It is a great pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), although I shall not be agreeing with her. It was also a great pleasure to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), who is no longer in his seat. I agree with him about the reasons to support the Bill. He spoke of the impact immigration has on the streets and it is true that this is a matter of great concern. The immigration rules have been reformed to cut out abuse where it is rife, but there is still more to do, particularly on landlords.
Let me start with the report by the Migration Observatory in Oxford entitled, “Migrants and Housing in the UK: Experiences and Impacts”. It is a very short report that sets out some key findings, one of which is that the foreign-born population has significantly lower home ownership rates than the UK-born population. The detail shows that the foreign-born population is three times as likely as the UK-born population to be in the private rented sector. If we drill down further, we can see that recent migrants are more than twice as likely as the normal foreign-born population to be renters—76% are more likely to rent. Foreign-born individuals have lower ownership rates than UK-born individuals and have greater representation in the private rented sector.
Recent migrants have very different accommodation standards. The report states that
“new migrants moved into temporary accommodation upon arrival…However, after realising that their stay in the UK could be permanent it is common for migrants to look for better housing choices”.
The evidence from that statement is clear: if we want to look for new migrants and potentially illegal immigrants, we need to look at the private rented sector. It is a key part of trying to ascertain where they might lie within the system. The evidence so far suggests that that is what is happening.
The UKBA and Ealing council recently visiting six properties and the agency found that 22 out of 39 individual tenants, a large percentage, were illegal immigrants. Of those 22, 19 were detained. Of those 19, nine entered the country without leave, eight were overstayers, one was a failed asylum seeker and one was working in breach of his visa conditions. In such circumstances, the correct duty should be for the landlord to check for residence status. There is a long list of excluded tenancies in the Bill and the Secretary of State has the right to grant such a right to a person who would otherwise be disqualified.
The obligation on landlords—the choice of words is crucial—is to make “reasonable enquiries”. Private landlords are not expected to be experts in immigration; they are expected to make reasonable inquiries. They are not supposed to know the details of all the 400 or so immigrant visas that were mentioned earlier. They are merely meant to make reasonable inquiries. We are looking to secondary legislation to include a list of acceptable documentation.