Immigration Bill — Decline Second Reading — 13 Oct 2015 at 18:51

The majority of MPs voted to create criminal offences of renting a home, driving, and working, while disqualified from doing so due to immigration status; and for other measures in the Immigration Bill

The majority of MPs voted in favour of the Immigration Bill[1].

The Bill:

  • Makes it an offence to let private residential premises to adults disqualified from renting as a result of their immigration status.
  • Introduces new powers for landlords to evict illegal migrants from private rented accommodation.
  • Creates a new offence of driving a vehicle on a road or other public place when the driver of the vehicle is not lawfully in the UK
  • Makes it a criminal offence for a person subject to immigration control to work if they have not been granted leave to enter or remain, have overstayed that leave, or are in breach of a condition on that leave that prohibits work.
  • Requires banks to check the immigration status of current account holders and to, in the majority of cases, facilitate the closure of accounts held by illegal migrants.
  • Amends the offence of employing an illegal worker, set out in Section 21 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 to make the offence easier to prove. The change makes it an offence to employ someone ineligible to work on immigration grounds if an employer has a ‘reasonable cause to believe’ the employee is ineligible rather than ‘knowing' they have an immigration status which makes them ineligible.
  • Establishes a Director of Labour Market Enforcement responsible for preparing the strategy for enforcing laws on gang-masters, the national minimum wage and on who can run employment agencies.
  • Makes it a requirement for a license to sell alcohol that the licensee has the right to work in the UK.
  • Gives powers to Police Constables, Immigration Officers, and others, to search for a driving licence within premises occupied by someone believed to be not lawfully resident for a driving licence.

The motion rejected by the majority of MPs taking part in this vote was:

  • That this House,
  • whilst affirming its belief that there should be firm and fair controls on illegal immigration including new immigration enforcement powers and immigration status checks on current account holders, and particularly welcoming proposals for a Director of Labour Market Enforcement and to strengthen sanctions to be applied to employers of illegal workers, declines to give a Second Reading to the Immigration Bill because the measures overall in the Bill will not decrease illegal immigration, will reduce social cohesion and will punish the children of illegal immigrants for their parents’
  • [1] Parliament's webpage on the Immigration Bill
  • [2] Explanatory notes to the Immigration Bill

Debate in Parliament | Source |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con312 (+2 tell) 0095.2%
DUP7 0087.5%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent0 20100.0%
Lab0 213 (+2 tell)092.7%
LDem0 80100.0%
PC0 30100.0%
SDLP0 2066.7%
SNP0 53096.4%
UKIP1 00100.0%
UUP2 00100.0%
Total:322 282094.3%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

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