Male Abusive Behaviour
Earl Cathcart Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Conservative Benches.
Earl Cathcart
My Lords, I was very surprised to learn that as many as one in three victims of domestic violence are male. I have no doubt that male victims feel ashamed and embarrassed, and that they just will not be believed. Do male victims of abuse receive the same help, support and refuge facilities as women and if not, why not?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend is right to point out that there are male victims of domestic violence but I do not think the number is as high as one in three. I think something like 7% or 8% of victims are men. He raises a very important point, however: for men, shame is a terrible thing, which often prevents their coming forward and seeking help. Advice lines for men are available—for example, the Men’s Advice Line. I am not undermining the suffering that men go through.
Immigration Bill
Earl Cathcart Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Earl Cathcart (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Bates for tabling his government amendments. In my mind, it certainly makes the situation better, but maybe not perfect. I understand that the Government wish to tackle the rogue landlords who deliberately flout the law by knowingly taking in illegals as tenants. However, the Bill, as written, uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut by criminalising all landlords, even if they have done everything reasonably possible to confirm the status of a tenant and are actively seeking to evict a tenant they have been told does not have the right to rent.
I would like to explore how the government amendments would work in practice. I am happy to say that in my 30-odd years of being a landlord, I have never had to evict anybody, so this is new territory for me. Suppose one of my tenants in Norfolk was of Middle Eastern extraction with a Greek passport. As I do not know what a valid Greek passport looks like—other than like my British passport, but all in Greek—I send it off to one of those passport verification agencies. It gives me the all-clear and the tenant moves in. Subsequently, I receive a letter from the Immigration Enforcement office—in King’s Lynn, in my case—giving me notice that the tenant is an illegal with a fake passport. The government amendments say that I have a defence if I have,
“taken reasonable steps to terminate the residential tenancy agreement … within a reasonable period”,
beginning with the time when I first knew that he was illegal. Therefore I write to the tenant to evict him, with reasons, giving him so many days or weeks to vacate the premises. However, the tenant, realising that he has been rumbled, scarpers at once and disappears into another part of the country to become a tenant of some other unsuspecting landlord.
Immigration Act 2014 (Commencement No. 6) Order 2016
Earl Cathcart Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Andrews) (Lab)
My Lords, if this Motion is agreed to, the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, may not be called by reason of pre-emption.
Earl Cathcart (Con)
My Lords, in Committee on the Immigration Bill on 20 January, I said that I supported delaying the roll out of the pilot scheme. I said:
“I thought that the whole point of a pilot scheme was to ensure that what was being put forward was actually working as intended. However, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants found that two-thirds of landlords had not fully understood the code of practice on preventing illegal immigration or indeed the code of practice on avoiding discrimination, and that 50% of those who had been refused a tenancy felt discriminated against while 40% of tenants in the pilot area had not been asked for any identity documents. That is hardly a resounding success for the pilot scheme, yet the Government want to roll out this contentious scheme across the country next month. That cannot be the right answer”.—[Official Report, 20/1/16; cols.873-874.]
I still hold that view. I have great reservations about rolling out the scheme before the work has been properly done. The Residential Landlords Association recently surveyed almost 1,500 landlords across the country and showed that the vast majority of landlords simply do not have the information they need to undertake the checks properly. I am one of over 90% of landlords who said that they had not received any information from the Government about the right-to-rent checks by mail, email, from an advert or leaflet or from the internet, while 72% of landlords said that they did not understand their obligations under the policy. I only know about the right-to-rent checks because I am a Member of your Lordships’ House. I have received no other information.
Since Committee on the Bill on 20 January, the Minister has held a number of meetings with noble Lords, for which I thank him. My noble friend Lord Howard of Rising and I had one such meeting on not criminalising landlords who had done their best not to rent to illegals. We discussed whether immigration enforcement officers should be issued with clear guidance about when not to prosecute landlords who had done their best, so that only the deliberate flouters of the law could be pursued and prosecuted. I know that other such meetings with the Minister have also taken place on this subject. I do not know what the Minister has managed to achieve as a result of those meetings, so I will listen with great interest to what my noble friend says.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
We will not support the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, if it is put to a vote. I believe that this is the fifth or sixth such Motion moved by the noble Baroness’s party in respect of a statutory instrument in this Session. There appears to be a difference of view between us on the role of this House—the unelected House—in relation to such Motions on statutory instruments and the very exceptional circumstances in which voting on such a Motion might be justified in this House. I may be wrong, but I believe that we voted on just two such Motions in relation to statutory instruments during the five-year period of the coalition Government.
