Baroness Hamwee
Main Page: Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Hamwee's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, there are a number of amendments in my name to this part of the Bill but I begin by supporting Amendments 50 and 51, introduced so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. All the amendments that I support relate to the proposals in the Bill for landlords to have responsibility for checking the immigration status of their tenants. I declare my interests in social housing and the private rented sector, as in the register. I have every sympathy with the proposition that the relevant clauses should not stand part of the Bill but I recognise that there are other factors here that mean that the Government will not be persuaded to drop this measure altogether. In the amendments in my name I am therefore concentrating on ways in which its impact can be moderated.
Moreover, I have had the benefit of a very useful meeting with the Ministers—the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the Minister for Immigration in the other place, James Brokenshire—at which I and colleagues representing both tenants and landlords were able to clarify a number of points. Indeed, my colleagues from the Residential Landlords Association, Crisis, the National Housing Federation, the British Property Federation and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation commended Ministers and civil servants on a number of concessions and clarifications that have allayed some of their fears. Nevertheless, it remains the case that, as I set out at Second Reading and as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, has emphasised, this new burden on landlords is likely to have a number of unfortunate consequences.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord in full flow; I was waiting for a point at which I could come in. I just want to clarify whether he is speaking to amendments in this group; I do not think that it contains any in his name.
Baroness Hamwee
Fine. I thought that the noble Lord was talking to his own amendments that come later on. I am so sorry.
Lord Best
I shall come to them in due course.
The average private landlord will be keen to avoid committing the new offence of allocating a tenancy to someone who is not meant to be in this country, and to avoid being fined up to £3,000. They will want to play safe and not take anyone as a tenant who might just possibly turn out to be an illegal immigrant.
It will not be an offence not to check the status of a potential tenant; it will be an offence not to have checked only if it is subsequently discovered that the tenant is here illegally. So if someone is obviously not an immigrant, there is no need to go through the process of checking them out. How much easier, therefore, to turn away anyone with the appearance of being foreign, including perfectly legitimate applicants, using any number of excuses—most often that the property has already been let. Despite the guidance being prepared by the Home Office on how landlords can avoid acting in a discriminatory way, in those markets of high demand—London, much of southern England and hotspots everywhere—I fear that the Bill could mean that anyone who could remotely be thought to be a migrant will find it very tough to get decent rented accommodation. Frankly, it is difficult enough already for anyone who is not a young UK professional to persuade landlords to take them on. Remember that there are over 1.5 million private landlords, 78% of whom, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, own just one property; they are amateurs and they are going to be highly risk-averse.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry that prior engagements meant that I missed part of the Second Reading debate and could not speak then on this important Bill, which I support. I start by thanking my noble friend the Minister for the briefing he kindly provided on the residential tenancy provisions. I thank noble Lords opposite for initiating a debate on Clause 15, as it gives me the opportunity to probe the Government’s intentions and the “workability” of the provisions, to quote the noble Baroness.
I come at the subject as a business person, although I should declare an interest as the part-owner of a son’s flat which is currently let while he works out of London. We are asking the landlord community, nearly 2 million of us, to be part of the enforcement service for immigration. This is a new burden, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, has said. I understand that, for 62% of landlords, the required documentation is already available to satisfy the provisions. But that leaves a lot of people burdened for the first time, and required to keep copies and records that they do not have to worry about at present. I suspect that many will not know about the new rules and that they risk a civil penalty—£1,000 for the first offence, £3,000 thereafter— if they let to somebody whose papers are not in order.
I have a fear that the immigration authorities, in order to hit targets, could turn their attention to the easy task of cracking down on landlords who make a mistake, rather than the labyrinthine task of fighting illegal immigrants through the courts. Can my noble friend give landlords, especially small landlords who do not use expensive letting agencies, some comfort on these issues?
This is an important Bill, as I have said, and it is clearly essential that the new provisions are communicated really well. I have two thoughts on this and would be glad to hear the Minister’s reactions before we accept the provisions on landlords in Clause 15 and subsequent clauses. One is to use the web properly. We should place on gov.uk, in one user-friendly place, all the new rules for landlords, wherever they are set out, including the new online checking resource that is planned; briefing on the new biometric residence permits, which will ease landlords’ task of identification; the contact details for the phone inquiry line; and the 48-hour e-mail immigration checking service, which I agree will need to be adequately staffed, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, has said.
