Government departments at odds over plan to cut housing benefit for antisocial tenants
Plans to dock the housing benefit of antisocial tenants were in confusion this week as government departments were unsure about who may lead the initiative.

The plans were outlined by prime minister Tony Blair at the Labour party conference last week (HT 3 October, page 9). He promised a criminal justice bill, which would be the responsibility of the Home Office. Home Office minister Lord Falconer is understood to back the proposals, originally suggested by Labour MP Frank Field.

But this week a Home Office spokesperson said: "The Home Office does support the notion of new legislation, but it is the Department of Works and Pensions who are actually the lead agency in this case."

The DWP, however, said no decisions had been made.

Meanwhile, Field challenged critics of his original private members bill – the inspiration for the government's current plans – to put up or shut up.

The Birkenhead MP said: "This time round I will be challenging every organisation that voices opposition as to whether they have asked their members what they think about the proposals."

He would also be requiring them to prove they had sufficiently researched the issue.

And any legislation curbing benefit entitlements to antisocial tenants would require a register of those who have been affected, Field added.

The DWP is understood to be working on such a register (HT 27 June, page 7).

Field said he expected the register to be "fairly advanced" by now.

Designed to keep track of antisocial tenants who move from area to area, the register will not be applied retrospectively, according to Field. "Obviously tenants would have a completely fresh start once legislation is enacted," he explained.

Plans for small, secure units for difficult tenants

Antisocial tenants who refuse to change their ways, even after their housing benefit has been stopped, should be housed in “small, secure units”, where they can do no harm to others, said Frank Field. Acknowledging that a small number of recalcitrant tenants could be made homeless by proposals to deny them housing benefit, Field said that special housing may have to be built to meet their needs. “It would have to be indestructible. Homes like this have already been built in Germany,” he said. But Field played down fears that new legislation would lead to an upsurge in homelessness. “The number of people involved will be very small. In Wirral, for example, only five or six families would be affected,” he said.