Immigration bill: May defends plans to create ‘hostile environment’

London: UK home secretary, Theresa May, has defended plans to create a “hostile environment” for illegal migrants to Britain, as immigration lawyers warned her that a system of identity checks for all, including British citizens, would have to be introduced to enforce the government’s moves to curb access to privately rented housing and to tackle alleged health tourists.

The warnings came as she publishes her flagship immigration bill on Thursday, which will require immigration checks to be carried out before anyone can open a new bank account, be issued with a driving licence or access routine health treatment.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, May said: “Most people will say it can’t be fair for people who have no right to be here in the UK to continue to exist as everybody else does with bank accounts, with driving licences and with access to rented accommodation. We are going to be changing that because we don’t think that is fair,” said May.

The Home Office bill will include measures spanning six other Whitehall departments including justice, transport, business, health, local government, and work and pensions, and is designed, in May’s words, to “create a really hostile environment for illegal migrants”. “What we don’t want is a situation where people think that they can come here and overstay because they’re able to access everything they need,” May has said.

The Home Office confirmed the bill would:

Require private landlords to check the immigration status of their tenants.

Require temporary migrants, such as overseas students, who have only a “time-limited” immigration status, to make a contribution to the NHS. A 200 levy has been mentioned as an option.

Require banks to check against a database of known immigration offenders before opening a bank account.

Create new powers to check the immigration status of driving licence applicants and to revoke the licences of overstayers.

Introduce “deport first, appeal later” policy for thousands facing removal who face no “risk of serious irreversible harm” from being sent back, and reduce grounds for appeal from 17 to four.

On Today, May declined to give any estimate of the scale of “health tourism” in Britain but confirmed the bill included a health levy on overseas students and other categories of short-term migrants. She gave no figure for the levy and said that the Department of Health would publish detailed proposals in the next few weeks. She denied that it would cost more to collect the levy than the amount it raises.

“We will be asking for a surcharge; there will be a sort of levy on people who are going to be coming here, to be staying for a while, to contribute so people can feel it is fair,” she told the BBC. “One of the things the NHS has always been quite bad is charging people who they should be charging, people who don’t have the right to free access to the NHS and recovering those costs from them.”

— Guardian News & Media Ltd