Immigration Act 2014 (Commencement No. 6) Order 2016

Debate between Earl Cathcart and Lord Rosser

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[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.