Craig Whittaker
Main Page: Craig Whittaker (Conservative - Calder Valley)Department Debates - View all Craig Whittaker's debates with the Home Office
Immigration Bill (Second sitting)
Craig Whittaker Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sarah Champion
Q 83 Finally, do you believe that the director has the remit and the resources to prevent this from being a box-ticking exercise? Would they have the authority to make the necessary changes?
Neil Carberry: That remains to be seen. The director clearly has to develop an enforcement plan, which has to be approved by the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. I would hope that that enforcement plan was well grounded in the effective work that some of the agencies are currently doing and would therefore be resourceable from within that. I had discussions last week with the HMRC team who are looking at non-compliance with the minimum wage; they feel that they currently have the resources to continue the good work they are doing.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
Q 84 I want to turn back to the evidence given to us this morning by Professor Sir David Metcalf. When he was discussing the CBI, he said that the regulation of the labour market proposed in the Bill would take away the cowboys and help your sector. He went on to say that it would go a long way towards raising the welfare of British residents. Do you think he has applied a risk-based, intelligent approach to his assessment?
Neil Carberry: I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating when it comes to the director. On the existence of a labour market director to do this work, his assessment could well be the case. What worries us is less what is in the Bill as introduced than some of the discussion in the Government’s consultation paper last week, which seems to suggest a broadening of a licensing approach. I think that would ultimately be a doubling up regulation on the compliant and would draw away from kicking down the doors of the non-compliant. From our perspective, there is every chance that the labour market director’s role could be very beneficial to lawful companies and workers.
Craig Whittaker
Q 85 On the face of the Bill then, it is a good thing.
Neil Carberry: Yes, I think so. We have never been against effective enforcement.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Q 86 You talked about parts of the labour market where abuse happens. I am conscious that many of your members might have had their reputations tarnished by unwitting involvement through supply chains. Can you share your thoughts about the Bill in the context of the most effective way of helping your members to achieve supply chain compliance?
Neil Carberry: Any answer to that question will have to take account of some of the responsibilities that companies will take on under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. I actually had a long discussion last night with some of our members about the challenges of doing that effectively—many of them are currently wrestling with that. Of course, there is a limit to what companies at one end of a supply chain can do and assure themselves of, but there is a duty to do some work, as the Act makes clear.
The most important thing is to ensure that, where companies at the top end of a supply chain suspect that something illegal is happening, they are clear about the route to take to obtain assistance from regulators and enforcers, and also that there are simple routes for enforcers to take towards targeted action. We would see that as one part of the role of the director as set out in the Bill. For instance, we would expect them to look to establish ways in which a major retailor could raise concerns effectively and then feed into an intelligence-led action.
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
Q 104 Lord Green, in response to an earlier question, you talked about an effective removal system. Could you expand on that and tell us what you think would be an effective removal system?
Lord Green of Deddington: First, it has to be quick. It has to be fair and it has to not be under the impediment of extremely complex procedures and legislation. I think the proposal in the Bill is right in addressing that. There are other issues, of course. They probably need more resources to do it. They probably need a bigger detention estate. With all those put together, one can work on improving the removals, but, as I say, you cannot remove 1 million people. You have to make sure they want to go themselves.
Craig Whittaker
Q 105 Lord Green, you have already said there should be a duty on employers. I presume you put into the same category people such as landlords, whom the Bill specifically addresses. How can we better prevent illegal working without imposing additional burdens on business generally?
Lord Green of Deddington: I do not think you can, to be frank. There has to be a duty on employers and they have to fulfil it. They have to recognise that this is a serious matter of great public concern. It is a field in which some unscrupulous employers are making a packet at the expense of honest employers. They have to fulfil it.
Paul Blomfield
Q 106 I wonder whether I could follow up on your answer to the Minister, Lord Green. You were saying that the criminalisation of workers would be helpful in achieving labour market compliance.
Lord Green of Deddington: Sorry, I am not saying workers should be criminalised; I am saying that illegal work should be a criminal offence.
Anne McLaughlin
Q 124 I want to talk about potential discrimination under the right to rent aspects of the Bill. Not everyone is as enlightened as Mr Lambert, and so not everyone believes that you cannot tell by a face, a name or an accent whether someone is British. I was very struck by a statement sent out by the Residential Landlords Association, which I am going to read from:
“Whilst the Residential Landlords Association condemns all acts of racism the threat of sanctions will inevitably lead many landlords to err on the side of caution and not rent to anyone whose nationality cannot be easily proved.”
