§ Mr. HammondTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what steps his Department is taking to(a) identify and (b) prosecute agencies offering staff for domestic and child care duties who are not in possession of the required visa for such work; [175354]
(2) if his Department will assess the merits of sting operations involving advertising requirements for domestic and child care staff as a means of identifying visitors to the UK breaching visa conditions; [175355]
(3) what steps his Department is taking to identify illegal workers in the (a) domestic services and (b) child care sectors. [175356]
§ Mr. BrowneThe Immigration Service is increasing enforcement activity against illegal working in general, and we have taken steps to strengthen the law preventing employers from using illegal migrant workers, section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996. It is a criminal offence under section 8 to employ someone subject to immigration control who is not entitled to work in the United Kingdom or who is subject to immigration restrictions preventing them 517W from undertaking the work in question. The law in this area applies to employers or agencies in all sectors of the economy, including those operating in the domestic services and child care sectors. On 1 May, an order under section 147 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 strengthened the security of the document checks employers must carry out on prospective employees in order to establish a defence under section 8. We have also tabled an amendment to the current Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc.) Bill to make the current section 8 offence triable either way, effectively removing the statutory limit on financial penalties the courts can impose in the more serious cases.
All Immigration Service illegal working enforcement activity is intelligence led, and if the hon. Member has any specific concerns or information about a particular company I would encourage him to pass these on to the Immigration Service for investigation. A number of enforcement operations in 2003 targeted the contract cleaning sector, but I am not aware of any recent cases involving the child care sector. It would not be appropriate for the Immigration Service to use advertisements to induce agencies to supply illegal, workers; to do so would undermine any subsequent criminal proceedings.