§ Mr. SalmondTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 5 March 2001,Official Report, column 37W, under which circumstances the civil penalty provisions of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 are pursued against the operator of a hired vehicle used by persons seeking to enter the United Kingdom clandestinely. [154244]
§ Mrs. RocheThe civil penalty provisions of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (the 1999 Act) are pursued against the operators of hired vehicles, be they the owners, hirers or drivers of vehicles found to have carried clandestine entrants if the operators fail to establish a defence as set out in Section 34 of the 1999 Act. Section 34 (2) of the 1999 Act allows for a defence of duress and Section 34 (3) provides for a defence that the operator did not know or suspect the carriage of a clandestine entrant, had an effective system for preventing the carriage of clandestine entrants (having regard to the code of practice issued in accordance with Section 33 of the legislation) and that on the occasion in question the effective system was operated properly.