How concerned are you that the Bill will allow some people to use it as an excuse for their racism and that others will inadvertently end up acting in a racist manner, not because they want to but out of fear that they may end up breaking the law if they do not?
Richard Lambert: How concerned am I that some will use it? Very. How concerned am I that some will use it inadvertently? Fairly, but our experience is that most of the concern about the provisions is from people who have not gone into the detail, are worried about what they might have to take on, are concerned that they do not have the expertise or knowledge and are very focused on the penalties, because what has been pushed hardest is not the responsibility or the practicality but the level of penalty for getting it wrong.
Having had a quick look, like my colleague, at the evaluation report that was published this morning—we had a chance to look at it before we came in here—something like 22 of the 26 landlords who responded said that it was actually relatively easy to undertake the checks and that there did not seem to be an obvious level of overt discrimination, although there is still an undertone, and in a few cases that does happen.
It is a real risk, but when I said what I did about awareness of the fact that we live in a multicultural, multiracial, multifaceted society, that was not me speaking—obviously, I believe that—but me recounting what has been said to me by landlords at local meetings around the country. They are very concerned about the practicalities of how you make this work, and they realise that you cannot make assumptions, from looking at somebody, about whether they have the right to rent or whether they are a British national. The only way is to check and to check everyone. I recall anecdotally from my colleagues on the Home Office working group on the evaluation report that the largest level of resentment coming back from tenants was from the indigenous white British population, who did not understand why they were being asked to prove the right to rent. You actually get a counter-intuitive response.
David Smith: People who will discriminate would discriminate anyway, so in a sense people who are going to actively discriminate as a result of the Bill would have been actively discriminating before. Our biggest concern is what we have chosen to call document discrimination. Of the UK indigenous populace—or however you want to describe those people—17% do not have passports. If a landlord has two people walk through his door who want to rent the same property, and one says, “I have a passport and can do the right to rent check right now,” and the other says, “I do not have a passport but will come back tomorrow with two forms of identification off the secondary list,” the landlord is technically not breaking the law by taking the first person, and in practice I am sure that he will take that first person.
Our concern is that there are groups of people who are not in possession of passports and driving licences. As a lawyer, I have many such people as clients, because I have a large client base of elderly people or people who are in care. There are substantial numbers of those people, and a lot of them are renting, increasingly in the private rental sector, as there is a change from social renting to private renting. There is a potential difficulty with providing those people with proper identification.
We have called for a much simpler document for people who are on benefits and would already have been checked to receive benefits. Local authorities could provide a single document—perhaps watermarked or stamped—that landlords could be clearly told was acceptable as a single document. At the moment those people are going to need to produce two separate documents. They may not have them to hand, or it may take time to acquire them. The benefits letter has to be signed by a named official, and named officials may be reluctant to put their names on these documents. Our concern is that groups of people who should have no reason to be concerned by this legislation at all may find themselves being put through checks that they cannot easily meet.
Craig Whittaker
Q 125 I declare an interest as per my declared interest in the Members’ register. For the record, I am probably what Mr Smith calls one of those in his sector who are amateurs and accidental landlords. One thing I know from experience, although I may be an amateur, is that the eviction process is incredibly burdensome for landlords. It is far too lengthy and hugely costly, and when you are going through the process, you do not get any rent from the tenant who is in your property. That is the current situation, whether they are an illegal immigrant or not. I cannot for the life of me understand, and neither can the members of Calderdale Landlords Association, whom I have spoken to, why on earth as an organisation you would be against something that is far better and makes it far quicker for a landlord to evict a tenant in these circumstances.
David Smith: In what sense?
Craig Whittaker
Q 126 You said very clearly that you had some real concerns around the eviction process that was being proposed. You mentioned the 28 days, for example. That is a much quicker process than what is currently in place.
David Smith: I said that my concern was that as soon as the Secretary of State had issued a notice to a landlord, they are committing an offence, and it takes 28 days before they can even begin the eviction process. During those 28 days they are committing the offence of having an illegal immigrant in their property.
