Government to gather evidence on antisocial tenants and decide who loses benefit
A national register of antisocial tenants could be used to order councils to cut their housing benefit, Housing Today has learned.

It is understood that the Department for Work and Pensions is drawing up plans to implement MP Frank Field's controversial "two strikes and out" bill if it gets through parliament this month. The bill would strip nuisance tenants, and the parents of unruly children, of their housing benefit if they are convicted twice in three years.

Field told Housing Today: "There has got to be a central register. Otherwise they will just move from area to area and skip court judgments."

The DWP would collate information from local courts, before deciding to cut benefit. The department would instruct councils to carry out the cuts.

Local Government Association programme manager Gwyneth Taylor said that if decisions to withhold benefits were taken centrally without regard to household circumstances, they would be open to judicial review.

She warned: "Councils will not dare take out antisocial behaviour orders because of the risk of a benefit cut. The council would have to rehouse, sending the wrong message to all other tenants. It is an absolute nightmare."

The DWP refused to comment. It said it will offer amendments to Field's bill at the next committee hearing on 11 July.

The government has suggested a 40% limit to the cuts. But Field intends to press for benefit to be cut completely for second offences, although he would accept a 40% cut after the first offence. He welcomed Tory proposals to amend the bill to consider the welfare of children and that the courts should hear victims' views. He said: "My bill accompanies all the other measures. It aims to change behaviour, not punish.

"We have to question whether kids should be raised in these circumstances. Not all cases have children, anyway."

Meanwhile, benefits minister Malcolm Wicks has said he is willing to listen to the concerns of the sector over the controversial bill. Wicks has replied to a recent letter jointly signed by the country's four biggest housing organisations. The letter expressed serious misgivings over Field's bill (Housing Today, 13 June, page 13). The LGA will now meet with Wicks.

n Calum MacDonald, Labour MP for the Western Isles, has tabled an amendment to Frank Field's controversial bill that would exempt Scotland from the law.

Source

Housing Today