In May, two flagship measures of the current Conservative UK government, the Housing and Planning Act 2016 and the Immigration Act 2016 were passed, despite opposition from rights and advocacy organisations, charities and individuals in both fields. Based on wide-ranging research carried out before the Acts’ passage, the article shows how both Acts will work in tandem to reinforce and exacerbate a fundamental restructuring of the societal landscape, which will particularly impact on multiracial, inner-city and poor communities. They continue a process in which social entitlements are ever more codified and restricted, rights seen as linked to (and dependent on) responsibilities, with certain categories of persons – undocumented workers, asylum seekers – excluded from some rights altogether. As the state increasingly divests itself of accountability for its actions, it is placing yet more onus on third-sector organisations to become accountable, not to their clients, but to government targets and policies.
This is not an exhaustive study of the two Acts, but indicates the ways in which, in tandem, they will impact upon the lived reality of multicultural Britain.
Architects for Social Housing, ‘Housing and Planning Bill: submission to the House of Commons Public Bill Committee’ (7December2015), available at: https://architectsforsocialhousing.wordpress.com/.
Shelter, ‘Repossessions and eviction hotspots: September 2014’.
19.
All data except for that on ethnicity taken from Shelter, Repossessions and eviction hotspots: September 2014’. It should be noted that BAME is taken in this context to include all those from ethnic groups which are not White: English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British.
According to the sociologist Victoria Cooper (personal communication, 21February2016): ‘First introduced under the Welfare Reform Bill in 2011, the benefit cap limits the total weekly income an individual or family can receive in welfare benefits; however the cap, or reduction, is administered through housing benefit payment. Therefore, individuals and families that exceed the benefit cap will automatically see their housing benefits reduced. Although a local authority ordinarily calculates a range of benefits per household – child benefit, housing benefit, employment and support allowance, job seekers allowance and so forth – only their housing benefit is reduced when a household exceeds the benefit cap. The benefit cap, can also be understood as a rent cap, therefore, because individuals and families must make up the rent shortfall themselves and/or fall into rent arrears.’
27.
Nissa Finney and Bethan Harries, Understanding Ethnic Inequalities in Housing: analysis of the 2011 census (London: Race Equality Foundation, 2013), p. 9.
Claire Brickall, Tom Bucke, Jonathan Burchell, Miriam Davidson, Ewan Kennedy, Rebbeca Linley and Andrew Zuruwan, ‘Evaluation of the Right to Rent Scheme: full evaluation report of phase one’, Research Report 83 (London: Home Office, 2015), p. 22.
33.
Saira Grant and Charlotte Peel, ‘No Passport Equals No Home’: an independent evaluation of the right to rent scheme (London: Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, 2015).
Section 4 of the 1824 Vagrancy Act was, in the 1970s, used frequently against young black men on the street, who could be arrested not because they had committed an arrestable offence but because an officer thought they were acting suspiciously as though they might be about to do so. It was vigorously opposed by black groups and eventually repealed in 1981.
36.
Institute of Race Relations, Police Against Black People: evidence to the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure (London: IRR, 1979), pp. 40–42.
37.
RAMFEL is an independent organisation whose core roles revolve around case work, capacity building and campaigning.
38.
Enforcement, in this context, refers to activities which could lead to the arrest and removal of a person from the country.
39.
See, for example, TylerImogenGillNickConlonDeirdreOeppenCeri, ‘The business of child detention: charitable co-option, migrant advocacy and activist outrage’, Race & Class56, no. 1 (2014).
40.
NeocleousMarkThe Fabrication of Social Order: a critical theory of police power (London: Pluto Press, 2000), p. xi.
