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UK triples fines for employing or housing illegal workers

Move comes as the first set of asylum seekers boarded the Bibby Stockholm housing barge in Portland, south-west England, after some delays over safety concerns

Fines imposed on employers and landlords who allow illegal migrants to work or rent from them are to be tripled from early next year, the UK government announced on Monday.

The UK Home Office said from the start of 2024, the penalty for employers will be raised to £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach from the previous £15,000, and to £60,000 for repeat breaches from £20,000.

For landlords, the fines will increase from £80 per lodger and £1,000 per occupier for a first breach to up to £5,000 per lodger and £10,000 per occupier. Repeat breaches will be up to £10,000 per lodger and £20,000 per occupier, up from £500 and £3,000, respectively.

“Making it harder for illegal migrants to work and operate in the UK is vital to deterring dangerous, unnecessary small boat crossings,” said Robert Jenrick, UK Minister for Immigration.

“Unscrupulous landlords and employers who allow illegal working and renting enable the business model of the evil people smugglers to continue. There is no excuse for not conducting the appropriate checks and those in breach will now face significantly tougher penalties,” he said.

According to official statistics, since the start of 2018, almost 5,000 penalties have been issued to employers with a total value of £88.4 million for employing illegal workers.

Meanwhile, landlords have been hit with over 320 civil penalties worth a total of £215,500 in the same period for housing illegal migrants with no right to stay in the country.

Employers and landlords are expected to check the eligibility of anyone they employ or let a property to in the UK, including through a Home Office online checking system.

The latest announcement follows the government’s crackdown on illegal working and renting after it launched a taskforce and re-introduced data sharing with the financial sector to stop illegal migrants from accessing bank accounts earlier this year.

Immigration enforcement activity has also been stepped up with visits including those targeting illegal working now said to be at their highest levels since 2019, up 50 per cent on last year.

“We have already arrested more people in 2023 than during the whole of 2022 as a result of this activity,” the Home Office said.

It forms part of a slew of measures being deployed by the British government to crack down on illegal migrants, many of them arriving in the UK via unsafe small boat crossings across the English Channel.

It came as the first set of asylum seekers boarded the Bibby Stockholm housing barge in Portland, south-west England, after some delays over safety concerns. Up to 500 male migrants are eventually expected to be housed on the docked vessel in Dorset while they await the outcome of their asylum applications. The move has faced opposition from human rights groups, with Amnesty International dubbing the move “utterly shameful”.

“Housing people on a floating barge is likely to be retraumatising and there should be major concerns about confining each person to living quarters the typical size of a car parking space,” said Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director.

But the UK government has insisted it is an essential part of its plans to address the soaring taxpayer-funded hotel bills to house illegal migrants, including asylum seekers.