A different version could also be provided for tenants, including, perhaps—having listened to earlier debates—students, from whom I believe the paperwork requirements may be relatively light. It would be good for all of those people to know what the rules are and be able to check them in a simple place on the web. With modern techniques, prospective tenants could easily translate this briefing using an online app, obviating the need for expensive advice and lawyers.
Secondly, we should ask the landlords’ associations to prepare model clauses on the new immigration controls to be added to their standard shorthold lease. This would make it less likely that the new requirements were overlooked and the tenant would have to make an undertaking, which would be helpful, for example, in avoiding illegal sub-letting.
Finally, I would like to understand the Government’s intentions on timing, a point which links to Amendment 51 on a possible pilot. I believe that the Government plan to trial the new arrangements in a specific area or areas, which is an excellent idea that I would like to see applied to more areas of regulation. However, what would the timetable look like, and will the Government, as suggested by the noble Lords opposite, feel able to feed back to this House what they have learnt before the new system goes nationwide?
As a supporter of the Bill I am very keen that it should work well and not lead to an adverse reaction by small landlords or a reduction in available accommodation because people do not want to risk a fine or the hassle involved in the new scheme. The money-laundering laws were no doubt good in intent, but the repetitive bureaucracy they have introduced into every aspect of asset purchase certainly comes at a cost which affects UK productivity. I am keen to know whether we have learnt from this experience in establishing this important new regime for landlords.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, we have a number of amendments in this group: Amendments 56B, 56D, 56G, 87A and 89. As other noble Lords have said, there must be a pilot. I was glad to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, say that she has come to the view that it should be a single pilot. However, like her, I agree that there is a world of difference between a pilot and phasing the rollout. I have a number of probing amendments in this group and some in later groups. I will deal with particular concerns amendment by amendment rather than speaking generally to the clause stand part.
On the pilot issue, in my mind this is not probing but something that has to happen, and in a single area. We are not talking about different housing markets; all noble Lords who spoke about this are concerned about what I wrote down as “bureaucracy”, although “administrative burden” is the politer way of putting it, is it not? Concerns were also expressed about discrimination and how landlords, tenants, agents, occupants—people who are not tenants in the sense in which we normally technically use that term, but who are actually tenants under the Bill as they are defined—would cope. We are also concerned about tenants and occupants who have a right to be in this country and to rent. “Workability” was the term used, which is very much in my mind. I will not take up the Committee’s time by quoting from evidence to the Public Bill Committee in the Commons, but I, like others, was struck by the sheer number of small landlords there are in this country.
We talked about a pilot, and that pilot needs to be assessed. Of course the public response to a pilot will be the overall assessment, but it occurred to me that we need a more rigorous critique, being clear and careful about the factors to be assessed and evaluated. Our Amendment 56G would require a report before the provisions come into force about the matters which should be assessed and the basis for evaluating their assessment. I have not attempted to spell those out at this point; that is a piece of work that needs to be quite careful and detailed, to be subject to discussion and to be discussed. I have said that a report should be laid before Parliament by your Lordships. I also agree that the code, which must seek to ensure against discrimination, should have parliamentary involvement.
On Amendment 56B, the dangers of discrimination are inherent—that is an issue in itself—also because of the implications for those who are entitled to be in the country and to rent, as well as for everybody else.
Your Lordships will understand that with a name like Hamwee and coming from the background that I do, I knew people whose names were not familiar to landlords when people of my generation were seeking to rent. Unlike the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, when they turned up on the doorstep they were greeted with, “Oh gosh, you’re white!” That is just as bad a discrimination, of course.
I think that there should be a review following the pilot—that may be implicit in Clause 28, but I think that we should say so—and parliamentary process for each revision. Our Amendments 56B, 87A and 89 are not just little wrinkles at the end of the Bill but amount to a substantive amendment to require clear stages to the process. I can also see that we should consider a mechanism for Parliament requiring a view if that is not a review forthcoming from the Home Office, although I thought of that only yesterday.
Baroness Hamwee
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 50B, 51B, 51C, 51D and 54ZA. This group of amendments takes us to the type of accommodation. Amendment 50A deals with a point that has been referred to already—that is, where there is no exclusive right of occupation.
