Immigration Bill

Owen Thompson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin]

I spent five long weeks on the Immigration Bill Committee. It was an interesting experience, but unfortunately I found very little I could agree with. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and I, and hon. colleagues on the Labour Benches, did some pretty forensic questioning. The conclusion I certainly reached from the responses that we got was that the motivation behind much of the Bill was not as stated. It cannot be, because it is clear that much of it will not work, and that it will not do what it apparently sets out to do. What it will do, however, is impact negatively on anyone who does not look, sound or even seem to be British.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the right to rent is a good example of the problem that she is highlighting, in that landlords might be scared to rent to someone who might not seem to be British?

[Anne McLaughlin]

My hon. Friend has taken the words right out of my mouth. I was about to say that the right to rent is the perfect example of that.

The Residential Landlords Association has made it clear that its landlords are worried that fear of committing a criminal offence, by inadvertently renting to the wrong person, will lead to them behaving in a racist manner, because they will simply not take on as a tenant anyone about whom they have doubts—because they are not white, because their surname is not British sounding or because they do not have a passport. They will not take the risk. Making it harder for those people to get accommodation will put some of them in danger. They might have no choice about where they lay their head at night and, in some circumstances, with whom, or they could end up on the street. I do not want that for people who have the right to live here; nor do I want it for people who do not have that right. I do not want it for anyone.

If the Government were to write the script for a film, it would be a black and white one, in more ways than one. It would be very straightforward. In their mind, if someone is refused asylum and we squeeze the life out of them by forcing them on to the street and starving them, they will simply stroll up to UK Visas and Immigration one day and say, “Okay, I give in. You win. Send me home.” We never get to know what happens to them, but here in Britain, we all live happily ever after.