The Home Office has announced what it is calling a “nationwide blitz” on asylum seekers who take jobs, after recent political controversy about people in asylum hotels working as food takeaway delivery riders.
In a statement, which gave few specifics, the Home Office pledged to begin “a major operation to disrupt this type of criminality” based around enforcement teams focusing on the gig economy, particularly on delivery riders.
“Strategic, intel-driven activity will bring together officers across the UK and place an increased focus on migrants suspected of working illegally whilst in taxpayer funded accommodation or receiving financial support,” the statement said.
It follows media stories about evidence that people who are living in hotels waiting for their asylum claims to be processed, and who are banned from working, have been using the log-ins of people with official migration status to work for companies such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats.
Ten days ago the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, posted a much-shared social media video of him visiting an asylum hotel in London and finding bikes laden with bags from the various food delivery companies packed together in an outside courtyard.
On Monday, Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat promised to increase the use of facial verification checks for riders after a hastily arranged meeting with Home Office ministers.
The Home Office statement said anyone caught working could lose their accommodation or support payments, and that businesses found to be employing someone not entitled to work could face fines of up to £60,000 per worker, as well as director disqualifications or prison terms.
It said there had already been an increase in enforcement and arrests connected to illegal working in the year since Labour took power.
Asylum and immigration is seen by ministers as an area of political vulnerability, one being exploited by Reform UK and the Conservatives.
While a huge backlog of unprocessed asylum claims is being gradually reduced, the number of asylum seekers arriving on small boats across the Channel has risen.
Keir Starmer is to discuss the issue with Emmanuel Macron when the French president visits the UK next week, with the possibility of a “one in, one out” deal in which the UK could return those on small boats to France in exchange for accepting asylum seekers with links to Britain via more formal means.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said the government was increasing action to combat the “pull factor” of such work. However, she said: “There is no single solution to the problem of illegal migration. That’s why we’ve signed landmark agreements with international partners to dismantle gangs and made significant arrests of notorious people smugglers.”
Philp said: “It shouldn’t take a visit to an asylum hotel by me as shadow home secretary to shame the government into action. Illegal working by asylum seekers – most of whom also entered the country illegally – is happening from the very hotels Yvette Cooper is using our money to run.
“The government could easily stop it. I saw Deliveroo and other bikes parked in the hotel’s own compound – yet all the security guard cared about was me filming.”