The Minister has referred a number of times to the known unknowns, or the unknown knowns. I think there may be a lot of unknown unknowns in this, and my amendment asks whether the Government are confident that arrangements can work where what comes within the definition of a tenancy is, as we have heard, not what one normally understands to be a tenancy, such as lodgers and all sorts of licences which are not exclusive licences. A lot people live in premises on an informal basis, which is hardly the ideal home, but they may be the only residents, and that is what brings the accommodation into the Bill. Noble Lords have already referred to whether a landlord will go through the checks, whether discrimination will be fed and whether an underground black market will be created. Amendments 55B and 55D, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, address similar points.
The Minister told us not that long ago that there would be a range of penalties. He talked about £80 perhaps going up to £500 for multiple offences and £1,000 going up to £3,000. I am not sure whether I got his words quite correctly, but he referred to something like a proper mechanism for evaluating the level of the fine. I do not know whether he is in a position to say a little more about what the mechanisms for evaluating the level will be. It is clear that the Government have given this some thought. Indeed, it was referred to in the evidence session of the Public Bill Committee by the representative of one of the landlords organisations. She said,
“we do not agree with the proposed disparity in penalties””.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee 29/10/13; col. 56.]
That is not my point. I just want to get some clarity as soon as we can on this.
Amendment 50B would preclude the Secretary of State reducing the types of excluded—which I find quite a difficult term in this context—premises which do not come within the scheme.
Amendments 51B, 51C and 51D relate to the way in which refuges are defined in Schedule 3. I am delighted that refuges are now within the schedule. My amendments would be refinements. The schedule does not at the moment take account of the fact that costs may be provided by a voluntary organisation or charity. The term is simply “operated”. The Bill states,
“its costs of operation are provided wholly or in part by a government department or agency, or by a local authority … it is managed by a voluntary organisation”.
There are a variety of models. A hostel may be owned by a voluntary organisation and the provisions seem to stand being reread and made as extensive as they are in practice.
Amendment 51D would extend the group of those who might benefit from the provision from being simply those who have been subject to an incident or pattern of incidents of the behaviour spelt out to those who are threatened with or avoiding such behaviour or who might be subject to it. It is looking ahead to prevention, as it were.
I accept that it would be unusual for somebody to flee without actually having been subject to some of the behaviour that is listed here, but I want to ensure that we are as inclusive as possible. No one seeks a place in a refuge. Nor, indeed, would a refuge, the places in which are in short supply, provide a place lightly. We should not add to the difficulties of someone seeking refuge, nor to those of the refuge operator. I should perhaps declare an interest as having been chair of Refuge for some years. I would be concerned if the operators of refuges had to interrogate their prospective clients in the way that this clause might suggest.
Finally, Amendment 54ZA would add holiday and short-term business lettings to the excluded premises. I am probing here because of the amount of administration required; the Minister may disagree with that, given his earlier comments. However, I think that most noble Lords see the Bill as requiring a lot of administration. I hesitated before tabling this amendment, because I would not like to think that it might mean taking the use of accommodation as a home out of the ordinary private rented sector. I mention that in order to try to avoid the criticism, but also to probe the point that holiday and short-term business lettings may be excluded by Clause 15(4), which refers to,
“their only or main residence”.
Perhaps the Minister can help me on that one. I beg to move.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I shall jump in quickly on this. I hope we can move this debate on because I think I can satisfy my noble friend Lady Hamwee on the points that she has raised.
Amendments 50A and 50B would exclude temporary living arrangements from the scheme and prevent the Secretary of State from removing living arrangements from the excluded list once added. In relation to the first point, I draw attention to Clause 15(4), which sets out that the restriction on letting will apply only to agreements which allow a person to occupy the premises as their only or main residence. Further, Clause 27 provides for the Secretary of State to set out in a code of practice the factors she considers when determining whether someone is occupying premises on this basis, and provide guidance relating to holiday lettings or lettings connected with business travel in particular. In relation to Amendment 54ZA, the Government have no intention of requiring a status check where these circumstances pertain.
Further, while other temporary living arrangements such as hostels and refuges are expressly excluded from the scheme by Schedule 3, excluding other instances of multiple occupations will simply undermine the scheme. I am looking carefully at Amendment 50B. This would restrict the Secretary of State’s power to amend the provisions in Schedule 3 in the future, so that she could not remove a description from the list. It may assist my noble friend if I clarify that the intention of this provision is not to allow the Secretary of State to reduce the scope of the exemptions from the scheme in the future: exemptions have been provided for arrangements which ensure important services can be provided to the vulnerable, and where the restriction would impose a double or disproportionate regulatory burden.
