A smorgasbord

There is lots of interesting stuff going on at the moment, and it is, of course, an important political moment.  This post is a bit of a smorgasbord of relevant tidbits (I’m afraid that I’ve got an impending deadline [well, three]), which means I’m a bit pushed.  This is the news/gossip:

(i) The outstanding Mike Norman has written a fantastic blog on Coastal 2 over at Nearly Legal.  Mike makes a number of important observations on issues 2 and 3, suggesting that there is a need for those issues to be addressed further.  As Mike says:

I will note here, how much Wales is screaming out for more case law in respect of the Act generally; in it’s absence, interpretations of law will be piecemeal and it would be very helpful to get binding precedent. Obiter will of course be very persuasive in its absence.

This is a must read for anybody raising these kinds of issues going forward.

(ii) All the rumours that I hear are that the appeal in Coastal 1 is likely to be dropped.  I suspect that my old colleagues involved in the case will be upset about that, but it will be a pragmatic commercial decision.  My only doubt about that decision is what if Mike is right and issues 2 and 3 are addressed further, and decided against the social landlord leading to restitution.  In the meantime, I imagine that the drip of possession cases will continue and perhaps the tap turned a little bit further.

(iii) Somewhat annoyingly, on Friday last week, after my posts had “dropped” and I felt that my work had been done, the Local Government and Housing Committee sent through its Stage 1 report on the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation Bill.  I have not had time to go through it in any detail yet, but it will undoubtedly be a significant contribution to the debate around the Bill.  It’s worth saying this (and repeating it): the way in which Wales does legislation is really outstanding.  A lot of thought goes in to developing the principles and scrutiny of the clauses.

Everybody agrees to the principles in the Bill (which, I think, goes without saying almost, and is deffo not surprising) but, as we know, the Bill does not allocate more money for the resulting duties (although my memory is that there is a convention that money should go with them), and the Committee make the point that more money will be needed.  Otherwise this is just tinkering at the margins, and setting local authorities in particular up to fail.  There are other specific challenges – most notably on its face, around local connection exemptions, qualifying persons for an allocation, and the “deliberate manipulation” allocation rule (see my earlier blogs on these issues).