Written question asked by James Clappison (Conservative) on Monday, 7 January 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 9 January 2008. It was answered by Liam Byrne (Labour) on Wednesday, 6 February 2008 on behalf of the Home Office.

Illegal Immigrants

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of criminal justice enforcement efforts against those responsible for the facilitating of illegal migration and the employment of illegal migrants; and if she will make a statement.

Answer: The Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) produces an annual assessment of the threat posed to the UK by organised crime, including immigration crime. Co-operation between all UK law enforcement agencies has led to 836 UK prosecutions for facilitation offences between 2003 and 2006 and 735 guilty verdicts. Close co-operational with the national law enforcement agencies of other countries, such as Police aux Frontieres in France, has also led to numerous convictions abroad.The Government are introducing a tough new sanction of knowingly employing an illegal immigrant, punishable by up to two years in prison. In tackling the employment of illegal migrants, the Government also concluded that the introduction of civil penalties, of up to 10,000 per worker, was likely to provide a more effective alternative to the criminal justice system for dealing with the generality of employers who fail in their legal obligation to avoid illegal sources of labour. Prosecution is then reserved for those cases involving the deliberate or conscious use of illegal workers. This approach is in line with the recommendations of the Hampton and Macrory reports on better regulation Tough new measures to prevent illegal migrant working, provided by the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, will come into force on 29 February 2008.

Secondary information