Charity crowd funds in bid to challenge roll-out of Right to Rent scheme

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) has begun crowd funding ahead of a potential legal challenge to the roll-out of the Right to Rent scheme to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A charity fighting for fairness and justice in immigration law and policy, the JCWI said it had begun pre-action correspondence to ensure that the Right to Rent scheme is not rolled out further without a full evaluation of discrimination under the scheme and whether or not the scheme is working.

“There is mounting evidence that the scheme requiring landlords and letting agents to perform immigration checks on tenants causes discrimination against British ethnic minorities and foreign nationals with legal status in the UK.”

The charity also suggested that there was no evidence that the Right to Rent scheme worked. “Landlords and agents are forced to conduct complex checks, deal with extra red tape and face fines and imprisonment for a system that cannot even show that it is encouraging irregular migrants to leave the UK.”

The JCWI said it had been told that the scheme would be rolled out to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and that plans for doing so were in motion.

“So far, officials in the Home Office have refused to provide a definite time frame for the roll out, but every indication is that it could happen at very short notice,” it warned.

The charity said it was working with its legal team and with barristers Philippa Kaufman QC and Chris Buttler of Matrix Chambers to make sure it is ready to challenge any such decision promptly.

“Once the decision is announced, it could be implemented fairly rapidly, and we must be prepared to act,” the JCWI said.

“We have already done the bulk of the work in gathering evidence of discrimination, but we need to do more over the coming weeks. We had funding to do that work, but that has come to an end. We need your help to keep going and to deliver the best outcome we can.”

It added that money pledged would help it fund its work, and possibly pay for experts, to prepare the evidence it and others had gathered for a legal challenge.

The JCWI also said the money would allow it to gather more evidence, if necessary, and to have additional capacity to keep working on the case as it progresses; and protect against the risk of paying the Government’s legal costs in the event its is ordered to do so.

So far £2,155 has been pledged towards a target of £5,000 by 65 people. The deadline for raising the money is 7 am on 15 June.