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Good analysis this from Stephen. Govt's bizarre decision to outsource border control to private landlords has come to grief in the courts. Hopefully another step down the road to a more sensible and coherent approach to migration policy.
As Stephen notes, it is well worth reading the full judgement, not least because it highlights the use of rigorous experimental social science methods to inform the decision - claimants in this case used an email experiment to demonstrate discrimination bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/…
They randomly varied descriptions of tenants - varying ethnicities, nationalities and documentation - in "mystery shopper" emails sent to landlords/letting orgs.
There was no discrimination when people had passports. But when potential tenants had no passport but *did* have other documentation confirming their right to rent, landlords discriminated against those with foreign names, preferring those with British sounding names
Alongside these experiments, there were also representative surveys of landlords, showing 25% of them would not let to non-British passport holders. Shows how a mix of rigorous social science methods can have a real impact on major legal dispute.
Interestingly, the judge cites the consistency across multiple sources of evidence - qualitative, survey and experimental - as being a key reason they were convinced of the existence of discrimination. Good practice in social science also convinces outside the academy.
