Immigration Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Lords Chamber

I have spent quite a bit of time on the pitfalls and concerns around this clause. However, the issues that I have raised are not exclusive and there are many others. We will hear more about some of them but I want to emphasise the need for a pilot in this area. I have already made it clear that we support the principle of stopping illegal migrants from accessing properties but the real answer has to be to address the wider problem, not try to make landlords into immigration agents. Our concern is that this clause will not achieve its aims and it seems reasonable and sensible to ensure that it works before we go ahead. I appreciate the number of questions which I have put to the Minister but I hope that he can answer them and address the points that I have raised.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, there are a number of amendments in my name to this part of the Bill but I begin by supporting Amendments 50 and 51, introduced so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. All the amendments that I support relate to the proposals in the Bill for landlords to have responsibility for checking the immigration status of their tenants. I declare my interests in social housing and the private rented sector, as in the register. I have every sympathy with the proposition that the relevant clauses should not stand part of the Bill but I recognise that there are other factors here that mean that the Government will not be persuaded to drop this measure altogether. In the amendments in my name I am therefore concentrating on ways in which its impact can be moderated.

Moreover, I have had the benefit of a very useful meeting with the Ministers—the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the Minister for Immigration in the other place, James Brokenshire—at which I and colleagues representing both tenants and landlords were able to clarify a number of points. Indeed, my colleagues from the Residential Landlords Association, Crisis, the National Housing Federation, the British Property Federation and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation commended Ministers and civil servants on a number of concessions and clarifications that have allayed some of their fears. Nevertheless, it remains the case that, as I set out at Second Reading and as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, has emphasised, this new burden on landlords is likely to have a number of unfortunate consequences.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord in full flow; I was waiting for a point at which I could come in. I just want to clarify whether he is speaking to amendments in this group; I do not think that it contains any in his name.

[Lord Best]

I am speaking to Amendments 50 and 51.

[Baroness Hamwee]

Fine. I thought that the noble Lord was talking to his own amendments that come later on. I am so sorry.

[Lord Best]

I shall come to them in due course.

The average private landlord will be keen to avoid committing the new offence of allocating a tenancy to someone who is not meant to be in this country, and to avoid being fined up to £3,000. They will want to play safe and not take anyone as a tenant who might just possibly turn out to be an illegal immigrant.

It will not be an offence not to check the status of a potential tenant; it will be an offence not to have checked only if it is subsequently discovered that the tenant is here illegally. So if someone is obviously not an immigrant, there is no need to go through the process of checking them out. How much easier, therefore, to turn away anyone with the appearance of being foreign, including perfectly legitimate applicants, using any number of excuses—most often that the property has already been let. Despite the guidance being prepared by the Home Office on how landlords can avoid acting in a discriminatory way, in those markets of high demand—London, much of southern England and hotspots everywhere—I fear that the Bill could mean that anyone who could remotely be thought to be a migrant will find it very tough to get decent rented accommodation. Frankly, it is difficult enough already for anyone who is not a young UK professional to persuade landlords to take them on. Remember that there are over 1.5 million private landlords, 78% of whom, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, own just one property; they are amateurs and they are going to be highly risk-averse.