there are hiccups, as I fear there may very well be, the Government will have only themselves to blame because they have delayed their part of the procedure and at the same time they have refused to delay the implementation date for local government. That is quite unreasonable.

The Minister defended the Government's position—I believe I have a note of his words—by saying that what the Housing Act 1996 did was make, a fundamental change in practice but not in intent". If we are to have, as the Minister said, a fundamental change in practice, that surely makes the point argued by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and myself—namely, that local authorities need more time if they are to make such a change in practice. However, the Minister went on to say that there would be no fundamental change in policy because government policy had two main strands to it. First—and I quote his words—there was the fact that the Government want, a healthy, deregulated, flourishing private rented sector"; and, secondly, they want a strong social rented housing sector. In that case, why has government policy since 1989 consistently subverted both of those intentions? On the flourishing private rented sector, I should point out that government decontrolled the private rented sector and allowed rents to soar, with the then Housing Minister, Sir George Young, telling the House of Commons—and, therefore, this House—that housing benefit would bear the strain, which it did. But, when it did, the Government promptly cut housing benefit and asked tenants to take the strain. As the Minister revealingly said, it means that housing benefit will no longer, finance somebody in setting up an independent home unnecessarily". Those were the Minister's words. Is the noble Earl really saying that someone who is 45, 50 or 55 is not entitled to, an independent home unnecessarily"? Who will be in the next category? The Government first applied the housing benefit changes to 19 to 25 year-olds. They have now extended them to 60 year-olds. Is the next proposal to extend them to pensioners? Will we see them brought within the scope of these housing benefit changes?

If the first part of the Government's policy was to have a flourishing private sector, that has been subverted by what they have done with housing benefit which will distort hugely the private renting sector. The second element was to strengthen the Housing Corporation. His words notwithstanding, will the Minister confirm that this current year the Housing Corporation is enjoying £1 billion and that next year it will enjoy an investment programme of £650 million? Will the Minister accept that that represents a cut in cash terms, let alone in real terms? Further, is the Minister not trying to conceal that as the Chancellor of the Exchequer tried to conceal the health cuts by trying to put them through over a three-year programme?

The Minister referred to silting. He said that these regulations were necessary because people were spending years on the waiting list, and that was unfair. Will he consider why people were spending years on the waiting list? Could it faintly have something to do with the fact that local authorities have been prevented from building council housing, while council housing was sold off, and therefore there is a huge shortage in supply and, consequently, a lengthening queue? Does the Minister accept that whether he is talking about sugar, sports cars or homes, if one cuts the supply one will lengthen the queue, and that all he is doing is moving people around on the "Titanic"?

The Minister said that under the two-year duty everyone would be offered housing on the basis of the same criteria. I can only assume he has never been a member of a housing committee dealing with homeless families. Does he not understand that homelessness is untidy; that it is hugely distressing; that it differs from family to family; and that to insist on some criteria when families risk sleeping in cars is bureaucracy gone mad?

The Minister in referring to the points made by my noble friend Lord Dubs on asylum seekers said it was the Government's intention to stop those asylum seekers from claiming benefit because a large proportion were not found to be genuine. Does he accept that the port of entry test, as the Government have currently devised it, ensures that more people who are subsequently refused asylum status gain benefit than are refused it? Does the Minister accept that the port of entry test—at which point people obtain benefit—produces fewer "real" asylum seekers than the in-country test? Therefore the port of entry test, and the attachment of benefits to it, is deeply and utterly perverse as well as inhumane. No other European country has such a test for the good reason that it is artificial, perverse and discriminates not against those who are genuine but against those who are less than competent.

Everything that the Minister has said tonight allays my concerns—and, I suspect, those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—not one inch. We have heard the old complacent, indifferent and well insulated response to the distress of people who will face Christmas on the streets. This Government should be ashamed of themselves. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Trumpington

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until five past eight.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

[The Sitting was suspended from 8.3 to 8.5 p.m.]