"If the Minister is going to propose a change to the law, it is incumbent on him to have some indication of what the implications might be; otherwise, I am not sure why the Government would make the change. I do not understand that argument at all. It might be …..." Karen Buck - View Speech
"Of course I am not suggesting that landlords should be forced. I am saying that a balance needs to be struck. As I have said several times, the Minister is completely failing to recognise that the Government have chosen to use the private rented sector for housing, at scale, households …..." Karen Buck - View Speech
"I absolutely agree. The sword of Damocles is hanging over the heads of lots of people just living a fairly ordinary life. Families with special needs children are a particularly high-risk category. A woman and her representative came to me recently to say that her current property is unsuitable. She …..." Karen Buck - View Speech
"I have a very large Grainger development in my constituency, and it is not an issue that has come to me at any scale. Obviously—the Minister is right—landlords are likely to want these powers. Of course, if a landlord is able to circumvent the abolition of section 21 by using …..." Karen Buck - View Speech
"Will the Minister clarify that, if the courts found grounds to evict a tenant under this lower threshold—without certain circumstances, such as special needs, mental health, and so on—would a local authority find that household to be intentionally homeless?..." Karen Buck - View Speech
"I absolutely agree. It is an issue for the self-employed; the very small businesses operating at the margin; the people who, because of the structure of our labour market, dip in and out of employment and have highly variable earnings; and the people who are on zero-hour contracts. It is …..." Karen Buck - View Speech
"As this point was raised with the Minister, can he share with the Committee the statistics that demonstrate the scale of that problem?..." Karen Buck - View Speech
"I agree with my hon. Friend about all this. In fact, tragically, my office is dealing at the moment with a family where the children have been taken into care as a consequence. These things can indeed happen; we have touched on that occasionally in the passage of this Bill, …..." Karen Buck - View Speech
"Once again, the Government are falling into the trap of creating a system that will create problems for itself, because they refuse to accept the sheer complexity of real people’s lives. Making these grounds mandatory will prevent the courts from doing what they are so good at, which is considering …..." Karen Buck - View Speech
"Thank you, Mr Gray. I was merely making the point that agreeing the principle in the Bill but not setting a date, or making the date consequential on an unmeasurable set of objectives, will have serious real-life consequences for individuals and public services.