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Green light to pass laws

01 March 1993

On 7 April the Court of Appeal declared that housing authorities should make it their business to report the presence of illegal immigrants to the Home Office. They reversed the decision of the High Court that immigration controls were not the function of local authorities.

The case was brought by Tower Hamlets council, in east London, the subject of non-discrimination notices issued by the Commission for Racial Equality over its racist allocation policies. It objected to guidance sent to authorities by the Department of the Environment on housing homeless families, which said that everyone admitted to the country was entitled to equal treatment under the law, and that "authorities should remember to treat as confidential information received on an applicant's immigration status". These statements, said the Court of Appeal, were "misleading and wrong"; "it would be an affront to common sense if those who steal into the country by subterfuge were then housed at public expense", said Master of the Rolls Lord Donaldson. The judgment marks a significant encroachment of Home Office functions into local government, which will be further entrenched by the housing provisions of the Asylum and Immigration Bill, shortly to become law.

Independent 8.4.93; see No pass laws here! in CARF 14 May-June 1993.