Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, 08 Dec 1999

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 8, 1999

Official Report 223KB pdf

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Abolition of Poindings and Warrant Sales Bill: Stage 1

I assume that people have given this issue some thought. Can I move to the recommendation, which is point 8? There was discussion in the social inclusion group about the need to examine credit and debt. I think that Robert Brown mentioned it.

I feel that I have not yet got a handle on credit in relation to loan sharks and what the effects of the warrant sale bill might be. We ought to examine that. Information on that might come out of the evidence sessions with Citizens Advice Scotland and the Department of Social Security, but I suspect that their evidence might be more anecdotal than we would like. I wonder whether research or studies have been carried out on credit and debt. It crossed my mind that it might be worthwhile talking to an organisation such as Scottish Provident, which is in the private sector but deals with people who are dependent on certain sorts of finance. Scottish Provident might have more experience in this area than almost anybody else.

I agree with that.

Much of the evidence that we have heard indicates that many poindings are carried out by local authorities in pursuit of rent arrears. We could, perhaps, invite West Dunbartonshire Council to give evidence. It has a policy of not implementing poinding or warrant sales in any circumstances. It gave a presentation yesterday that my assistant attended and I know that John McAllion was also at that Poverty Alliance meeting. I could not go, but my assistant said that she was very impressed with the evidence that was given. It might be useful for the council to come and speak to us.

The line that I took when negotiating with the conveners group was that many local authority people would visit the Local Government Committee. However, having read that committee's minutes, it seems that it has heard evidence only from Glasgow City Council, so it might be interesting for us to hear from West Dunbartonshire Council.

We would want a copy of the Glasgow submission in order to balance the evidence.

Yes.

Given that Glasgow City Council is the only local authority to have given evidence and if the Local Government Committee has not chosen to invite any others, there is no reason why we should not invite them. There is a spot available on 19 January.

We must stick to the timetable.

It might be unnecessary to extend this. The Credit Services Association has already given evidence to another committee, so there is no reason for us to talk to Scottish Provident. COSLA has also given evidence to the Local Government Committee. I am anxious to get on with it.

None of what is being suggested will delay matters.

There is a danger that the matter could be put off time and again until it falls off the agenda.

I have committed myself to getting the report to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee and I will make sure that it is done by 26 January, come hell or high water.

We can hardly invite loan sharks to give evidence.

Have you got contacts?

I doubt there is any official research that can tell us about the extent of loan sharking.

Let us consider that. West Dunbartonshire Council and Scottish Provident might be able to give us written evidence. We need to check how detailed the Credit Services Association submission is. We will definitely meet the deadline.

I think that it would be a good idea to hear from West Dunbartonshire Council because it has the best collection record in Scotland.

We still do not have clarification on who from the Department of Social Security will give evidence. It should be one of the ministers, because if the Department of Social Security opposes the bill, that is a political decision.

You had left the meeting when we discussed the matter. We agreed that we would hear evidence from the civil servants for a start and, if we thought that there were further issues to be raised, we would reconsider talking to a minister.

Will we have time to do that?

That was the decision that we made. Let us not change decisions from meeting to meeting.

I am not changing the decision, but if we are going to get the report in on time, we cannot wait until January to invite a minister to come and give evidence. If we are going to invite a minister, we have to do it now—this is the last meeting before Christmas.

With all due respect, that was raised at the last meeting and following the discussion we decided to settle for the officials. Martin Verity has sent an e-mail asking members for their preferred line of questioning. If we are not happy after that, we will reconsider our position. It is bad for the committee to change its decisions meeting after meeting.

I am not trying to change the decision. If, having heard evidence from officials, we decide to see a minister, there will be no time. It would be unreasonable to invite a minister on 12 January to give evidence a week later. I suggest that we take a decision to invite a minister now or that we give that minister warning that we might invite him to come up in January. We cannot give a minister one week's notice.

At the last meeting, we decided that this was not necessarily the issue on which we wanted to confront Westminster ministers—there will be other things that we will want Alistair Darling to come and talk about. I suggested that housing benefit might be an issue that we would like to speak about. We should not throw away the opportunity to speak to him. His evidence on this is not necessary.

We had this discussion at the last meeting.

Was the decision made not to invite ministers?

You were not here at the last meeting, Alex—we are revisiting the discussion. We took the view that we would not rule out the idea of pursuing ministers for their views on poindings and warrant sales. However, we decided to begin with the officials because, as John McAllion said, there are many issues that we want to discuss with Alistair Darling.

In that case, I would like you to write to Alistair Darling on behalf of the committee to ask if the written submission and the oral evidence from the DSS reflect his political judgment on the matter. Is he opposed to the bill?

Let us find out what the evidence is. I want to pursue our line of questioning and to hear what the DSS has to say. If we still feel that there are issues to be addressed when we have concluded our questioning, there will be opportunities for the committee to pursue those issues. I am getting frustrated because every time an issue is raised we want UK ministers to come before the committee.

It is a timing issue. Even if we decide on 12 December that we want to write a letter, that might be too late. It is not unreasonable to write a letter to Alistair Darling now to ask him what his political position is.

We could write on 12 December and have an answer before we conclude this matter on 26 January.

My experience of Government and Executive ministers is that that might not happen, which is why I am concerned.

It is my responsibility to run this committee in a managed way. We cannot keep changing decisions. We will stick with the decision that we made previously. Once we have heard the DSS evidence, we will have the opportunity to reflect on it.

But my recommendation is that meantime, we write to Alistair Darling to ask him what his position is, as the Secretary of State for Social Security, on this bill.

We took a decision at the last committee meeting—

That is not contradictory.

We took a decision that we would hear the DSS evidence, and follow that up appropriately. Can we stick with that, please?

DSS officials will not come up here and say that something is not Government policy. They are officials speaking on behalf of the Government. Whatever they say is Alistair Darling's policy. That is the reality.

He should be held to account for it.

Do not worry. John McAllion will hold Alistair Darling to account, as will we all.