Kevin Hollinrake

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this important debate, because all of us have experienced distressing constituency cases, which are a real problem for our communities. I agree with his description of the issue: it can cause mayhem and misery throughout our local communities. I also agree that social housing should be a privilege, not a right, and that those houses should be kept in good order. When canvassing in our patch, we have all gone to areas with social housing and seen overgrown gardens with litter and furniture in them. That cannot be right for the people in those houses, and particularly the children, but also for the neighbours. It is simply not right. It is good to see that we seem to be in violent agreement on both sides of the Chamber on the three-strikes policy, which I will talk about in a second. That seems to be a maximum, not a minimum. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) argued for a two-strikes policy, and the hon. Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) argued for a one-strike policy. I am encouraged by that, because it is fair to say that everyone in the debate so far—I am interested to hear what the Minister will say—has said that we need to do more.