Craig Whittaker
Q 127 But they are already committing an offence as the law currently stands, and the process of evicting a tenant takes much longer. What I would like to know is why on earth you are advising landlords that this element of the Bill is not particularly—
David Smith: I think there is a misunderstanding here. They are not committing an offence as the law is currently drafted, because it has not changed yet. If it were to be changed, what we are after is a situation where, provided that the landlord is proceeding diligently to carry out the eviction, they are deemed not to be committing the offence of having an illegal immigrant in their property—so they have what the Act has termed a statutory excuse. As the situation stands, as soon as the Secretary of State issues the landlord with a notification that the tenant in their property is an illegal immigrant, the landlord is instantly deemed to be committing an offence of having an illegal immigrant in their property, and they can be prosecuted for that.
Craig Whittaker
Q 128 So the new eviction process in the Bill is a good thing. Is that what you are saying?
David Smith: Yes. I have no concern about that at all.
Craig Whittaker
Q 129 Okay. Can I just ask you about document checks, which have been mentioned? I just wonder whether you guys actually understand what is going on in your sector. If you try to get accommodation from an agency, for example, as I recently did here in London, first, you have got to be there on the day to secure something, and if you cannot get down to London to physically go and see it, you will lose it. Secondly, if you do not have the checks, whether you are an illegal or a legal resident in this country, it is a very difficult process anyway, because that is what people demand. Have you considered for one minute that for the amateurs and accidental landlords that you refer to, the introduction of some form of check, as is happening in the Bill, will protect them in other ways as well as just against potential illegal immigrants?
David Smith: Well, I suppose there are two answers to that. First, the current guidance would imply that using checks in other ways might well be unlawful discrimination, because the document checks are for establishing the right to rent, so that would depend on the guidance that is issued.
Craig Whittaker
Q 130 But we have that in place anyway. If I do not have those documents to prove to an agency that I am who I am when I want to rent a property, whoever I am, guess what? I do not get the property.
Richard Lambert: To be fair, I think that that is custom and practice through tenant checking rather than a strict legal requirement. The other difficulty is that in some elements of the private rented market, lower-income people, people on benefits, vulnerable people and people who are very transient simply do not have that kind of documentation to hand.
Craig Whittaker
Q 131 Okay. Let me just ask one final question, because I think I have made my point on that one. My question is to you, Mr Lambert, because you mentioned an undercurrent of discrimination in the system. May I point out that no evidence at all from the pilot—which, okay, was only published this morning—suggests that there is a discrimination there? You said that you have heard hearsay from people you have spoken to, but may I ask whether you have any physical evidence to suggest that there might be some form of discrimination in the system?
Richard Lambert: If you read the full report, I think it mentions one or two examples in the focus group that refer to what could be interpreted as minor levels of discrimination.
Craig Whittaker
Q 132 So there is no real evidence—
Richard Lambert: That is what I am saying: there is no strong evidence of discrimination, although there is the potential there, and some minor level of concern may emerge in the focus group.
Chloe Smith
Q 133 Will the panel give us their assessment of what numbers might be involved in the area of policy that we are talking about? Do you have any assessment in particular of how many prospective tenants might present themselves to your members, or how many bank accounts in the case of Mr Leenders?
Richard Lambert: We can talk about how many households are in the private rented sector—there are about 4.4 million at the moment—and I think there is a turnover rate of about 25% to 30% a year, so we are looking at just over 1 million to 1.25 million new tenancies a year.
Craig Whittaker
Q 160 Mr Gabriel, you mentioned the grey economy of landlords and spoke about more collaborative working. I think you touched on the issuing of notices of compliance and things such as that. Do you feel that you already have sufficient powers to deal with the grey economy? Would you say that the powers in the Bill around the checks that landlords have to do will actually overall enhance your job regarding that particular economy?
Stephen Gabriel: There is more that we can do around trying to understand where the grey economy is, but I think that the Bill and the work that we have been doing go some way to beginning to address that—in particular, the collaborative working between organisations. That is the point to be made here. Previously, it was very difficult for local authority enforcement teams to work with the Home Office and the GLA, but now there is a real impetus for us to work together to deal with some of these enforcement issues, and we are seeing that on the ground.
Craig Whittaker
Q 161 So the new powers in the Bill, around the landlord checks, for example—will they enhance that role as well?
Stephen Gabriel: That is right, yes.
