§ Mr. Greg KnightTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons are on duty on a full-time basis to stop and search vehicles for suspected illegal immigrants at the port of Immingham. [162824]
§ Mr. Browne[holding answer 23 March 2004]: There are no dedicated Immigration Service staff on full-time duty at the port of Immingham. Staff from Humberside International Airport and Hull port attend incidents at Immingham port as required.
§ Mr. Greg KnightTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures are in place to prevent the entry of illegal immigrants through the port of Immingham. [162825]
§ Mr. Browne[holding answer 23 March 2004]: The United Kingdom Immigration Service is working in close co-operation with both Her Majesty's Customs and Excise and Humberside Police to combat illegal immigration through Immingham docks. The Immigration Service's Mobile Freight Search Team (MFST) is regularly deployed at Immingham when intelligence analysis suggests than this is necessary.
Such operations are undertaken by a team of four or five immigration officers from the MFST who are specialists in freight search techniques and who are assisted by one or more Humberside officers who have local intelligence and operational knowledge. MFST and Humberside immigration staff continue to work closely with Immingham carriers to improve checking systems in Belgium and Holland and so reduce the risk of the port being targeted by potential illegal immigrants. The programme to install freight screening and detection equipment overseas provides for deployment at feeder ports serving UK Channel and North Sea ports including Immingham.
§ Mr. SimmondsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been prosecuted for employing illegal immigrants in each year since 1997. [163140]
§ Mr. BrowneInformation on the number employers in the UK who were prosecuted for employing illegal immigrants is not available and therefore information on the numbers of these employers successfully prosecuted is not available.
However, information on persons proceeded against for employing a person subject to immigration control is shown in the table.
98W
Number of persons proceeded against and those found guilty of offences under section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996, England and Wales 1997 to 2002 Offence description/Statute 1Person proceeded against Number of offences involved 2Persons found guilty Employing a person subject to immigration control/Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 section 8 19973 — — — 19983 1 1 1 19993 4 23 1 20003 10 32 4 20013 5 65 1 2002 2 22 1
1Principal immigration offence basis. 2Indicates that a substantive penalty has been imposed on a non-immigration offence dealt with at the same time. 3Data have been revised since they were published in the command paper Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 2001. Information on those people proceeded against under the Immigration Acts between 1997 and 2002 was published on 27 November 2003 in the command paper "Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 2002" (Cm 6053), a copy of which can be found in the Library of the House. Comparable statistics for 2003 will be published later this year in the command paper "Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 2003".
The government is taking action to tackle the employment of illegal workers. It has increased the number of enforcement operations, enhanced powers for immigration officers and expanded opportunities for people to work legally in the UK, paying taxes and contributing.
But business must also play its part in tackling this problem—by making rigorous checks on the documentation of potential employees, and these changes to the Section 8 regulations will make it easier for business to comply.
Most employers want to comply with the law, but in order to deter to those who may not, we are currently considering raising the penalty that complicit employers may face.
§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the results from the research into data collection methods for assessing the size of the UK's illegal population will be available. [164333]
§ Mr. BrowneThe research commissioned is a review of the methods used in other countries to estimate their illegally resident populations. It is not restricted to data collection methods but also encompasses a review of data sources, an explanation and appraisal of the methods of calculation of estimates, and an appraisal of the applicability of these methods for use in the UK.
This work is still on-going. Data sources and availability are currently being investigated in the light of one of the possible methods the review is uncovering.
It is therefore not possible at this stage to estimate when this work will be completed though we will aim to publish the results as soon as practicable.
§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment has been made of the number of failed asylum seekers remaining in the UK. [164334]
§ Mr. BrowneInformation on the total number of failed asylum seekers currently in the UK is not available. Some applicants may leave the United Kingdom without informing the Immigration Service.
The Government have commissioned research into the methods used in other countries to estimate the overall size of the illegal population including failed asylum seeker, in order to define methods appropriate for the UK.
99WThe work required is challenging because, by definition, illegal migrants fall outside of official statistics and are therefore difficult to measure. People illegally present in the UK are also motivated to ensure they remain hidden, which is a challenge to conducting research.