Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Bates

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Howard of Rising]

I very much welcome the chance to meet my noble friend to discuss this. I point out, with regard to the guidance—the Explanatory Notes—my noble friend keeps talking about landlords doing the checks, but it specifically says in the guidance to the Bill that it,

“applies where any adult is occupying the premises, regardless of whether the adult is a tenant under or is named in the agreement”.

We are not saying that there is a problem where people have been able to do checks, but that where somebody comes in, the guidance specifically says that those people have to be monitored—and I do not know how my noble friend expects landlords to monitor them. We are not a police force. That is a really important point. The other thing is that whatever anybody says—the noble Lord or my noble friend Lord Best—I cannot think of any legislation that is not abused sooner or later by somebody.

[Lord Bates]

We need to avoid creating an unintentional loophole that effectively says, “We’ll ask no questions and we won’t contravene the proposals in this legislation”. That cannot be right. I would imagine that most landlords would want to know who was occupying their property. In the event that a property is the subject of subletting agreement, at that point there would of course be a liability to carry out the background checks, which would fall to the people who have made the decision to sublet. However, making a general exemption in those circumstances could create an unwelcome loophole.