Gavin Newlands
Q 162 Mr Gabriel, the Bill removes support for a majority of failed asylum seekers. Do you have concerns that through this aspect of the Bill, the Government are in effect devolving to local government responsibility for the support of refused asylum-seeking families through its responsibility to accommodate children? At this time of great restraint in local government funding, do you feel that this is an area that might be looked at again?
Stephen Gabriel: It is a challenge. One of my concerns in Sandwell is that we are part of the West Midlands strategic migration partnership and there is the need for local authorities to have parity in numbers in the families whom they are supporting. Yes, in Sandwell our percentage is higher than in some of the other local authorities in the area, so if the Home Office stops supporting those families, that will potentially have a negative impact on the local authority. That could be a challenge for the local authority.
Anne McLaughlin
Q 179 I presume that you will continue to campaign and lobby against parts of the Bill. From what you are saying, one of the biggest things for all of you is the inclusion of children in the groups that will not receive support if their or their parents’ asylum claim has been refused. I do not know whether you were watching earlier, but I wanted to alert you to the fact that you have a supporter in Lord Green of Migration Watch UK. I think he is quite a valuable supporter to have, given that he did not seem overly keen on having too many asylum seekers in the country. He seemed quite surprised that children might lose support. He said we have to make a distinction between those who have children and those who do not, and that they would have to be treated differently. If I were you, I would contact him and get him to support any campaigning that you are doing.
I wanted to ask whether you agree with me that rendering families destitute will shift the financial burden not simply on to local authorities and charities, but on to the health service. I am not sure what the situation is in England these days, but I know that in Scotland, those who have had their asylum claims refused can access free healthcare. I do not know whether it is the same here, and I do not know what Wales and Northern Ireland are like. Do you agree that the health of these families will be so significantly impacted that there will be an increased cost for those services that provide healthcare?
Adrian Matthews: And not only to the families. There is a public health issue if you deprive the children of the right or the means to go to hospital or to visit their GP, or if their parents are too scared to do so. That public health issue affects all of us, not just the families.
Ilona Pinter: I agree. This was the subject of the previous Immigration Bill, where issues around health were debated at length. Like immigration control, public health is a public interest, as are child protection and international protection. There needs to be a review of those and more debate, particularly around other public interests.
Costs shift to health services. We already see in families who are awaiting their asylum decisions, particularly where parents have poor mental health because they have suffered trauma already and because of the pressures that the immigration process brings to bear on them, parents being sectioned under mental health provisions and children being taken into temporary foster placements as a result. One of the ways in which costs could shift to local authorities is through children being taken into care. If families are made destitute and parents have to rely on working without permission, provisions in the Bill will mean that the parents will be criminalised, which will again mean that children need to go into care. There are other considerations to take into account.
Adrian Matthews: I understand you are going to be hearing from local authorities and they will evidence the fact that during the section 10 pilots in 2004-05, a number of children were, in fact, taken into care as a result of what the Government were attempting then, which was to withdraw support and accommodation, so it does not work.
Craig Whittaker
Q 180 I want to come back to the Minister’s earlier point. The point about assessment is that the children’s best interests forms a part and is an integral part of that process. I think it was Kamena—I apologise if it was not—who said children should not be blamed for the actions of the parents. However, they are in this situation because of the parents. For those families who have exhausted their appeals rights, those who could and should leave the UK, how long do you feel we should give support? Do you think it should be indefinite?
Adrian Matthews: It has to be case sensitive and based on the best interests of the child. Take, for example, a child born in this country. If you are going to send them back to another country, they will need to be returned with certain things that can prove their identity—establish or re-establish their identity—so they will need an original birth certificate and their medical records; they will need documentation from the embassy to show that they have legitimately travelled from the UK to the country of return. All these things are case sensitive. A lot of different factors would need to be taken into account. So I do not think there is an answer to your question in terms of a set time or limit. It has be done on a case-by-case basis.
Craig Whittaker
Q 181 Sorry to cut you short, but the Minister has already made it clear that it will be done on a case-by-case basis. My question to you is: when families that include children get to the point where they should leave the UK, how long do we continue to support them? Indefinitely? Until they decide to go? I am a little confused by what you say.
Adrian Matthews: In the system currently in operation, families are given a lot of opportunities. They are encouraged to take up voluntary return and they go through various stages. If they do not, there is a required return stage where they are given a ticket and are expected to turn up at the airport. If they do not do that, they enter a stage of enforced return, so they will get a visit from the immigration service, who will take them from the house and to the airport, or take them to Cedars, pending their return. So the answer to your question is that we already have structures in place to ensure families get removed if they come to the end of the process.