Careful consideration has been given to the drafting of the exclusions, and consultation has taken place with stakeholders. However, once the scheme is in operation the exclusions may need to be amended to ensure that they are and remain appropriately targeted. I am afraid that our experience is that circumstances may change over time and that many illegal immigrants will seek to exploit what they see as loopholes in the law. It is surely appropriate, particularly as the initial phase of rollout is to be evaluated, to allow the Secretary of State to address abuse where it may arise, sometimes of course through displacement.
On Amendments 51B and 51C, accommodation provided by charities or voluntary organisations in the form of refuges and hostels is already excluded. Similarly, Amendment 51D will achieve no more than the draft paragraph already provides in relation to excluding refuge accommodation provided to those suffering from or threatened with abusive behaviour. The Government have taken a great deal of care here and have discussed this paragraph in some depth with two leading organisations that provide such accommodation.
I hope that in light of those points I have been able to satisfy my noble friend. If not, I hope that she will come back to me after Committee so that we have the chance to talk about it. I hope that she will withdraw her amendments.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, on Amendment 50B, if the objective is to allow refinement rather than wholesale change, I hope that we may look at refining the provision so that that is quite clear in the Bill. Yes, I would welcome a further word on Amendments 51B and 51C. On Amendment 50A, sadly, some lodgers and some sofa surfers are using friends’ or—I do not know what the term is—lodging-providers’ premises as their only or main residence. That is an outcome of homelessness. Therefore I hear what the noble Lord says about the intention, but I am not sure that it quite meets the point that I am making. However, obviously at this time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I think that most of us have spent all day trying to catch up and find out where we are. The day started off with a considerable readjustment of groupings, which has meant that sometimes matters which were going to be discussed at one point were discussed at another. I apologise if that has sometimes meant that our debates may have appeared a little disjointed.
I am sure that, in moving this amendment, my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones had not anticipated that I would be in a position to make an announcement. Although he says that it does not meet all the points that Universities UK has suggested, I think that it goes a very long way towards it. At bottom, it succeeds in making it plain that, where the university itself is responsible for arranging a student’s accommodation, be that a student coming to this country for the first time and making accommodation arrangements ahead of time, or a student already at the university who needs accommodation, they will be excluded from any further checks. I believe that this is a considerable step forward. I am pleased that I have had an opportunity to make the point again because throughout these debates we have said that we welcome the brightest and the best students. There is no limit on numbers and we are very pleased to see overseas students coming to study at our higher education institutions.
Lawful students should not be deterred by the provisions in the Bill. We need to make sure that those do not get in the way of them coming to this country. They are not designed adversely to affect students during their stay here. I understand the reasoning behind the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Hamwee and spoken to by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. We do not want to have to check the immigration status of any person more than once. Educational institutions already conduct checks of students as part of their obligations as sponsors of non-EEA migrants. They have taken a position of responsibility in respect of their students which we would like to reinforce by the amendments that we will bring forward on Report to extend their responsibilities in this regard. If accommodation is controlled by a registered educational institution, we agree that the tenancy should be exempt from any further checking requirement. The Government intend to bring forward an amendment on Report to broaden this exemption to cover a wider range of circumstances where student accommodation is arranged by the university or college.
I know that noble Lords are concerned about other matters and want to talk about other impacts of the Bill on students in general. When we had the previous debate on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I indicated that I thought it would be good to have a further discussion with him. I want to make sure that we get these matters right, and it is most important that by Report we will have made every effort to do so as a result of contributions made by noble Lords. I hope that my noble friend will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, perhaps I may raise one issue for the Minister to consider before Report. Before I do so, I should say that I very much welcome the Government revisiting this issue but, as my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones said, it does not sound as if it is going to go as far as we would like.
One of the areas in which we would go further is on whether the premises are within the control of the university or college. We are looking at this matter from the student’s point of view. My noble friend Lady Manzoor, who will jump because I have mentioned her, said to me the other day that she thinks that a landlord needs to see evidence that the tenant is a student for council tax purposes. If that were so, it would go a long way towards dealing with any potential abuse. Can I leave that with the Minister to consider? Perhaps a bit of lateral thinking there might help to reassure the Government as regards the rather more extensive amendments that we are proposing.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
It may be late but it is not too late to hear an idea that is worth considering, and I am grateful for that suggestion.