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Security Industry Authority

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this Statement. It cannot be entirely comfortable for him to have to come to the aid of the Home Secretary who appears to have had sole responsibility for this débâcle and how it was handled. Therefore, I accept that it is a tough call for him to have to answer questions on what is effectively a personal statement. The opening remark on the Home Office website is; "““We’re the government department responsible for immigration and nationality. It’s our job to regulate entry to, and settlement in, the UK””." So is it not something of a Feydeau farce that this department in particular should find itself involved in having ““dodgy-documented”” immigrants working for it and that its agency should have licensed thousands of illegal immigrants? The Home Secretary has tried to make the best of this, but we are left with questions on how this has happened and why it has taken so long for the matter to come to the attention of Parliament. It looks as if it is four months since the situation was first discovered, but I shall return to that. In her Statement, the Home Secretary said that on receipt of advice there was concern about the number of people licensed by the Security Industry Authority. She asked for preliminary advice to be available to her by 20 August. Can the Minister say why it took from August to November for this matter to reach the light of day and why it appears to have taken press inquiries to ensure that it did? Was this time spent trying to spin the right story or to prevent those whose entitlement to work was under question becoming aware that they had been rumbled and were therefore likely, presumably, to have to leave this country? While it is clearly the responsibility of a security company hiring staff to check any credentials of any of its workers, what training is given on document verification by those involved in employing such staff? Are they, for example, taught to recognise forged passports? The Home Secretary said that 11 illegal workers worked in security jobs at the Metropolitan Police and that an illegal worker guarded the site where the Prime Minister’s modified car—perhaps we may have a chance to know what a modified car is—went for repairs. Since it is the responsibility of the employer to ensure that its workforce is legal, what extra provisions are in place to ensure that in these sensitive areas credentials are properly checked? Does the Minister have any idea of the number of people checked by the Security Industry Authority as a result of its limited right-to-work check who had been employed before the agency was set up in 2003 and how many were subsequent? To date, how many illegal workers has it found? A Home Office spokeswoman is reported to have said that the Security Industry Authority took immediate action once it became aware that some licence holders had been illegally employed. However, it has been suggested that discussions between the Home Office and the SIA about right-to-work checks on non-EU citizens took place as early as July 2006, well over a year ago, and over a year before the date that we have been given, of August 2007. Can the Minister give us a firm date as to when the Home Office actually became aware of this problem? The security industry is becoming one of the most overloaded areas. That is evident from the tens of thousands of licences which have been granted. It is therefore obvious that it will require staff to man sensitive and vulnerable sites, events, buildings and people. It is essential that the Security Industry Authority can be relied on not to license illegal staff, and that employers, including those working under the auspices of the Home Office, should be extra vigilant. This Statement from the Home Secretary just throws sand in the eyes. Perhaps the Minister might like to resolve all the problems by simply apologising on her behalf to the House for the mess that has been made.