Ilona Pinter: On the returns process, one helpful point might be that at the moment there are set time limits between family conferences, but information from Barnardo’s, for instance, highlights that for families that go through the returns process, it can take around a year for those families that go through Cedars. There are other estimates for how long it can take.
We do not advocate for families being on asylum support any longer than they need to be. Asylum support is incredibly low at £5 a day per child, and it has been reduced recently through regulations. Children are already living in very difficult circumstances. It makes it very difficult for families to afford food and clothing and be able to take care of their children. Also, parents cannot work on asylum support, so it is in the interests of children to be taken off asylum support as soon as possible either by families having their determination and being able to integrate or move into employment or other benefits, or, if they do not have a right to remain and if there are not risks for them on return, making that process as short as possible.
Craig Whittaker
Q 182 But if they are going through the returns process, one would presume that it has already been determined that they need to leave the UK.
Ilona Pinter: This is the problem that we have tried to highlight. A lot of the families come to the end of the process, but because they have not had a fair chance to have their claim considered, they have existing fears of return. That is highlighted by the fact that 40% of families that entered the family returns process are actually granted leave to remain. It means that families are not getting proper access to legal advice. They are not having a proper chance to have their claim considered, and more needs to be done on improving the decision-making process in the Home Office.
Craig Whittaker
Q 183 So it is more about the decision-making process, rather than what is in the Bill, which proposes to remove them or cut off the support once a decision has been taken. Is that correct?
Ilona Pinter: I am not sure what you are asking.
Craig Whittaker
Q 184 What you are saying to me is that it is more about the robustness of the decision-making process rather than the elements in the Bill that say that once you get to the end of that process, we pull support.
Ilona Pinter: Yes.
Craig Whittaker
Q 185 If the decision-making process was robust, you would support this process?
Ilona Pinter: We would not support making families destitute, no.
The Chair
Craig, Ms Dorling is trying to respond.
Kamena Dorling: I think it might address the question as well—
Craig Whittaker
No, I do not want to adjust the question. I want the question answered; it was very specific.
Adrian Matthews: If we have robust decision-making—
The Chair
Order. One at a time, please. Ms Dorling is being patient.
Kamena Dorling: There are two things that need addressing. One, as Ilona has addressed, is the decision-making process at the beginning of the asylum process. The other is how families are engaged with at the end of the process. We are advocating that more energy be put into that family returns process. I appreciate that we do not want a situation whereby families are on asylum support indefinitely, but if they are part of that process and they are being worked with, either through assisted voluntary return—although funding is being cut for that—or through the family returns process, of course, they should be supported within that, and there are timescales as to how long return takes. I suspect you are talking about the families that do not engage with anything at all, which is a very tricky area, and I am not sure that we have cracked it, but given that we know that cutting off support will not encourage those families to return, it seems more practical to think how we would engage with those families.
Craig Whittaker
Q 186 What I am getting at is that a process is in place, which families will go through. I understand and accept that you are arguing that the process is not robust enough, but the great British public cannot understand, once a decision is made to deport somebody in this country, why it takes forever to do so. Let me just ask this question: what is a reasonable time that people should expect it to take for someone to be deported forcibly?
Kamena Dorling: I do not feel I can answer that, but I do feel it is a question to go back to the Home Office, because there is an enforcement question there, is there not?
Craig Whittaker
Q 187 The Home Office has come up with the Bill and that is why I am asking. You do not think the Bill is acceptable.
Kamena Dorling: But we know that the great number of people who are here in the UK, who the Home Office believes should not be here, are not being removed by the Home Office. The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has already pointed to the fact that that enforcement process is not working well enough. I am not sitting here advocating that families are all removed immediately, but I think there is a question there. We are saying put more energy into the family returns process and assisted voluntary return, but also that there is something for the Government to think about, which is that if you think that more families need to be removed, then address enforcement. Do not just withdraw support in the hope that they will go. That does not answer your time issue, because I do not know how long that should take.
The Chair
I am sorry, but we are going to move on now. A number of people are indicating that they want to speak. I have Mims and Kelly down, but the Minister and Sarah want to make a brief intervention on this point.