What a sweet prospect—a judge with a northern accent. That is a very fine example of social mobility under the modern government procedures that we have—I should quickly move on.
The noble Baroness asked how the scheme is working in terms of the detention of illegal migrants, and the serving of penalty notices. The scheme has now been in operation for over a year and has led to the detection of illegal migrants. The evaluation document that was produced, to which I draw the noble Baroness’s attention, pointed to 37 immigration enforcement visits which took place during that time. More than a hundred individuals were identified who did not have the required legal documentation to be here. The scheme is now in operation. The extension of the scheme across England has worked smoothly, and further illegal migrants have been detected.
In terms of restrictions that are already in place to access social housing, it is reasonable to expect that migrants who remain here without permission should regularise their position or leave the UK. Successive Governments have sought to ensure that the immigration system is fair. In fact, we discussed this in Committee when the point was made that for some time—from about 1999—it has been a requirement on social landlords in the public sector to carry out checks that the person has the right to be here. We are now extending that into the private sector.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, asked about the evaluation and said that she did not feel that it demonstrated that the scheme had achieved its aim. The statement in the evaluation report that just “26 referrals” of irregular migrants were specifically
related to the scheme is a partial and selective quotation of the research report. As the evaluation report makes clear, this number specifically related to referrals,
“formally recorded on the Home Office’s intelligence database within the first six months of the scheme. More intelligence referrals had been received but were not recorded in this database as they were sent directly to enforcement teams”.
As stated in the evaluation report, in the first six months of the scheme in phase one,
“109 individuals … were identified, of whom 63 were previously unknown to the Home Office”.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, raised the issue of the evaluation that was carried out by JCWI and the YouGov poll. These findings are at odds with the Home Office’s wide-ranging evaluation—specifically the mystery-shopping exercise carried out by independent contractors examining discrimination and documentation issues as one of the mystery-shopping scenarios involved a prospective tenant who did not hold a passport.
My noble friend Lord Howard asked what would happen if a person moves into a property without the landlord’s knowledge. I think I have dealt with this already, but the landlord will fall liable for the offence only if they have knowingly let the property to an illegal immigrant and have done so having reasonable cause to believe that the tenant or occupant is a disqualified person, or where they have subsequently become aware that someone disqualified is renting or occupying their property.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked a fair question about permission-to-rent guidelines and advised me to write to her on that. I am very happy to give an undertaking that I will do so and hope that that will be helpful. We do not accept the suggestion that the policy conflicts with the public sector equality duty. The Home Office prepared a policy equality statement and took into consideration the results of a thorough evaluation of the scheme in discharging this duty. Both the statement and the evaluation focused on the potential for discrimination; the findings of both are in the public domain. Having set out our criteria, we consider that it should, in most cases, be clear to migrants whether they have a right to rent or are likely to be given permission to rent. It is not something that we expect people to apply for, but it is open to any migrant to contact the Home Office about their case.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about the eviction of families with children. The new powers of eviction are invoked only where the Home Office has served the required notice. The provisions that allow eviction without a court process can be utilised only where there is a Home Office notice in respect of each of the known occupants, including any children. A landlord will have to give the family 28 days’ notice and the Home Office will be in contact with families so that the eviction will not come as a surprise. A landlord may still evict using the existing routes to eviction, such as the so-called no-fault process under Section 21 of the Housing Act 1998, or where they have other grounds for eviction under Section 8 of that Act. Even under these existing routes for eviction,
a landlord may apply for the possession order to be enforced by High Court enforcement officers, rather than by county court bailiffs, which was a particular point that the noble Baroness referred to.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked what “reasonable” meant regarding the steps and period of time taken. Guidance and guidelines will be provided on the actions that constitute “reasonable steps” or a reasonable period of time to terminate the agreement. They will cover a range of different situations in which a landlord may find himself or herself. The question of what is reasonable will be affected by factors such as the nature of the residential tenancy agreement and the particular obstacles to the termination of an agreement in a particular case. The guidance will provide reassurance to landlords where they are taking reasonable steps to end a residential tenancy agreement in a timely way. It will be laid in draft before Parliament and brought into force by regulations subject to the negative procedure.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised a point on awareness of the scheme. Since the announcement on 20 October that the right-to-rent scheme would be extended across England, Home Office representatives have attended, and delivered presentations at, around 40 events across England, directly reaching almost 1,000 landlords and letting agents. Those are estimates from local figures. The events ranged in size from 15 to 150 delegates. They have included a wide range of delegates, including those from local authorities, housing associations and letting agencies, and private landlords. There are now trained experts on right to rent in each immigration compliance and enforcement team in England, who will lead local engagement in the coming months alongside the network of local partnership managers in the interventions and sanctions directorate. A survey conducted in June and July 2015 found that more than half of landlords surveyed were aware of the right-to-rent scheme. This was many months before the Government announced the rollout across England and the associated communications strategy.
On the suggestion that the evaluation sample sizes were small, the surveys carried out by the Home Office and its contractors need to be seen as part of a much broader research design, which also encompassed focus groups with landlords, agents, tenants and 332 mystery-shopping encounters. We understand the criticism of our contractors’ survey that the majority of tenants were students. However, issues for prospective tenants, especially on discrimination, were explored through the mystery-shopping exercise, which was based on 332 encounters.
I have answered the point on reasonable timescales. My noble friend Lord Cathcart asked about illegal situations. Illegal migrants cannot go somewhere else in England to rent because they would fail the right-to-rent checks. It is also a requirement on landlords to report to the Home Office if a tenant disappears. The noble Earl asked about migrants evading detection. The right-to-rent scheme and the offences both penalise landlords and agents for failure to notify the Home Office once they detect someone disqualified from renting in their property.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked about the JCWI’s briefing, which I think I dealt with.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about the Home Office’s evaluation of the first six months. That is published. We have produced about 173 pages of evaluation over three documents and are also using outside organisations to do this.
On the distinction between agent and landlord obligations, the right to rent requires responsible landlords and agents to make reasonable inquiries when entering into tenancies. Landlord offences concern failure to terminate tenancies or to notify. The new agent offences concern failure only to notify.
On Clauses 38 and 39 and permission to rent, it is open to tenants to contact the Home Office about any notice served on them by a landlord where they consider that there is a question about their status.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about the defence of reasonable steps. It is important to ensure that we can modify guidance in the light of experience. Doing so in statutory guidance with proper scrutiny by Parliament is the best way to achieve that.
On opposition Amendments 68 to 71 and mandatory grounds for eviction, the question was whether this would not simply encourage illegal evictions. Landlords will need to comply with the law and any attempts to remove tenants by force, duress or threat would constitute illegal eviction. Further, in order to evict with reliance on this ground, the court would need to be satisfied not only that the Home Office had served notice in respect of the person but also that the person was disqualified from renting by virtue of their immigration status.
Finally, a number of serious points were raised around the area of potential discrimination. The Government take this extremely seriously. The point we made through the evaluation was certainly not that discrimination does not occur. However, when we compared the discrimination that was there, sadly, in the system in the area where we carried out the pilot, the rate of discrimination was, using mystery shopping, comparable to that in a control area—another area. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, reminded us, it is extremely important to remind landlords of their existing obligation, which is underpinned by the code of practice on avoiding discriminatory behaviour. The guidance available to landlords makes it very clear that discrimination is unlawful. In any respect of this, that is the one matter we would like to make sure is abundantly clear.
If there are any issues that I have failed to cover, of course I will write. However, I think I have covered most of the issues raised. On that basis, I hope the noble Baroness might consider withdrawing her amendment.