The government has been threatened with legal action if it presses ahead with the introduction of “right to rent” immigration checks in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland without a full evaluation of their impact.
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has written to the home secretary, Amber Rudd, demanding that she order a full evaluation of the compulsory immigration status checks by landlords on potential tenants that were extended across England in 2016.
The “right to rent” checks, as they are officially known, have been criticised by private landlords and immigration welfare groups for leading to discrimination against foreign nationals, against British citizens without passports and British black and minority ethnic tenants.
The powers to extend the scheme to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are contained in the latest 2016 Immigration Act, but not yet implemented. The checks were first introduced on a trial basis in the West Midlands in December 2014.
The measure was introduced by Theresa May when she was home secretary as part of a drive to “create a hostile environment for illegal immigrants in Britain”. She told MPs that she wanted to deny access for illegal immigrants to privately rented accommodation: “That is why we intend to roll the requirement out across the UK,” she said.
May said the 2016 Immigration Act also made it easier for private landlords to evict people who had no right to be in the UK and created a new criminal offence targeting “rogue landlords who repeatedly fail to carry out checks or take steps to remove people who are here illegally. Let me be clear that this is not about asking landlords to become immigration experts”.
The JCWI said that a joint report released in February, backed by the Residential Landlords Association, found that 51% of surveyed landlords said the scheme would make them less likely to consider letting to foreign nationals. The survey also disclosed that 41% of landlords were less likely to rent to someone without a British passport.
A mystery shopping exercise revealed that 58% of landlords ignored or turned down inquiries from black British potential tenants.
The report also found little evidence that the right to rent scheme was achieving its stated aim of encouraging irregular migrants to leave the UK and threw into doubt its value for money.
Saira Grant, the chief executive of the JCWI, said: “In the face of clear evidence of discrimination under right to rent, the government must show it is not acting illegally before it presses ahead with a rollout to the rest of the UK.
“This is a scheme that not only discriminates against BME [black and minority ethnic] British citizens, foreign nationals and British nationals without passports, it imposes costs on landlords, agents and tenants, too. The government must carry out a thorough review – until then, any extension to other parts of the UK would be premature, dangerous, and potentially illegal,” said Grant.
The JCWI is crowdfunding future legal action against the Home Office if it fails to respond positively to its demand for a full evaluation of its discriminatory impact and cost-effectiveness before it is rolled out to the rest of the UK.
The Home Office has set up a helpline and an online landlords’ checking service if potential tenants are unable to provide evidence of the right to be in the UK, such as a biometric residence permit, birth certificate or passport.