The terms of our Motion express regret that the Immigration Act 2014 (Commencement No. 6) Order 2016 was laid following inadequate consultation, and asks the Government to undertake a further consultation before the terms of the order are implemented. This order extends the right-to-rent scheme to the whole of England, and the scheme restricts the access of illegal migrants to privately rented accommodation. The first phase of the scheme has been in operation in certain local authority areas in the West Midlands.
The Immigration Act 2014 was passed by the then coalition Government. Under it, landlords who failed to undertake the required checks whether prospective tenants had the necessary immigration status were liable to payment of a civil penalty. During the passage of that Bill, the then Government said in respect of the first phase of the scheme that they understood,
“the desire of noble Lords to ensure that the landlords scheme is ‘workable’ and that the provisions are tested and carefully evaluated”.
They said that it was their intention,
“to adopt a carefully phased approach to implementation and to ensure that we get the guidance and support services absolutely right before considering wider implementation beyond the first phase”.—[Official Report, 3/4/14; col.1089.]
The Government also said that,
“one of the reasons why the rollout is important is that we need to check to see if there are any adverse implications in this policy”.—[Official Report, 12/3/14; col.1800.]
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee commented in its recent report on this statutory instrument that:
“The Home Office … needs to clarify the consequential impact on local authorities”,
and whether the demand for local authority housing would increase as a result. The committee also said that,
“it appears to us that the Home Office needs to do more to publicise the checks, in particular to the majority of small landlords who do not belong to a professional association”.
In the light of just those two observations by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, there must be doubts as to whether the commitment given by the Government during the passage of the Immigration Bill 2014 to ensure that the guidance and support services were absolutely right before considering wider implementation beyond the first phase has been met. Likewise, there must be doubts about whether the commitment given to check if there were any adverse implications of the policy has been met in the light of the committee’s comment that the Home Office needed to be clear about the consequential effects of this legislation on local authorities and whether the demand for local authority housing would increase as a result.
Immigration Bill
Earl Cathcart Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, the amendment in this group in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Rosser would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament an evaluation of the national rollout of the 2014 right-to-rent scheme before the offences listed in the clause came into force. Again, this issue was raised at Second Reading, and there is considerable concern about this position. Landlords can find themselves in some difficulties as they are not immigration officers and do not have the expertise to make determinations. The penalties for offences committed under new Sections 33A and 33B are severe: on conviction on indictment, a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both; and on summary conviction, a prison term of up to 12 months, a fine, or both.
The amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, have considerable merits. Amendment 159 would stop any orders coming into force other than in the pilot area until the Secretary of State had published an independent evaluation of these sections of the Immigration Act. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was right to say that we do not have a very long period in which to make a proper evaluation. She also made a valid point about the protected characteristics in Amendment 148.
I hope that the Minister will be in a position either to accept these amendments or at the very least to reflect on them before coming back to this issue on Report. As I have said, the Bill is in a bit of a mess and, unlike the Modern Slavery Act, we have not had the pre-legislative scrutiny required. That is why we are having all these difficulties as we go through Committee.
Will the Minister think about the effect on the rental sector and the injustice that can be done not only to landlords and people who rent out to lodgers but to prospective tenants who may be unable to rent easily just because they are foreign, have an accent or dress differently, or their documents are not understood by lay people because they are in a foreign language? They will suffer unfairly due to the Government’s proposals here not being properly thought through, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to.
Earl Cathcart (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendment about delaying the rollout of the pilot scheme. This seems to focus on the likelihood of landlords potentially asking all those with foreign names or accents for evidence of their right to rent. I thought that the whole point of a pilot scheme was to ensure that what was being put forward was actually working as intended. However, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants found that two-thirds of landlords had not fully understood the code of practice on preventing illegal immigration or indeed the code of practice on avoiding discrimination, and that 50% of those who had been refused a tenancy felt discriminated against, while 40% of tenants in the pilot area had not been asked for any identity documents. That is hardly a resounding success for the pilot scheme, yet the Government want to roll out this contentious scheme across the country next month. That cannot be the right answer.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 151 in particular. The pilot scheme has done nothing to allay all the fears that have been voiced by many organisations that the policy will have unintended, discriminatory consequences, for the reasons given by the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to the JCWI’s independent evaluation. I would be interested if the Minister could tell us what view the Government take of its evaluation alongside the pilot that they have prayed in aid to suggest that everything is fine.
