Ministers are apparently backtracking on the planned requirement to get landlords to check the status of migrant tenants.
David Cameron is said to have turned puce when told that the proposed law would have to be watered down.
The requirement to check tenants’ immigrant status was introduced in the Queen’s Speech, but there are suggestions that it had not been thought through properly.
There were also concerns that it would have been quite simply unworkable: the only way a landlord could be expected to check a tenant’s immigrant status would have been to put in a call to the UK Border Agency which, say critics, is not up to the job.
It’s unclear how the Government could bring in a new law which would bear on only certain areas, without running into problems such as changing demographics and accusations of racial discrimination.
What are your thoughts?