Contribution
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for taking over this amendment, to which I was pleased to add my name. I assure her that I am as committed as ever to opposing this policy. Given the widespread support for the repeal of this discriminatory legislation, including among landlords’ organisations, I had hoped the Government might consider accepting the amendment in Committee. I made then what I believed was a strong case for repeal. I will not repeat that now, especially as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, has made it so powerfully, but I will make just two points.
First, since Committee, a new research report into race, ethnicity and homelessness has been published which underlines the racism all too often faced in the housing market by racially minoritised tenants, especially refugees and other migrants. I am indebted to the lead researcher, Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick of Heriot-Watt University, for sharing some of the findings with me. Although the research was not specifically into the right-to-rent scheme, a substantial number of participants have faced private landlords who clearly did not want to let to racially minoritised tenants. Practitioners repeatedly flagged up a reluctance to enforce housing rights among this group, even when they were aware of them. Professor Fitzpatrick suggests that confidence in exercising housing rights might well have been eroded by “hostile environment” policies, including the right-to-rent policy. In its recommendations the report thus argues that ending the right-to-rent policy, which has been shown to drive racial discrimination, would demonstrate the Bill’s commitment to addressing anti-discrimination practices.
Secondly, I was left somewhat bemused in Committee. Speaking for the Opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, who is not in his place, stated that I had raised a very valid issue regarding the right to rent and the fact that introducing what may seem quite a sensible rule leads to complications and places landlords in an awkward situation when they do not fully understand the legislation in front of them. When I pointed out that many people, including my noble friends Lady Smith of Basildon and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, highlighted the potential problems at the time the legislation went through Parliament, I was grateful for his acknowledgement of the problems now and his observation that:
“Where the law is complex we need to make it simple and easy to comply with”.
He then went on to say:
“This is one of our major concerns with this legislation”,—[Official Report, 12/5/25; col. 1987.]
apparently forgetting that it was his party that introduced it.
I would say that it is never too late for a sinner to repent, but I am sat behind the right reverend Prelate. However, we are now saddled with this unfair legislation, which all too easily leads to the kind of discrimination uncovered by the Heriot-Watt research. My party, which was so critical of it at the time, now defends it, despite the evidence of its damaging impact on migrants and members of racially minoritised communities.
It was described by Wendy Williams in her Windrush Lessons Learned Review as one of the “most contentious aspects” of the hostile environment. It saddens me that, despite the evidence to the contrary, my noble friend the Minister, for whom I have the greatest respect, rejected the amendment in Committee on the grounds that, as we have heard:
“The right-to-rent scheme is capable of being operated proportionally by landlords and letting agents in all cases”.—[Official Report, 12/5/25; col. 1989.]
I disagree and therefore believe that it really is not compatible with the aims of the Bill.