At Second Reading I made brief reference to concerns raised by the charity Rights of Women about the possible implications for women fleeing domestic abuse. I will quote more extensively from the briefing it sent, because it is important. Rights of Women, as noble Lords may know, is a charity which specialises in supporting women who are experiencing or are at risk of experiencing, gender-based violence, including domestic and sexual violence. It says it is,
“deeply concerned that the ‘right to rent’ scheme will place already vulnerable migrant women who have experienced domestic violence at further risk of harm as a result of a scheme that creates barriers to accessing private … accommodation … Many women, including British citizens, experiencing violence in their relationships will have been deprived of access to important documents, such as passports and biometric residence permits, necessary to prove their right to rent and therefore these provisions will have a disproportionate effect on women fleeing abusive partners or other perpetrators of abuse regardless of their nationality.
Furthermore, women with limited leave to remain in the UK on the basis of their relationship with a British or settled person are dependent on that relationship subsisting for the continuation of their leave; when the relationship ends their immigration leave is at risk and women need to take steps to regularise their status in another category. Women who have fled abusive partners often need time to recover from their trauma before starting to address matters such as regularising their immigration status. It is not uncommon for a woman to find out much later after the breakdown of a relationship due to violence that unbeknownst to her the Home Office has curtailed her leave after her abusive partner informed them of the relationship ending. Without receiving notice of a Home Office curtailment decision, a woman can find herself without leave in the UK, unable to work or access housing.
Many of the vulnerable migrant women we advise on our telephone legal advice line have left or are trying to leave abusive relationships. Of these women a significant proportion are presently undocumented though either have an existing right to reside in the UK under European law or have a strong basis on which they can submit an application to the Home Office for leave to remain. The ‘right to rent’ scheme places these already vulnerable women at further risk by preventing them from accessing their own safe private rented accommodation due to a lack of documentation”.
These women will then be,
“at risk of homelessness, renting from exploitative landlords, returning to abusive partners or being forced into entering exploitative relationships”.
The charity gives a couple of case studies which illustrate the very likely problems that could occur, which I will not cite now given the lateness of the hour. However, I will ask: how does this fit in with the Government’s laudable strategy to end violence against women and girls?
Lord Deben
I did not criticise this as not being an independent group. My point was that the work should go on for longer before it is assessed, perhaps by the same group. It is not a question of complaining about the independence of the group; I fear that there has not been sufficient time to be able to draw the kind of conclusions which have been drawn. I think that is precisely what the noble Lord, Lord Best, indicated—that it would have been better to have had a longer period. All I was suggesting was that if you had a longer period and then had the independent assessment that would be better, given what a serious matter this is.
Earl Cathcart
I have a reservation. The Minister said that this is being done at the social housing level. However, it is relatively easy to get the message across to that sector because you just write to all the councils and tell them what it is. You cannot write to all the landlords because nobody knows who all the landlords are. There is no national register of landlords. I believe that is where the confusion has arisen in the pilot area, where 65% of landlords—two-thirds—do not understand the code of practice on preventing illegal immigration or the code of practice on avoiding discrimination. The message has not got to the landlords. When the Government roll this out, I wonder how the Minister proposes to get the message out to all landlords right across the country.
Lord Howard of Rising (Con)
My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 150 and 150A. I declare an interest as the owner of properties which are let to long-term tenants.
I find it a bit rich that landlords should risk imprisonment for housing an illegal immigrant when it is the Government’s failure in their duty to protect the borders of this country that has resulted in the illegal immigrant being here in the first place. I fully understand the difficulties in controlling our borders, which will inevitably lead to errors, but should the person responsible for the error go to prison? If those responsible for allowing illegal immigration should not go to jail, why should a landlord? I am afraid that I do not share the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Best, that the power will not be abused at some stage.
New Section 33A says that if any illegal immigrant resides in a property, it will be a criminal offence by the landlord regardless of whether or not that individual was the person to whom the premises were let. Amendment 148A seeks to restrict the criminal offence to those checks which would be reasonable for a landlord to carry out and which are set out in the Landlords’ Guide to Checking Immigration Documents, issued by the Home Office. I can understand that landlords should check the person taking the property, but can the Minister say how in practical terms it is possible for a landlord to check on each person residing in the property once it has been let? Is the landlord supposed to keep a permanent watch? What about the case where a house with a number of bedrooms has a drive and trees and is thus concealed from view?
