Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff are employed by her Department's landlords' checking service.

The Government is tightening up access to public and other services to protect them from abuse by people who are in the UK illegally. It is right for people only to be able to access private accommodation if they are here legally. This is only fair to people who play by the rules, not least, those who come here legally.

This service enables a landlord to verify a person’s immigration status, with regards to the Right to Rent, with the Home Office in cases where a person has an ongoing application outstanding or where a person’s identification documents are with the Home Office. Resource of this service is kept under review to ensure capacity meets demand. At present the service is staffed by 2 full-time equivalent members of UK Visas and Immigration staff. A further 20 members of the call-handling team are also trained to respond to enquiries if additional recource is required. We have plans in place to scale-up the resource in line with the demand requirements of the national roll-out.