Date: Thursday 21 January, 2016
Immigration Bill – statement of concern
We are a coalition of organisations and individuals, mainly but not only based in Scotland, with shared and serious concerns on the impact of the Immigration Bill in both the UK generally and including in its constituent nations especially in Scotland.
These concerns are that many provisions in this Bill:
1. Will beself-defeating and deeply harmful: there is for example no evidence worthy of the name they will lead to more people leaving the UK but there is no shortage of evidence they will facilitate great suffering on already vulnerable women, children, and men.
In particular, the Bill's provisions to criminalise illegal working as well as institute a horrendously complex support regime for families, children, and individuals refused asylum - a regime of "tatty safety nets" through which we fear those refused asylum may fall- may render those affected to a life of exploitation, homelessness and utter destitution, and the mental and physical destruction that goes with this.
These measures will also place unnecessary and unprecedented pressure on over-stretched councils, health services, and charities in the UK and Scotland (especially in Glasgow) - simultaneously with aboon to organised crime to seize control and ruthlessly exploit women, men, and children who often have fled severe harm at home, to seek protection here, but are now thrown - across towns and cities in the UK - onto a scrapheap of neglect and exploitation.
2. Will place adeeply inappropriate burdenon private and many housing association landlords to conduct complex immigration document checks in relation to prospective and existing tenants under threat of up to five years imprisonment.
Outsourcing statutory responsibilities in this way to ordinary landlords across Scotland and UK will make their lives more difficult and may lead tounconscious racial discrimination against those deemed not to be "British" or as not having right to remain in the UK. It may also exclude from many residential tenancies those perceived as unlikely to have the requisite papers - whether that is true or not - if it is considered an "easier life" not to let to those perceived as having chaotic backgrounds or with "non-British"-sounding names or faces.
As with the provisions on illegal working and the new support regime for those - including families with children refused asylum - this criminal penalty regime upon landlords will, tragically, bean opportunity for rogue landlordshappy to flout the law anyway as well as for those minded to discriminate already.
3. Is anadir in UK Government legislative practice vis-a-vis rest of the UK: we agree with the recent criticisms of this practice with the Bill, from both the House of Lords' Constitution and Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform committees, that the UK government's legislative approach is "inappropriate" and in need of justification in the UK Parliament.
This justification concerns how the Bill enables the application of its provisions - on licensing, criminal penalty duties on many landlords, and the welfare of children including looked after - all at a later date for Scotland (and other constituent nations) through the fiat of UK executive regulations that may stretch to revoke provisions in Acts of the Scottish Parliament, without any role or say for Holyrood and its MSPs.
Such ascrutiny and accountability gapis serious in inter-Parliamentary terms as these provisions impact on and may even alter the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament as well as in terms of fettering the capability of that Parliament to safeguard the integrity of its housing and eviction law; its duties on local authorities to safeguard the wellbeing of children; and the obligations it has placed on councils in Scotland that are inclusive of unaccompanied migrant children who are classed as looked after as well as care leavers as they transition into adulthood.
We urge the Scottish Parliament today to call for a halt to this Bill, at the very least in terms of much of its application to Scotland, in light of the:
1. Significant harm it risks for deeply vulnerable people including children through destitution and exploitation.
2. Perverse opportunities it creates for organised crime and rogue landlords for exploitation and discrimination; and
3. Serious accountability and scrutiny issues stemming from the UK Government's legislative approach with the devolved nations and particularly for Scotland.
Signatories
John Blackwood, Chief Executive, Scottish Association of Landlords
Alison Phipps, Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies, University of Glasgow
Graeme Brown, Director, Shelter Scotland
John Wilkes, Chief Executive, Scottish Refugee Council
Mary Taylor, Chief Executive, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations
Sarah Craig, Senior Lecturer in Public Law, University of Glasgow
Robert Aldridge, Chief Executive, Homeless Action Scotland
Dr Richard W Whitecross, Lecturer in Law, Edinburgh Napier University
Robina Qureshi, Director, Positive Action in Housing
Kirsty Thomson, Legal Services Agency