It worries me if that is happening; it is certainly not the best way to enforce immigration policy. The best way is to go through the proper process of making an application. If the result is negative, the person should leave the country. I have just had figures from Capita and the Home Office for the number of people who have left the country as a result of the £2.8 million contract that the Home Office gave Capita—although I cannot understand why it was not possible for Home Office officials to write the letters and send the e-mails instead of giving the job to a private company. According to those figures, 20,000 cases have been closed as a result of Capita’s activities.
I will come to my second bit of praise for the Home Secretary at the end of my speech, but I first wish to highlight a couple of issues that cause me concern. The first is the issue of landlords checking people’s passports, which will cause huge problems. The shadow Home Secretary said that people might have to look at 400 different European identity cards and documents. I am concerned that ordinary landlords who are not trained in immigration policy will simply not know the difference between leave to remain, indefinite leave and other Home Office statuses placed on non-British passports. Most landlords, when
they grant tenancies, already ask for copies of people’s passports. The risk is that the only people who will be able to get accommodation are those with British passports. That means that a lot of people with a perfect right to remain here will not be able to get accommodation because landlords are too scared or do not understand the law.
I recently visited Calais to look at the border and I asked our excellent border officials how they were able to test whether certain passports and documents were forgeries. They brought out this very big, expensive machine. It was about 10 years old and not the most sophisticated piece of equipment, but they told me, “We use this to find out whether a document is a forgery.” We cannot expect landlords to have such machines—they would not be able to afford them—but if we do not train them or have regular inspections, which we could not afford, it is difficult to know how the provisions will work in practice. In theory, it is a brilliant idea, but it is totally unworkable in practice.