Can the Minister suggest what reasonable steps could be taken to ensure that the person who has legally rented the premises is not allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the house? Any person renting a house legally who then wishes to house illegal immigrants is hardly likely to announce their intention when taking the property. It will be totally impractical for any landlord to monitor the ongoing use of the property and whether the person renting it has illegal immigrants to stay.
Proposed new Section 33A(7) states that a post-grant contravention is an offence. Essentially, this says that if a person becomes disqualified it is an offence for that person to continue to occupy the premises. How is the landlord expected to know if a person has become disqualified? Will the authorities notify the landlord?
Amendment 150A is to avoid Clause 13 from being retrospective. The draft right-to-rent code of practice issued by the Home Office clearly states at paragraph 3.2:
“The Scheme applies only to residential tenancy agreements first entered into on or after the date on which the Scheme is implemented in the area where the property is located.
A landlord is not required to take any action in relation to residential tenancy agreements entered into before that date, or which are renewed after that date if the renewed agreement will be between the same parties and there has been no break in the tenant’s right to occupy the premises”.
Amendment 150A would bring the Bill into line with the guidance being issued by the Home Office and avoid the unfairness of retrospective legislation.
The issue of discrimination has been mentioned this evening, and I come back to it only in relation to Amendment 148A. It is touched on in the draft right-to-rent code of practice, where it states:
“Whether or not a person … has permission to stay in the UK and has a right to rent is a matter of fact that can be verified. Only the listed documents should be used to reach a decision on whether the person has a right to rent”.
How does this apply to persons who might come to stay at the property unbeknown to the landlord? If my amendment is not included, to prevent a landlord being guilty of a criminal offence without being aware of it, the Bill will create the bias towards discrimination that has been talked about this evening.
The checking service is a method of confirming whether documents are correct—again, this has come up this evening. Can the Minister indicate the likely response time for the service and whether there will be charges for those using it, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, asked?
If it was simple for landlords to do what is being asked, why are the authorities not already monitoring illegal immigrants more effectively? It is not unreasonable for landlords to play their part in helping with the problem of illegal immigration, but what they are asked to do should be reasonable and proportionate. Landlords being subject to imprisonment for something over which, in practical terms, they can have little or no control is not reasonable. I point out that the people most affected by this will be that huge army of very small landlords who do not have agents to act for them, and who will be unable to follow what is happening to a property that they have rented out which may be in a completely different part of the country. I beg to move.
Earl Cathcart
My Lords, before I speak to my Amendment 150, supported by my noble friend Lord Howard, I would like to support his two amendments. The first is Amendment 148A. As drafted, the Bill has no defence for a landlord who has done their best to check the immigration status of a tenant, or for a landlord who is caught out by an unscrupulous tenant. They are merely reliant on the Home Office not prosecuting them in such circumstances. They will still have committed the offence, which will put them in breach of many mortgage companies’ conditions. I therefore support the amendment, as it will provide greater protection for landlords who are deemed to have committed a criminal offence even if they have done all that they can to confirm the status of the tenant.
My noble friend’s Amendment 150A is important because the Government have not yet been clear on whether the right-to-rent checks apply to existing tenancies. Checks part-way through or on renewal of a tenancy will leave landlords and agents with tenants who may then be deported; this will probably lead to a large number of random reports if tenants ignore correspondence or decline to provide documents. I support this amendment, as it provides clarity about when landlords will be expected to undertake the checks.
Amendment 150 in my name is supported by my noble friend Lord Howard and reads:
“A person does not commit an offence under subsection (1) or (7) where they are proceeding diligently to evict an adult who is disqualified as a result of their immigration status from occupying the property of which that person is a landlord”.
As we have already heard, Clauses 13 to 15 make it an offence for a landlord to fail to check the immigration status of tenants who are subsequently found to be in the country illegally. In such circumstances, landlords face being fined up to £3,000 or imprisoned for up to five years. This builds on the Immigration Act 2014, which requires landlords to check the immigration status of their tenants; the 2014 Act contained only the threat of civil penalties for landlords, and it is the Government’s plan for the checks to be rolled out across the country from February this year. That was debated at length under the previous grouping.
