The federal government has launched a proper and anodyne-sounding “Consultation on reforms to social housing allocations“. It proposed a new series of bars to being allocated certain types of social housing, including a “UK connection test” which might be handed by being a British citizen, EEA citizen with equal remedy rights, a overseas nationwide lawfully resident for 10 years or a resettled refugee. The 2 predominant teams to be excluded could be, I believe:
- Migrants who’ve achieved settlement (usually after 5 years residence) however not but resident for 10 years
- Refugees, who’re at present entitled to social housing as quickly as they’re recognised as refugees
I think about only a few migrants within the 5-10 12 months residence interval really want or at present get social housing, through which case the principle affected group might be refugees.
Should you’ve been round lengthy sufficient, chances are you’ll keep in mind the final try to focus on welfare entitlements for newly recognised refugees. That was approach again in… 2022, with the ‘differential treatment’ coverage. I by no means thought that may be applied as a result of it was clearly and indisputably in breach of the Refugee Conference’s parity of remedy clauses. For instance, Article 21 on housing states:
As regards housing, the Contracting States, in as far as the matter is regulated by legal guidelines or laws or is topic to the management of public authorities, shall accord to refugees lawfully staying of their territory remedy as beneficial as potential and, in any occasion, not much less beneficial than that accorded to aliens typically in the identical circumstances
Eager about refugee regulation? You would possibly like Colin’s e-book, imaginatively referred to as “Refugee Law” and revealed by Bristol College Press.
Speaking vital authorized ideas in an approachable approach, that is a necessary guide for college kids, attorneys and non-specialists alike.
Article 21, Refugee Conference
Whether or not these new proposals violate the UK’s worldwide regulation obligations relies on the comparator. On one evaluation (the fitting one, I might recommend), different refugees are the “aliens generally in the same circumstances”. That is significantly so given the Refugee Conference is all about refugees.
However the British authorities would possibly effectively argue in any other case, relatively disingenuously for my part. There being no Worldwide Court docket of Refugees to adjudicate whether or not a state is or will not be in violation of the Refugee Conference, the problem might by no means be determined.
However, as they recommend over on housing law blog Nearly Legal, it could not make a lot distinction in observe. Councils will nonetheless be beneath an obligation to supply homelessness assist to refugees and what housing inventory is obtainable might should be reshuffled to realize that.
The proposals additionally contain an enormous new central interference with native authority housing allocation insurance policies and the imposition of latest necessities which are more likely to have an effect on actually no-one or perhaps a handful of people. It’s all very Residence Workplace.
The deadline for responses is late March 2024.
