Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many undocumented migrants who have been denied access to the private rental market under the right to rent scheme have subsequently been (a) housed by a local authority and (b) referred by a local authority to a housing scheme.

The Home Office does not hold the figures requested. This is because as with right to work checks, the Right to Rent scheme is predicated on checks being carried out by third parties (in this case landlords and lettings agents). This means that the majority of illegal migrant prospective tenants will be denied access to the private rented sector as a result of these checks with no intervention by enforcement officers or reference to the Home Office.

An evaluation of the first six months of the scheme, published by Home Office Science in October 2015, showed there was no evidence of an increased burden on local authorities in the West Midlands. Monitoring of the effects of the Right to Rent scheme on landlords and tenants is also ongoing through the expert Landlords Consultative Panel, co-chaired by the Immigration Minister and Lord Best, an acknowledged expert in the fields of housing and planning. The Panel comprises bodies representing landlords, lettings agents, housing charities, local authorities and the Equality and Human Rights Commission amongst others. The Panel meets periodically, and communication channels outside these meetings allow for reporting by private rented sector and third sector groups of the experience of those they represent.