As the Bill is drafted, when a landlord is notified by the Secretary of State that a sitting tenant does not have the right to rent in the UK, that landlord is deemed to have committed a criminal offence even before the 28 days that the Bill allows a landlord to evict such tenants have ended. It could well be that this was the result of a landlord being caught out by forged documents that they could not possibly have been expected to detect. It could well be that those same forged documents enabled the illegal immigrant to get into the country in the first place, as my noble friend said, but I do not believe that the immigration officers who allowed the immigrant into the country are deemed to have committed a criminal offence or are fined £3,000 or imprisoned for up to five years—so why the landlord? As a landlord, I do not see how I can possibly spot a forged document if immigration officers cannot, with all their sophisticated equipment.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
Is the noble Earl aware that most illegal immigrants in Britain came legally and therefore that there is no reason why they should have been detected on arrival? They came legally and have overstayed.
Earl Cathcart
No, I am not aware of that.
I understand that previously the Government have said that they want common sense to prevail. However, landlords, fearful of the potential consequences of getting something wrong, need further assurances. A simple amendment to the Bill can rectify this and make it clear that landlords will not commit a criminal offence where they have done everything possible to verify the status of the tenant and are in the process of evicting a tenant whom they have been notified does not have the right to rent within the 28-day window that the Bill permits.
It is important to note that while a prosecution might not be taken out against a landlord seeking to evict a tenant without the right to rent, simply deeming him to have committed a criminal offence can cause extensive difficulties, especially with mortgage lenders and insurers. The fact that no prosecution has been taken does not mean that the landlord has not committed an offence. Most contracts relating to property contain a prohibition on using the property unlawfully.
While an amendment would be the clearest way of addressing this issue, in addition, clear guidance should be issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions outlining: first, that prosecutions will not take place where a landlord who has been informed that their tenant does not have the right to rent has done everything possible to check the status of that tenant and is within the 28-day eviction period; secondly, that landlords will not be prosecuted where they have fallen victim to forged documents from a prospective tenant that they could not reasonably have been expected to recognise as false; thirdly, that landlords will not be prosecuted where they were unable to receive a letter from the Secretary of State notifying them that the tenant did not have a right to rent due to hospitalisation or other reasonable measure that might prevent them reading and acting on a notice; and fourthly, how he intends to proceed with the Government’s commitment that landlords will not be prosecuted for a first offence.
This amendment is supported by the Residential Landlords Association, which looks after the interests of more than 40,000 landlords, and by the Association of Residential Letting Agents. Its managing director, David Cox, commented:
“It would be unjust and inequitable for a landlord to be in breach of the law through no fault of their own, irrespective of whether the Government has outlined it will not prosecute in such circumstances. Being in breach of legislation will cause landlords great concern, and therefore, we request these technical amendments be incorporated into the Bill to ensure the spirit of the legislation is reflected in the wording of the Bill”.
I could not have put it better myself.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I am conscious of the time, but we need to spend just a few more minutes on this. I shall not take too long. Noble Lords who have spoken have identified very serious drawbacks in the legislation, even if one ignores the thrust of these provisions, as I do not wish to do. If they are to be implemented in the way in which the Government wish, the points that have been made are very well made, and I am sorry that we kept the two noble Lords so late in order for them to be able to make them.
I have my name to a number of amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy. I think the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is about to speak to them.
On Amendment 152, I want to make a point that once again has come from Crisis, which says that there are a number of situations where a claim for asylum fails but the person is unable to return to his country because there is no stable state to return to, or it is unclear where they should return to—we are familiar with these problems, of course. It says that at the very least the Home Office should clarify these people’s status with regard to the new eviction process.
Lord Bates
I accept that, and the noble Lord is making a genuine point. Certainly that is the intent, as we have said, behind the legislation. If evidence comes to light during the passage of this legislation through this House that that may not be the case, clearly the Government will want to take note of that, because it is explicitly not the intent to catch the vast majority of genuine landlords. There are a small number of rogue landlords.
Earl Cathcart
I am sorry to interrupt again. I understand the issue about rogue landlords, and of course one wants to catch them and not the good landlords. Will the Minister say whether he will consider my idea of clear guidance from the Director of Public Prosecutions? To that effect, I listed four things that he might consider.
Lord Bates
The Home Office will investigate this and present cases to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision about whether to prosecute, and resources will be targeted at the most serious offenders. The intention behind the measures, which is that they should be used only against those landlords who deliberately and consistently flout the law, has been stated unequivocally by Ministers during the passage of the Bill. However, I give an undertaking that I will be very happy to meet my noble friend, officials and other interested Peers to discuss whether there are gaps or particular remedies as regards guidance that could be brought forward.